Water cooling noob takes on another custom loop

Unless you force air through the loop, you'll need another opening at the other end. And either way, you'll only be able to get most of the water out–there will be some left, possibly a lot.
got it. The rad I ordered has a bunch of different ports, I think I can fit a hose on one with a plug as a dedicated drain line.
 
Also, if you haven’t planned to already, you might want to consider reversing the fans so that it intakes air from the rear and exhausts air out the front. With the front fan being so close to the 3090 fan, you might be able to extract much of the heat it exhausts directly out the front before it even gets a chance to heat up the rest of the case.
You could set both the front and rear as exhaust and use it in a negative pressure system. You stated the gpu isn't overheating, so it is probably helping pull cool air from the bottom, so using it this way may help you bring the temps into a more useable range.
 
As for concern about sucking in hot exhaust back into the case, it can't be much worse than what you have setup now where the front fan is pulling in air and blow the hot exhaust from the front GPU fan directly into the radiator and over the motherboard. And with the case closed, the temps will just continue to increase when under load. I think you would stand a better chance reversing the fans as mentioned before even with hot exhaust coming out the back from the GPU. So long as it isn't butted up against a wall or corner, using a small divider or even crafting a "scoop" to go over the intake fan to suck in air from the top may help. And with the fans reversed, the front GPU fan will exhaust directly out, with very little heat staying in the case to heat up the board. Meanwhile, the radiator fans will help direct airflow through the rest of the case to be exhausted out the front.

The motherboard itself is pretty resilient, so I wouldn't worry too much about it heating up unless you are doing some serious overclocking.

And yes, the pump won't be contributing to the heating of the coolant (which is very little even with the D5), but now you have heat being produced inside the case that you have to deal with. Installing it near the top may help a little, but with no fans at the top, you might risk creating a "hot pocket". The heatsink on the pump should have some airflow to help it stay cool. Now, maybe it doesn't produce a lot of heat and is really a trivial matter, but just something to think about. It's about 18w of power it consumes, so think how much of that will be converted to heat.
This is what I was going to say. I would turn the front fan and AIO around so the CPU is pulling fresh air and the GPU heat is exiting through the front rather than going through the case and through the CPU cooler.
Welcome to the joys of SFF :) A bit more thought involved than a huge case with dual 360mm rads!!
 
I know everyone is saying run the rad as an intake. I'm going to try fitting the 45mm rad in the front with intake fan going through it.
 
Parts are starting to show up, hopefully I can start working on this next weekend. As you can see I opted for a d5 pump.

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I know everyone is saying run the rad as an intake. I'm going to try fitting the 45mm rad in the front with intake fan going through it.
I wouldn't do that because the radiator will be sitting directly over the front exhaust fan of the GPU and will not only be getting heated directly by the GPU, it will be blocking airflow from escaping the the GPU causing the GPU to run hotter and trapping heat in the case. The radiator will certainly get hotter than if you left it on the back and just reverse your fans. Plus, judging by your pictures, you won't have room for the radiator to fit in the front. 120mm radiators are usually a bigger than 120mm and your front intake area barely has any spare room between the fan and the GPU. Your rear 120mm fan area is raised higher and has more room around it than the front fan does.
 
I wouldn't do that because the radiator will be sitting directly over the front exhaust fan of the GPU and will not only be getting heated directly by the GPU, it will be blocking airflow from escaping the the GPU causing the GPU to run hotter and trapping heat in the case. The radiator will certainly get hotter than if you left it on the back and just reverse your fans. Plus, judging by your pictures, you won't have room for the radiator to fit in the front. 120mm radiators are usually a bigger than 120mm and your front intake area barely has any spare room between the fan and the GPU. Your rear 120mm fan area is raised higher and has more room around it than the front fan does.
gotcha, makes sense. I expect fitment challenges no matter what, hopefully I can get the rad in the back with the res up top. Might have to dremel some of the screw mounts on the res that aren't being used.
 
OK noob moment here, the bitspower d5 pump top comes with.... a black stick? No mention of it in the manual, any idea what it's for? The small piece front and center:

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edit:

4 pin male extract tool? For depinning molex perhaps?
 
Is that not a tool for adjusting the varistor in the variable speed pumps that are not pwm controlled?

Edit: if the end is a hollow tube, which fits over the end of the pins inside the LP4 molex connector, then yeah it's probably a pin removal tool.
 
Is that not a tool for adjusting the varistor in the variable speed pumps that are not pwm controlled?

Edit: if the end is a hollow tube, which fits over the end of the pins inside the LP4 molex connector, then yeah it's probably a pin removal tool.
Thanks, the instructions didn't mention it but the product page did. It is a molex tool. Good to have anyway, just was confused not knowing where to put it on the pump! I do like this pump top even if it isn't the most popular. 73x73x78 fully assembled.

