The BBW build

Hello all and greetings from the great white north. Before I get into the new build here is a little background info about me and events that led to this build. This is my first ever buildlog and second water cooling build. My first foray into water cooling went pretty good and the system ran great for the past 3 years. Recently I began having problems with the SSD boot drive dying 3 times in the past 5 months. I was able to resurrect it from the dead a couple of times by doing complete wipes but the last time I finally had enough and said to hell with it. I could have just replaced the drive but I was bored with the whole system and didn't really like the looks of it anymore. Once I saw the Switch 810 and read a few reviews I knew I had to have it for my next build. I'm gonna call it the BBW, now I know what you pervs are thinking (get your minds out of the gutter), in this case BBW stands for Big, Beautiful & White. I'm not a hardcore modder and this build will be pretty standard but I will have to make some changes to the 810 due to component fitting conflicts (mainly rads). Here we go....



OLD SYSTEM...
Gigabyte Aurora 3D Case
Gigabyte MA-GA790FXT-UD5P Mobo
Phenom II 965BE & DTEK Block
Mushkin Blackline DDR3 996657 2 x 2GB
Radeon HD 4870 & Swiftech Block
OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD Boot
WD Caviar Green 2 TB HDD
2 - WD Caviar Black 1 TB HDD's
Corsair HX1000W PSU
Pioneer DVD-RW
Swiftech Micro Res
Swiftech 655 Pump
Thermochill PA120.2 Rad
120mm Yate Loons


NEW SYSTEM...
NZXT Switch 810 White Case
Asus P8Z77-V Mobo
Intel Core i5 3570K
G-Skill F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH Ripjawz
XFX Radeon HD 6870 DD
Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240GB SSD Boot
WD Caviar Green 2 TB HDD
2 - WD Caviar Black 1 TB HDD's
Corsair HX1000W PSU
Pioneer DVD-RW
140mm & 120mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro fans

Phobya G-Changer 420mm Top Rad
Thermochill PA120.2 Bottom Rad
Swiftech 655 Pump
XSPC Dual Bay Res
XSPC Raystorm CPU Block
EK FC-6870 EN Nickel Full Cover Block
Monsoon Compression Fittings 1/2" - 3/4" Blue
Masterkleer Tubing UV White 1/2" ID - 3/4" OD
Primochill Anti-Kink Coils 3/4" Gloss Blue
Kobra Cable 24 pin single sleeved mobo extension (white)
Kobra Cable 5 pin PCI-E single sleeved extension (white)
Kobra Cable 8 pin 12 volt EPS single sleeved extension (white)
Phobya 45* angled swivel adapters


Checked the mail this morning and the case was there


I noticed the front panel doesn't sit flush...hmmm...I'll deal with this later


Started stripping it down to check rad fit


Ooooh...that's tight, but I can definitely make it work

I was pretty worried about fitting the psu and Thermochill PA120.2 rad on the bottom. The HX1000W is a big beast of a power supply and measures 200mm long and the PA120.2 is 300mm long. Pretty much every review I've read states your psu shouldn't exceed 160mm long if you wish to use a dual rad. Well here is proof that you can make it work. I should also mention that this rad uses 25mm hole spacings which poses another problem because the case uses 15mm spacing. It took a little thinking but I found an easy way around this without even drilling extra holes in the bottom of the case. I had a fan shroud for this rad and it really came in handy here.

I noticed that I could drill 2 holes in the very corners of the shroud and they would line up with the 140mm holes on the case. They will be used to secure the front of the shroud to the case. So after drilling the holes I screwed down the 120mm fan that would be closest to the psu.


The second fan bolted right into place. I made sure to use rubber washers between the shroud and case to help cut down on vibration



That's all for now, still waiting on the majority of the watercooling parts. They should be here in the next day or two. Until then...peace out!
Edited by scar69 - 5/23/12 at 8:39am

Big box from Performance-PCs in the mail this morning. Here is the contents


I pulled the stock heatsink off the 6870 and started prepping for the full cover block


and soon realized that the EK block isn't gonna fit...its not even close


I'm more than a little pissed off now. I checked and double checked compatibility before I ordered and to see this is really damn frustrating. According to http://www.coolingconfigurator.com/home it is supposed to fit. The 6870 is an XFX HD-687A-ZDFC. I'm not sure what to do now...do I contact EK directly or should I talk to someone at Performance-PCs?

I just submitted a ticket to EK but I think I'm screwed after reading this "However, sometimes (rarely) happens that PCB manufacturer changes design without notifying the market. In that case, block might not fit and we cannot take any liabilty for that." What a ****en joke, I'm so pissed off right now.
Edited by scar69 - 5/23/12 at 2:43pm

I'm waiting on a few more fittings and fans so I decided to make a few more mods. I slotted a few of the holes in the top and had to drill a few new ones to get the 420 rad to bolt in. I wanted to have the fittings at the back of the case and I was able to make it work, although it is very close and the fittings are actually touching the I/O plate.



I was also able to do push/pull by notching out one of the fans with a dremel to clear the 8 pin mobo connector.







Since I'm gonna do push/pull I figured I may as well go ahead and cut out the top of the drive bay. First I marked out the area I wanted to remove and then taped it off. Then I drilled holes in the 4 corners and used a small grinder with a cutting disc. I used a file to get rid of any sharp edges and burrs.






Edited by scar69 - 5/26/12 at 9:28pm

The rest of the fittings I needed to finish the drain line were in the mail today so now I can start leak testing. The only thing I'm waiting on now is the Lamptron FC6 fan controller and it should be here tomorrow. I originally wanted an FC5v2 but couldn't find one in stock anywhere so settled on the FC6.

Some pics of the drain





Leak testing


Edited by scar69 - 6/14/12 at 5:43pm

I started doing some overclocking a couple of days ago and have kind of hit a wall with the cpu. Seems like no matter how high I crank the volts I can't get 4.8Ghz even close to being stable. I've got 4.7Ghz rock solid now though with 2400Mhz on the ram, 15 hour Prime test showed no errors. I may try to tweak a little bit more but I'm very happy with my results so far.


Edited by scar69 - 6/28/12 at 11:57am

I think you're right, I am out of luck. I sent a ticket to EK and already got a reply...

"We are sorry for your problem.
The card and it's PCB published here http://www.coolingconfigurator.com/step1_complist?gpu_gpus=636 are compatible with EK-FC6870.
It is always vital to check PCB before buying waterblocks as some manufacturers tend to change designs while keeping same labeling.
What we may do is check the picture of your PCB and advise you on possible cooling solution.
Thank you for understanding."

I don't really understand how they expect people to check the pcb before buying waterblocks. You basically have to remove the stock cooler and void the warranty just to see the layout of the PCB. Anyhow, I guess this waterblock will only fit reference pcb designs and finding a reference 6870 card now will be next to impossible. I have a Swiftech universal gpu block that I will have to use for now and I guess I'll have to try and sell the full cover block. EK is supposed to be close to releasing full cover blocks for the 7870, I may have to upgrade again when they do. Good night all.