Water system: Project: Silver Ocean

mechatech

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 23, 2004
Messages
161
It was about time for a major upgrade. I've been using an AMD 1700+ with 512mb of pc133 SDRAM for about 3 years now. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to go with water cooling. This will be my first time trying to water cool a computer so I hope everything goes well. The plan for this project is just to make a nice looking water cooled setup with matching keyboard and mouse.

Here's a list of whats going into this new computer.

AMD Opteron 165
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
ATI AIW X1800XL 256M
OCZ Gold GX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 500 (PC 4000)
WD Raptor 74GB 10KRPM
Seagate 250GB 7200RPM 8MB cache
SB Audigy 2 ZS
Sony DVD 710
Altech Lancing MX5021
OCZ ModStream 520W
Cooler Master Praetorian 730
Samsung SyncMaster 204T 20'' 1600x1200
Samsung SyncMaster 191T 19'' 1280x1024
--------------------------------------------------------
Danger Den RBX 1/2" ID Water Block
1 x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Reservoir
Swiftech MCP655 12 VDC Pump
Danger Den Black Ice Xtreme II
1/2 ID tubing and fittings
Xtreme Water Xchanger with temp gauge
--------------------------------------------------------
Blue Rust-Oleum paint with reflective clear coat.
Inkjet decal paper
2 12'' white cold cathode lights


And now for the pictures!!


casebox.jpg

case.jpg
 
dont use that Xtreme Water Xchanger. its made of aluminum and will corrode very quickly when used in a copper-based loop.
 
I'm going to use cooler master thermal conductivity fluid, it lists anti-corrosiveness as a feature, will that solve the corrosive problems?

water.jpg
 
Took some pictures of some more parts that I will be using.

Danger Den Black Ice Xtreme II along with 2 quiet 120mm fans and 2 blue fan filters. The fans will be going under the radiator blowing upward. Radiator will be mounted on top of the case.
radiator.jpg

The Danger Den RBX 1/2" ID Water Block I will be using.
cpublock.jpg

Here's that Xtreme Water Xchanger that hopefully wont cuase to much corrosion
xchanger.jpg

Swiftech MCP655 12 VDC Pump
pump.jpg

OCZ ModStream 520W
powersupply.jpg


window.jpg

Never used this paint before. This is what i'll be using on my Microsoft keyboard and wireless Logitech Mx700 mouse.
paint.jpg

couple of standard white lights
lights.jpg

My nuts n bolts for mounting the radiator
nutsnbolts.jpg

This small molding will go around the tiny water resevoir window
smallmolding.jpg
 
Thanks! And thanks for any helpful comments about what i'm doing. I'm not exactly sure on everything i'm doing here, so any ideas or suggestions are appreciated. :)
 
mechatech said:
I'm going to use cooler master thermal conductivity fluid, it lists anti-corrosiveness as a feature, will that solve the corrosive problems?

you cant completely stop the corrosion process, only slow it down.
 
just out of curiousity, why would you put an ATI card in an SLI board...wouldn't you get either an nVidia SLI card or a crossfire board? That just defeats the whole SLI board-thing.

Nice case...can't wait to see this working :)
 
I don't have any plans to run dual video cards. but it was a tough choice on what motherboard to get. In the end i chose the Asus becuase i liked the chipset cooling heatpipe and the black motherboard.
 
nice colors.. reminds me of:
"I say we go with big blue" -heathers
;)
 
Some progress has been made. The radiator mounting holes have been drilled on top of the case. That went smoothly. All the holes line up correctly with the fan and radiator holes.

I drilled a 7/16'' hole for the fan wires to go though. That hole turned out pretty rough, but i will fix it up later, it will have a rubber grommet in it anyway.

Then i made a mess of things when i started drilling the holes for the radiator tubing.
I first used a 1'' spade bit, man that was dumb. It didn't want to cut completly through so i grabbed a 1 1/4'' hole saw. Without a guide for the thing, it jumped around all over the place before i could get it started. For the other hole i went with the hole saw first, but it didn't line up exactly with the other one and it nearly cut through into the other cutout.

Anyway its pretty crappy on my part, i'll try to fix it up by hiding it with a rubber grommet or something.



These are just pieces of rubber hose that i cut up. They will give the fans some space above the case for airflow. It should also cut down of vibration noise.
spacertubes.jpg

radmount1.jpg

radmount2.jpg

radmount3.jpg

radmountholes.jpg

i cut this hole out with my teeth. Actually i used a 7/16'' drill bit, i have no idea why it jumped around in the hole so much.
fanwirehole.jpg

Here's the murder weapon.
holecutting.jpg

As I grabed the drill I closed my eyes and hoped for the best... Well not really. I'll try to hide this unsightly spot somehow. Any ideas?
uglyholes.jpg

uglyholes2.jpg
 
Do a bit of sanding in the holes, then maybe around the outsides of the rad you can do an "etched" design to cover up that slip by doing some more sanding
 
Put masking or painters tape aroud the aera you are drilling next time, and try to steady your hand more .
 
good tip-

I will do something to cover up the problem though. I like the sanding idea, thanks.
 
I bet the Preatorian is made from the same basic case structure and aluminum as my Wavemaster and it's some pretty sturdy stuff!

A couple of things. The drill bit that you ahve pictured--is that what you used to drill all your holes? If so, that's probably why you're having problems. That's a wood bit, not a metal bit. Run down to the hardware store and get yourself a set of metal drill bits. They'll work much more betta...

As for the scratches. See if you can find a rubber grommet that size--that should hide some of the scratches (and would give it a more finished look). Just be aware that it may change the inside diameter of the hole. That could make it a tight squeeze for your 1/2" tubing if your holes are exactly 1/2".

