[Build Log] Long Term - Page 32

I am... I've just finished the measurements and placement of the PSU planning. I've started into the fittings measurements, which is much more complicated.

My PSU will be mounted as follows:
- top 480 radiator
- AP-15 in pull-only
- 120mm to 140mm adapter
- 1200i PSU mounted to adapter via fan screws
- Power cable routed to back of case to mounted jack

This allows the PSU to be fed mostly fresh air though the top-most radiator and exhausted in the same direction (out the front) as most the rest of the exhaust.

I will have to wait until after taxes to make any additional purchases as my funds for this build have run dry. The next things I need are fittings, Aqua Computer parts/devices, CaseLabs additional parts, another reservoir, and a few other oddities.

I've also been trying to find low-profile G1/4 plugs. Once upon a time they were fairly common, but nowadays it seems they all have 3mm tall caps.

A quick update...

I've been messing with the AP-15s a bit and here's something I've come across I thought others might want to know. 24 AP-15s running at 5v is significantly quiter than a single Corsair AF140 running at 9v (and an AF140 is _very_ quiet). I can easily hear the AF140 pushing air behind 6 rows of 4 AP-15s running at 5v. Each AP-15 at 5v also clearly pushes more air than the AF140 at 9v.

A quick update, after seeing this on their website, I think I'm going to use the CaseLabs PSU Mounting Bar. It would be behind the 5.25" devices, but out of view of the window.

http://www.caselabs-store.com/psu-mounting-bar-kit-smh10-sth10/

Things have been slow and I've been busy...

I've got all the insulation sealing, adapters, and fans mounted to the radiators. I've mounted one of the 480s and two 560s in the case and tested running all the fans at 5v. I'm rather pleased as I was unable to hear the 24 fans at all until I put my ear right next to them and even then it was just a feint sliding sound. Even at 5v, these fans really move quite a bit of air, so much so that I am going to come up with a way to stagger their off-state instead of turning them all on at the same time when water temp goes up in an effort to mitigate unnecessary dust build-up.

I will be modifying my water flow design soon, though I am still considering a number of different possibilities for the changes. I am considering a system much like tractor hydraulics where I could have multiple In and Out QDCs, but will work fine if only one is connected. This way, for a simple 1CPU + 2GPU tech station, I would only need one flow IO, but if I were to upgrade to a multi-CPU or quad-SLI setup in the future, I could simply attach separate CPU and GPU QDCs and have fresh water going to each.

I'm very pleased with my GPU mounts, but not CPU. Both of my GPUs idle at ambient temp (usually around 21C-24C). The CPU cores idle between 26C and 38C, most at about 32C when the water/GPUs are at 22C. I'll try one or two more remounts to try to bring that down some.

I've decided to just keep my existing X-Fi sound card for now. The new ZxR has better DACs, but the processor is almost 10 times slower than the X-Fi. The eventuality will be to use a much better external DAC.