Shadowspawns SG-01e Project

Shadowspawn

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2002
Messages
1,870
I haven't come up with a name for it but here is what I have planned:

- Watercooled
- 4 120mm fans
- Motorized Iris fan covers
- Clean appearance with all buttons removed and hidden
- Primary colors: White with black and red highlights. No blacklight crap.
- A lady from www.pinuptoons.com will grace the top - possibly motorized.

Components:

Alphacool OTC-Flat Low Profile - nVidia GeForce 8800GTS VGA Block
Danger Den Black Ice Micro Dual 80mm Radiator (Black) w/ Customizable Fittings
Thermalright XWB-1 CPU Water Block - Sockets 775/939/AM2 (XWB-1)
Danger Den Fillport - Black
Danger Den Delrin T-Fitting
3/8" ID Koolance Compression Nozzles
Feser Tube Active UV Hose - 3/8" ID (1/2"OD) Anti-Kink Tubing - UV Red
---Why is it that I can't find normal red tubing? Just bitching. This is a good red, I just don't like UV reactive stuff.

Completed so far:

- Initial design on Sketchup completed and all components ordered
- Watercooling and fans fully installed and operational
- Replaced motherboard and processor due to blown caps on motherboard (not mod related)

My Sketchup design is trapped on my old hard drive thanks to Vistas wonderful file security. Until I complete the setup of my Raid 0 drives I won't be able to retrieve the drawings. I will throw them up sometime within the next couple of days.

I have completed much of the internal work. Most of what remains is all of the external pretty work - nothing that makes the system run.

Please be nice; I am working on this system while here in Iraq so I do not have access to many of my normal tools. I have ordered a Dremel and have access to some basic tools as well as some basic tools that I have locally purchased (screwdrivers, etc). There will be no painting in this mod. The conditions here are too nasty to achieve a good finish. Instead I have ordered several aluminum panels from www.FrozenCPU.com and will rely on their finish for the look of the case.

I have been here for three years and am starting to go a bit insane so I have started this project to help me relax during my final year. I hope to have it completed in time for me to board a plane on the 22nd for a vacation during which my son and I plan on going to Quakecon.

Anyway, on to the mod.


A shot of laying out the cutting lines on the internal frame of the case. There will be two 120mm fans and one slot load DVD drive poking through this front panel.

fans_planning.jpg


This is how the components will sit in the front of the case. They aren't mounted in this picture - I was just trying to figure out the best design. The center hard drive mount is the one that came with the case. I have shortened it and flipped it around 180 degrees. It will hold my RAID 0 drives and the radiator will be mounted to the top. You can see the pump on the far right.

planning_2.jpg


Same shot with the fans in place. Just more planning. I shortened the hard drive mount to allow for as much air flow as possible.

planning.jpg


Front fans mounted with close ups of the mounts for the fans and DVD drive. All aluminum comes from the scrapped pieces of the original case. Pop rivets will be used where possible.

fans_mount_3.jpg

fans_mount_2.jpg

fans_mount.jpg


Final mounting for the DVD and front fans.

fans_front.jpg


Shots of the pump mounting. I love the pump, hate the mount. Its not designed to hold the pump on its own. If the case is moved it has a real chance of slipping off of its mount, thus the need for the zip tie. I'm not very happy about it and will probably come up with a better aluminum mount at a later date.

pump_mount.jpg

pump_mount_2.jpg


The radiator and the HDD rack will be mounted using silencers. These drives tend to make some noise so I am trying to isolate them as much as possible.

radiator_mount.jpg


It was around this point that I realized my old motherboard had two blown capacitors. I don't know when they blew and I suspect they have been blown for awhile but I am not willing to risk anymore hardware.

I ordered the following:

Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black edition.
4 Gigs of RAM (F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ )
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G RT

Back to the mod; I needed a good place to mount the T-block for the fill tube so I built this bracket:

T-block_mount.jpg


One bend later it is now mounted via the HDD screws.

T-block.jpg


Another setback. The Alphacool waterblock does not match my video card. One chip has a gap between it and the block. I have emailed FrozenCPU about the problem but I have noticed that they have dropped the block from their lineup. I wonder if others have seen this issue. For now I have placed a sliver of aluminum between the chip and block. It makes good contact with the chip and block so I don't believe it will be a major issue but I shouldn't have had to do this.

Old stock air cooler:

video_card_cooler_old_2.jpg


Raised portion of old cooler that touched the chip:

video_card_cooler_old.jpg


New cooler. Notice a lack of a raised portion on the far right side:

video_card_cooler_2.jpg


Mounting the cooler:

video_card_2.jpg

video_card.jpg

video_card_cooler.jpg


See the gap?

video_card_cooler_gap.jpg


Here is a shot of the water block in place:

overall_1.jpg


The fan controller will face out the back of the case.

The back panel will be cleaned up with some black and white anodized aluminum at a later date.

fan_controller_2.jpg

Fan_controller.jpg


Thats all for now. I have much more completed but thats all I have pictures of. Let me know what you think.
 
Well, I'm not looking for massive cooling performance and I am limited by the case. I also want to keep everything internal. The point of this mod is to be a very clean design. I just completed the shroud and am using dual 120 mm fans to pull air through the radiator so I believe my cooling performance will be decent.

Right? This is my first watercooled system as well as my first mod so my pride is not so great as to not accept advice.
 
Oh noez not millipede tubing :D

At least with the 160 rad you will have an easy time installing it. A 240 does require some modding which might be bad to some people.
 
That little dual 80 performs well, it just requires good airflow to extract full potential. Good airflow + 80mm fans = noise.
 
I'm using that pump also and I've found that velcro with the sticky stuff on the back worked pretty well keeping mine in place.
 
I've used the system all weekend and am very happy with the cooling - even the improper video cooler. The system is nearly silent but cools very well. I can't even tell the pump is running unless I put my hands on it. At idle the cpu temperature is at or within a couple degrees of the system temperature. When running SuperPI the temperature reaches 39 or 40 degrees celsius. I'm happy with that. The GPU runs at 50 degrees celsius which appears to be normal for this model. I ran Call of Duty 4 and Rainbow Six Vegas for several hours and never saw a hiccup.

Does anybody have a recommendation for free software that will record system temperatures in the background while I'm running other tasks?

I was able to retrieve my Sketchup files. Here are the pictures from the design phase of this mod. I was able to stay faithful to the design so far. I did not create the models used in this design. They were all obtained from http://scc.jezmckean.com/.

Sg01e.jpg

Sg01e_internal.jpg

Sg01e_internal_2.jpg


I plan on incorporating this drawing into the design although I haven't worked out the details yet.

106.jpg
 
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