Nice selection on the hardware. I've got the same mobo and wish I would have gone with the dual core processor vice the single core that I've got now...
 
Go to your local home depot, go to the elctrical deartment and go pickup some rubber grommets to go around te edges of those holes, itll look much nicer and hide some of your mess there ;)
 
Time for an update..
I searched around for a grommet to fit my holes, checked menards and lowes neither place had anything close to what i needed. Then i went to autozone and found an exact match. Actually found a grommet for a 1 1/4'' hole, with a 1/2'' ID, perfect match.

The little fan wire hole also got fixed up.

grommetsfound_00.jpg


grommetsfound2_00.jpg


The wires got rerouted to the other side of the case. Don't want those wires floating around in the way.

reroutewires_4.jpg



The reservoir and parts to mount it with. The tiny rubber grommets will be used as spacers so the reservoir won't hit the HDD mounting screws and also so the reservoir will be up against the side of the case.

resevoirparts_1.jpg

resevoir_2.jpg


I'm going to mount it towards the top of the hdd rack to make the water system easier to fill. The blue circles were added in photoshop so you can tell where the reservoir mounting holes are.
resevoirmounting_3.jpg


With that all done, the next step was cutting out the side windows.

windowmarkings_5.jpg


My lovely work area

workshop_6.jpg


cutting_7.jpg


casewithwindow_10.jpg


resevoirwindow_11.jpg


finishedcutting_12.jpg


fancyshot_9.jpg


Done till tomorrow :D
 
I assume the smaller section that your cutting out of the side panel is for the resevoir? Cool, I like it!
 
looks good

Wanna sell me that side cpu duct ? I wanna mod it into my lian li side panel :cool:

Pm me if u want to. I am serious bout it :)
 
Looking great :)

Why not mount the radiator under the top panel of the case and have the grills on the top though?
 
I pre-drilled the 7/16'' hole, not sure what size i used. It just got really uneven while it was being drilled with the 7/16'' bit. Inexperience with drilling aluminum i guess.
 
PoTTeR83 said:
Are those the only lights you have to work with? :eek:

Looks like 1000watts of halogen power to me. A lot better for detail work than a 100w incandescent. Just remember to never accidently look directly at the lights... :cool:
 
The radiator just barely fits inside under the top panel. Because of where the power and reset buttons are, it would be difficult to mount it inside. By having the radiator outside i was hoping to have better cooling performance. Besides all that, i would have still mounted it outside the case becuase i think it looks neat :D gotta show it off
 
Here are a couple of pictures of the finished windows.
I like how the reservoir window turned out :)

casewindowsdone.jpg


reservoirwindow.jpg
 
masher said:
Looks like 1000watts of halogen power to me. A lot better for detail work than a 100w incandescent. Just remember to never accidently look directly at the lights... :cool:
point taken :)
 
nice lights and nice mod. dont worry about that slip up with the drill, i did a blow hole on my case and messed up bad. i now have about 20 deep teeth marks on the top of my case :rolleyes:
 
I love the molding on the large window job. Most of the molding that I see put onto windows, are done improperly, where people just kind of want to get it over with and they usually have to much or to little to finish it up. You've done it right though, its hard to see a gap in between the molding job you did.

I like, continue the good work.
 
My lighting is awesome, that is 1000 watts of halogen light you see. It's like looking at the sun if you glance at them. There is also a 70 watt bulb on the ceiling.

This has been a lot of fun so far, i can't wait to actually use my new computer, but i also want to keep modding it :D :D

I would love to show a sketch or photoshop layout of how I want the finished product to look, unfortunalty i dont have that becuase I'm not sure how i want it to look yet. So i guess we will all have to see how this ends up together.

The goodies arrived, it's always exciting to have boxes of new computer stuff.

boxedhardware.jpg


Time to install the pump. The harddrives really need to be installed at the bottom of the rack because i want to make full use of the 120mm fan thats in the front of the case. So i decided to install the pump above the hard drives. It will sorta be suspended in mid air.

The 4 mounting holes will each have a grommet and a screw that will hold the pump up.

pumpmount.jpg


pumpmount1.jpg


The grommets don't look like they would even fit inside the holes. Tight fit but they do.

pumpmount2.jpg


pumpmount3.jpg


pumpmount4.jpg


So there it is. The pump is very sturdy, seems to be a nice place to put it,
except i'm not sure how easy it will be to fill up the water.

pumpmount5.jpg


pumpandres.jpg


With the pump and reservoir in place, i think its about time to get the radiator on there
and cut some tubes. The radiator was easy to put on, just tightened the screws until it was secure. The tubing needed to be lubed up with soap before i could push it through those grommets. I was careful not to get any soapy water inside the tube, dont need bubbles all over the place heheh.

radiatorwithtubing.jpg


Cool cool, water cooling is fun.
Thats it for now, big update tomorrow

settinguptubing.jpg
 
looking great so far. i would so love to move my rad up top. love what you are doing with it there!
 
That's a very ingenious pump mounting system you came up with but I think that either the pump needs to move down or the reservoir move up to work efficiently.
Ideally, you want the mass of the water in the rez above the pump intake.
 
hey dude, looks real clean to me till now.
except for the radiator, do u like such a big thing on top of your pc???
i'd hate it honestly :|
 
It's going to have to be that way becuase i dont wan to loose a hard drive mounting spot. The pump will still work fine being above the reservoir wont it? It will just be a little harder to fill.

I really like having the radiator on top.
 
The pump will still work fine being above the reservoir wont it?
No, not really. You're begging for cavitation problems in this configuration. You really want the pump at the lowest spot in the loop, so any air bubbles travel naturally with the flow, not against it.
 
So what does that mean exactly, i wont be able to bleed out all the air in this configuration?
 
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