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Bit of a set back. A closer look at the rad revealed some damage.

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That whole last row of fins is bent downward and some are folded over. No indication that the rad would've leaked, but titanrig said to send it back to them for replacement. In hindsight I would've sent it back for a refund so I could order the replacement instead, but I didn't. Guessing that will push this project until early January sadly! In addition to that, I goofed and did a typical noob move, ordered 90 degree fittings that aren't rotary. So those are going back as well. Replacing them with proper rotary fittings.
 
So what? The coolant travels through the tubes between those fins. Worst case is you get slightly less air flow across those particular fins, but given their location, they weren't seeing any airflow anyways. That probably occured during assembly of the core into the shroud. A small screwdriver or square tip pliers would have fixed it.

What a waste of time and money (to swap it out)
 
Good call, id have done the same. You have no idea what else may have been jacked up inside the rad. The channels very well may have been pinched below the damaged fins or under the the end tanks or shroud. You didnt pay for an almost kinda new rad that needs to be filled and tested prior to using.
 
So what? The coolant travels through the tubes between those fins. Worst case is you get slightly less air flow across those particular fins, but given their location, they weren't seeing any airflow anyways. That probably occured during assembly of the core into the shroud. A small screwdriver or square tip pliers would have fixed it.

What a waste of time and money (to swap it out)
Yeah I returned it based on their recommendation. Since I'm waiting on other things it's not the end of the world.
 
I decided to get one of those leak testers to test your water cooling loop before filling it with water so that you don't have to wet test it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the ek tester available anywhere, which most reviews said was the best one. I decided I'd just build my own. It didn't end up being any cheaper than the ek, but the quality is right up there. I don't know if anyone would want one, but I could assemble them if enough people were interested in a group buy so I could get some parts in bulk. Then they would be $20 per unit without pump or $25 with, plus shipping. Anyway, here is what I have, a complete unit that all you have to do is screw the g1/4 barb onto your res or other inlet /outlet, connect the tubing over the barb, and pressurize. Worked perfectly for me testing my res, will test my whole loop once it's assembled.

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Decided to call an audible since the 45mm rad is in transit back to titanrig still:

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To everyone saying water cooling in itx is dumb...... I now understand. Spent a couple hours tonight test fitting. My last piece arrives Friday so it should be a good weekend project. Inadvertently went with a copper and chrome theme, though there's no case window so it doesn't entirely matter.

For anyone thinking of an itx custom loop, specifically in a tu150, reconsider! I guess it's my own fault for not going with an nr200? Which is more water cooling friendly. I just had to have a tu150. This has been work lol, NOTHING fit the way I planned, but I made it work. Res and pump mounted. Rear rad has been mounted without issue but removed for test fitting everything else. I am waiting on an extender to connect the cpu block to the rad. Threw sleeving on pump and fan cables. Pump mount has rubber isolators. I'm tired.

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Isn't that microres is designed to be used vertically?
I think so, but I had no way of mounting it vertically and it was one of the only res I could find that would fit. Do you think the horizontal mounting will cause problems? I have it tilting forward so the outlet to pump inlet is the lowest part of the res, you can kind of see it in the first photo there. I don't plan on having an air gap in there.
 
I think so, but I had no way of mounting it vertically and it was one of the only res I could find that would fit. Do you think the horizontal mounting will cause problems? I have it tilting forward so the outlet to pump inlet is the lowest part of the res, you can kind of see it in the first photo there. I don't plan on having an air gap in there.
The way the mcres works is that diagonal piece of acrylic splits the bubbles from the water. Horizontally mounted that splitter won't have as much effect and since its so narrow, you've got no gravity to pull bubbles out of the pump inlet.

Looking at it again, I suggest moving the pump further right and sticking the res along the left wall. It can mount vertically that way.

But hell you don't even need a res once it is properly bled in a worst case scenario. How you achieve that is by adding in a T with a ball valve, with the ball valve pointing up. Then ya screw in a fitting and attach a funnel to it. Fill and bleed it, close ball valve. Voila, you've got a closed loop now.
 
To everyone saying water cooling in itx is dumb...... I now understand.
I've been working on my build the last couple days as well. It's slow going :ROFLMAO: I've mostly finished all the cable routing so I think I can start cutting tubing and building the loop. Working in an NCASE M1 with double 240mm radiators.
 
I've been working on my build the last couple days as well. It's slow going :ROFLMAO: I've mostly finished all the cable routing so I think I can start cutting tubing and building the loop. Working in an NCASE M1 with double 240mm radiators.
I'm throwing some thermal pads on my GPU today before I fully tackle the build and try to finish it tonight. I have to drill the case a little because the front rad doesn't fit where the 120mm fan holes are, its off by about the size of a fan screw, if that. Small mod, but pain in the ass to break down the system and capture all the shavings and dust away from any hardware. Good luck to you, we both are gonna need it!
 
