[Build in Progress] Mercury - Page 5

Here is the completed tubing, undergoing the leak test. I originally planned on having the tubing run strictly from the bottom to the top, where there is a quick-disconnect. But it was too easy to kink, so I went back-and-forth more. I also used up the entire box of tubing, to my surprise.

The CPU block claims to have a preferred direction, and I did respect that.

The idea is that I can unplug the QD and attach an empty mating plug to unseal it, thus venting it at that point. Now when I fill the reservoir it will prime much of the tubing. I can also pour a little water in at the QD point to get it from the other end.



The “leak test” lived up to its name, since it did in fact leak!

The CPU block fittings seeped a little bit, even though I had used faucet grease on the O rings. I tightened a little, and saw it leaking out from under the blue cover. I read about this in the forums, as being a flaw in the block's design. I removed the cover, and it worked fine.

Of course, I also got to empty and re-fill the water. Without the planned drain, I up-ended the reservoir tube and got most of it out that way. Even with the vent open, it didn't drain completely because turning this over causes kinks. But standing up lets it refill and it drains below the CPU. I blew into the vent break, and cleared out most of the liquid.

Here it is, replaced:



Another issue I had is with the light. The "jewel cap" with the LED in it did not fit. It jammed when I turned it more than a quarter turn, far less than what is needed to seal it. When I tried to tighten anyway using a small slip-jaw pliers, it cracked in half. So I'm using a plain cap and need to exchange that. But I'm worried now about the quality of clear plastic G1/4 caps. Anyone have experience with them?

The tubing looks good, but there is still all this left to put back in:



And that doesn't include the cards, which need to pass under the loops of tubing. I ended up mounting the Addonics RAID card on the back panel using some leftover mounting points that would be used for a larger motherboard. I just need to find some very short SATA cables to neaten it.

—John
Edited by JDA,ugosz - 11/21/11 at 12:46pm

Here is the case with everything installed.



You can see that three non-card brackets are installed below the end of the motherboard, so they don't take up any real card positions. These are for more USB and FireWire ports. The mass of fettuccine at the center behind the reservoir is for the RAID5. The card is mounted to the back as is completely hidden from view; I wish I could find some short SATA cables. Temperature probes are taped to the side of the RAM cladding and to the top of the CPU block. After taking the photo, I added case temperature probes, secured to be suspended around the area of the cards and just below the radiator. You can also see that I re-introduced the drain tube, at the bottom of the reservoir.

Here is a view of the front.



Visible here, starting from the top, is the Auqaero, and two units of empty space. The tubing needs more room to bend away so I didn't use the topmost bays for long items. I used a spare 45° fitting on one side of the radiator; I can add another to the other side later and be able to move the front-access items higher up.

Next is a 3-in-2 hot-swap trayless HDD enclosure. Below that is the Asus BD writer. Originally I put the DVD below the HDD cage because it was longer and gave the tubing more room to bend; this new Asus is shorter. But, I realized that I actually use the cage more often: at least once a month when I swap my backup drive out. I hardly touch the DVD.

Below that, the big metal cube is the Silent Star 4-up HDD holder, containing 4 drives.

Finally, one of the 4-in-3 that came with the case. The fan is not plugged in, as the only drive installed is a SDD. It's just laying there, not actually installed, because the screws sent by Xigmatec don't fit. They included screws threaded for the bottom of the drive, like for use with trays. They don't thread into the side of the drive. And regular mounting screws don't work with the gaskets. I need the washer-head with the long shank before the normal threaded part.

—John

Current problems:

• Aquaero doesn't work. Computer will not boot if it is plugged into the USB header!
• Lighted cap for reservoir broke when trying to install.
• Red dye vanished (!)
• Icy Dock 3-in-2 hot-swap device bay is a piece of junk. The doors break off instead of ejecting the drive, and a drive is currently stuck inside it.
• I think I may have a bad "Y" adapter for the molex power cord.
• The screws that came with the Xigamatic case don't fit to mount a HDD

That doesn't count the fan on the secondary graphics card, which is too loud.

My machine is more stable, with the WC added to the motherboard. I've seen some posts saying that WC for the MB chipset is not really useful, but once again I have to disagree.

Previously, I was able to run 4GHz on 5 out of 6 cores with only 1.4125V. I set the problematic one to 19.5× instead. Meanwhile, I could run this speed rock-solid, or I could overclock the integrated memory controller to drive the XMP-1600 RAM at its native speed and be rock solid, but not both. It worked OK in real life and PRIME95 for a while, but would bluescreen when it got to the tests that are known to be particularly stressful to the SB and memory.

Now, I'm rock solid at 4GHz at 1.4125V on all six cores, and running the memory at 1600. I ran 18 hours, PRIME95 custom (2048–4096 kB and unchecking the "Run FFTs in-place") to stress the chipset and RAM).

I'm not sure where the "system" temperature is measured, but CPUID HM reports a max of 40° only slightly higher than the normal reading of 37. The "CPU" temperature max shows 49, and the "Core" max shows 47.

Since I've not set up the Aquaero yet (it's giving me problems), this testing was done with the fans on full speed. These fans are designed for slow rotation so the speeds available are "slow" and "extra slow". Full speed is 1253 RPM.

I'll have to see if I can get even more speed out of it now.

—John
Edited by JDA,ugosz - 11/27/11 at 10:50pm

That's why I left this thread "in progress"— I'll update with my custom wiring harnesses as I do those.

Well, after sending the Aquaero to Germany and back, they didn't find anything wrong with it.
Flashing the BIOS (again!) seems to have done the trick though, and I can boot up with it now.