Rackmount Radiator/Desk Build

[MrLowe]

Long time lurker, first time poster here. I have been water cooling my computer since the days of Athlon64 and have gone through multiple case builds and even a few TEC/Water hybrids.

This year I am moving from a CoreX9 Case where my currrent build (three 3x140 60mm+ rads, plus a 3x120 30mm) which gets me a 2C-3C Air/H20 delta at load and under 15C CPU/Ambient during non-synthetic loads on a 4.6GHZ 6700K and a 1080TI, into a server rack/desk custom lunacy, and dumping as many left over watercooling parts as I can find in storage to it. Total RAD will include the current ones, plus four 4x120x30mm rads - maybe a couple more if I still have any additional hanging around.

The CoreX9, while quite big, has only three 5.25 bays, and after installing an old SATA HW Raid card and 24 drives, I am not happy with having the drives basically just sitting on the floor of the case. A pump failure on both of my DDC pumps over the summer forced me to reinstall my old dual D5 pump setup, in a 2x5.25 bay Koolance res/top kit sitting on motherboard tray behind front radiator. Or do a full rebuild including removing the 3x120 radiator to allow access to mount/see it.

I am well aware this is excessively over-radded, as even with my current system I only have to have the radiator fans on if I play something demanding like Cities:Skylines or Fallout4 for extended periods. Mostly this build will be "just because", and to end up with a desk, as I am moving the computer to its own room instead of being tied into the TV/Stereo in the den.

The new build will house a single 3x120x30 radiator in the center of a Rosewill 4000 series server rack case, hopefully in push/pull, along with the mb/cpu/1080/raid the drives and pump, as well an having the Aquaero6 primary fan controller return to being visible from outside the case (an older AQ5 will be mounted inside, along with boot drive). The case has 9 5.25 bays in the front, three horizontal and six vertical. The center three will be pump/res on bottom two bays, AQ6 on top, wiht left and right set of three having two 5.25x6 2.5 inch drive caddies and a single 3.5 drive. Rear panel will have in and out tubing to the external rads, maybe with QD fittings if I have the funds left after buying the case and rack. the 4x120's on either side top and bottom with the three 3x140 rads up top. All fans in exhaust, with a front panel 3x120 intake into the rack primarily to more or less contain the dust accumulation to one area. The front intake fans and case will occupy the center 7U of the rack space when viewed from the front with the case on lower part. Blanks (or wood panels - as the server blanks are looking like running $15 to 20 a piece - and i'd need a half dozen) to cover left over slots.

I have the case arrived now, but the rack will not be in for a couple weeks due to the holiday shipping delays and being such a heavy/bulky item I opted for the free shipping. All placement at this point is theoretical, based on measurements and hand sketches and will likely change once I get the rack in hand to dry-fit. I will post a build log and maybe some pics of current build once I get started if anyone is interested.

I am also open to any suggestions on ways I might route the outside-the-case tubing. I was considering splitting two 4x120 and one 1x140 per side paralell flow through the rads to help with restriction, but was't sure if necessary, as current series dual D5 pumps get me 1.8GPM through 4 rads/cpu/gpu, so I would think that even with the added four rads I'd still be around 1.25 GPM or so.

Let me know what you think, and wish me luck - I think this one will be a challenge to assemble.

 

[hititnquitit]

i think you will be gtg with dual d5s. altho checking the actual flowrate once you get it up and running may give you piece of mind. good luck thats going to be a monster loop!

btw how the hell did you have 2 ddcs die on you? sadly ive had several ddcs die on me over the years. just curious as to what the cause was for you.

for routing tubing in to out i generally go with a pass thru fitting from my favorite vendor. they are essentially zero restriction parts. you just have to drill a hole for it.
https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-af-pass-through-g1-4-black

 

[MrLowe]

Not exactly sure what killed them, but had power to the house get turned off because utility company posted payment to wrong account and when it was turned back on I had zero flow. Tested each individually and both were toast. Could have been some sort of surge that made it thru powersupply, but nothing else was affected. Maybe they just had been running too hot and melted themselves. I had not realized they were not fluid cooled like the D5 and probably should have had a heatsink on them and a fan nearby.

I already had purchased a double bulkhead fitting on a PCI slot bracket (with a hole for fan cables) a year ago that I never used for an in-the-wall-under-the-stairs setup I had planned. Basically the same thing, it is two tubes with G1/4 ports on either side; just run thru a bracket, so zero restriction as I am using 3/8 tube anyway. Also has a space open that will work well for runnign fan power cabling thru.

https://koolance.com/l-bracket-with-dual-socket-fittings


Since my preferred 140mm fans are no longer in stock for the "bundle" pricing and are over double the cost per fan now, I will probaly just use an existing 200mm fan across two of the 3x140 rads (for the time being) as i'll be so far into overkill anyway. Probably will end up just having to run the single 200mm fan (at 15Dba 800RPM) to cool everything except when running high demand loads.

I decided to run all but one radiator (as I have an odd number) in two parallel paths to cut down on restriction to ensure good flow for rest of loop. So each side of parallel section will be four rads in series for those eight, and those in series with CPU, GPU and one other rad, for a total of 7 effective "blocks" instead of 11 Also should clean up the tube routing a bit to do it this way I think.

 

[MrLowe]

Here is my planned flow for the build. Inside case at bottom of rack will be a dual D5 pump/res combo (pumps in series) pushing this route:

Pumps => 3x140x70 Inside Case RAD => CPU => GPU => Outside Case Rads in Parallel => 400MM Tube Res => Return to Pump

Picture of rear view (labeled wrong for inside case rad as a 3x120x30 instead of a 3x140x70) is not to scale. The rads are seen end-on and extend away from the pic's POV)

All outside case RADS will be exhaust with 3 3x120x38 High CFM fans as intake at the front or enclosure.

Internal Rad pulls from front of case across drive cages, exhausts to rear thru 2 80x25 fans at rear of case
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Please let me know if you have any suggestions on improving this design.

 

[MrLowe]

After some further measurements, the 4x120x25 Radiators will not fit between the posts along the side of case. This required a re-think of rad placement.

The new plan has the the 3x120x25 rads placed at the sides of two center 120x4 rads (all 4 horizontal, exhausting upwards) at top of case, with a 3U front panel having 2x120x38 intake fans. Lower 8U section has two 4x120x25 rads in middle, exhausting upwards behind a 2U mesh, with the three 3x140x75 rads exhausting down behind a 3U mesh, with center 3U having 2x120x38 intake fans. Bottom of case has UPS on a shelf (wish I had bought a rack mount UPS last year, but it will be living on a shelf in bottom of the rack. Below is a new picture of the flow I drew up. 400MM Tube resevoir will be mounted on the outside of rack to fill easier and to show the level at a glance without needing to remove the wooden side panels (they will be much simpler, needing to just be retangles since I switched to horizontal radiator mount).