I'm throwing some thermal pads on my GPU today before I fully tackle the build and try to finish it tonight. I have to drill the case a little because the front rad doesn't fit where the 120mm fan holes are, its off by about the size of a fan screw, if that. Small mod, but pain in the ass to break down the system and capture all the shavings and dust away from any hardware. Good luck to you, we both are gonna need it!
Ahhhh the thermal pads. I tackled those a few days ago. Took three attempts before I was happy with it. EK's instructions didn't seem quite right - I noticed a few pads not touching the block after assembling per their directions. Luckily they include plenty of pads in 1mm, 1.5mm, and 2mm. Hope things go well for you, those FE blocks look like fun to install!
 
Well I hooked up my leak tester that I made and sure enough, air was pissing out of somewhere in the loop. It sounded like it was coming from the block, so I broke everything down and am testing individual parts. I did find that the swiftech res isn't happy with small O rings on the recessed side ports. I will spend the next day or so being 100% sure it is leak free, and I have a 90 degree fitting coming on saturday since I think it'd be a better fit from the front rad to the res than a 45*.
 
Idk, everytime I see this I feel bad for all the fans being so squished in together. Also pray you never have to do anything as simple as pop a stick of ram out.

Hope it works out for ya.
 
Idk, everytime I see this I feel bad for all the fans being so squished in together. Also pray you never have to do anything as simple as pop a stick of ram out.

Hope it works out for ya.
Thanks. It looks like my leak was me not screwing in the pump to the housing all the way...

As for working on it, I made the machine so I don't have to upgrade anything. In terms of fixing something thst breaks, I didn't plan for that, but breaking down the loop isn't really that hard. The pump is right in the middle of everything, but it's two tubes and two screws away from coming out. Not that I have the skill to do hard tubing, but the soft tubing makes this much easier. The button in the top left of the case is a switch hooked up to clear cmos, at least I did think of that.
 
Thanks. It looks like my leak was me not screwing in the pump to the housing all the way...

As for working on it, I made the machine so I don't have to upgrade anything. In terms of fixing something thst breaks, I didn't plan for that, but breaking down the loop isn't really that hard. The pump is right in the middle of everything, but it's two tubes and two screws away from coming out. Not that I have the skill to do hard tubing, but the soft tubing makes this much easier. The button in the top left of the case is a switch hooked up to clear cmos, at least I did think of that.
Best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz :D

I think my main worry was the fan of that 300-400w gpu being almost physically half covered, and then having an exhaust fan blowing across the rest of it.

Again, I could be over thinking it.
 
Best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz :D

I think my main worry was the fan of that 300-400w gpu being almost physically half covered, and then having an exhaust fan blowing across the rest of it.

Again, I could be over thinking it.
if it ends up being a failure, I'll pony up for a gpu block. I really like the look of this card but not at the cost of performance/noise. I will update tomorrow when my 90 degree adapter arrives and this thing gets filled for real. The first thing I will be looking at is thermals.
 
Other than a bit more bleeding, which seems to never end... Think I'm pretty close to calling this done!

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It's uv blue fluid, which at first I didn't care about because the case has no windows and no lights, but then I remembered I have a uv flashlight, and it helped a lot to make sure I had no leaks (I didn't) and... To make sure I picked up everything I spilled when filling. Woops.
 
Oh, and for any idiot doing itx for portability, then does a custom water loop and a 3090:
I'll be interested to put mine on a scale, it's gotta be right around there too. I bought a Pelican case for it 😎
 
Holy crap guys, I think I'm actually gonna be leak testing this tonight. Few more tweaks to make.

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Man that bend is tight (res to front rad, right side of photo). If it were me, and I had the fittings, I'd do two 90° fittings on the rad, one up and then one back over the fan, and either go straight into the res or put a 45 on it, depending on how tight the bend would be. I wouldn't use a rotary fitting there if I could avoid it– too much lateral force, imo.
 
Man that bend is tight (res to front rad, right side of photo). If it were me, and I had the fittings, I'd do two 90° fittings on the rad, one up and then one back over the fan, and either go straight into the res or put a 45 on it, depending on how tight the bend would be. I wouldn't use a rotary fitting there if I could avoid it– too much lateral force, imo.
yeah, I went with the 90 to make the bend because it is a lot less stressed than it was with the 45 during the test fit. I tried a bunch of setups with what I had to work with, dual 45s dual 90s, dual 45s single 90, etc, but the end result was the best I could do, and actually not stressing the fitting that much. If/when I revise the loop to add a gpu block, I might 'do it right' and do dual 90s off the rad, but they will need an extender, maybe 5mm to line up with the res otherwise the tube still needs to bend hard, and it's a pain to get a tube on there being so short at that point, probably under 2 inches.
 
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