[BUILD LOG] Monolith - Silence & Performance - Fractal Define XL [FINISHED]

Monolith - Silence & Performance - Fractal Define XL







::Hardware::

• Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.8 GHz
• Asus P8Z68-V Pro
• Corsair Vengeance 1866 , 4*4 GB
• Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 670 SLI (680 PCB)
• Samsung 830 256 GB * 2 RAID 0
• Intel 80 GB Postville
• Samsung 1 TB 7200 rpm
• Samsung 1.5 TB 5400 rpm
• Corsair HX650
• BenQ XL2420T 120Hz screen

::Watercooling Equipment::

• Two Aquacomputer Aquastream XT pumps
• EK Multioption Res 100
• EK Supreme HF Acetal CPU block with Easy-Mount & Jet Plate #6
• Two Watercool Heatkiller GTX 680 LT blocks
• Watercool Heatkiller GPU-X³ Dual-Link
• Watercool motherboard VRM blocks
• Aquacomputer Aquaero 5 PRO
• Aquacomputer in-line sensors (2), case temp sensors (4), High-Flow Meter, RGB LED, ATX Power Break
• Aquacomputer in-line filter
• Koolance VL3N Quick Disconnects; 4 male 4 female
• 18 EK compression fittings
• 8 Alphacool rotary fittings; four 90° & four 45°
• Masterkleer 10/13 tubing, UV Blue internal & White External
• Primochill anti-kink coil for external tubing
• 5 Bitspower pass-through ports, 9 Bitspower stop fittings, 1 Bitspower Extender and 1 Bitspower male-male connector
• Enzotech 3-way block
• Watercool MO-RA 3 9*140 PRO radiator
• 2 Watercool MO-RA 140 radiator grills, MO-RA radiator feet
• 3 Yate-Loon 900 rpm & 6 Yate-Loon 1200 rpm 140mm radiator fans
• 1 Noiseblocker PK2 140mm case fan, 1 Be-Quiet! 80 mm PWM fan
• Distilled Water with a Silver kill-coil

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::Pictures::

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::Results::

CPU runs 4.8 with 1.42v, or 5.0 with 1.48
GPUs overclock to +80/+800 or 1280,1230/3800 MHz
3Dmark 11 slightly over 20K GPU score
RAID-0 SSD setup does around 1000 MB/s read & 500 MB/s write (sequential)

Flowrate is around 180 L/hour on max pump speed
With speed dialed down to 55 Hz they still manage 125 L/hour which is more than the previous build
Intake fan runs 800~1000 rpm (noise very much reduced by front door), radiator fans run 450 rpm at idle
Water-Ambient delta of 3c is maintained with 850 rpm radiator fans during BF3
Top chamber warms up to 7c over ambient during stress tests, presumably due to memory & motherboard chipset

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::Thoughts & Observations::

Despite noise isolation pumps are still noticeable over 60~65 Hz
Then again, two pumps at 55 Hz offer plenty of flowrate

Fractal XL is a really nice case but has some serious Quality Check issues (missing/faulty rivets)
Front parts contain a bit too much plastic IMHO, take care when modding (!)
The door allows for a big reduction in fan/HDD noise, but it does reduce airflow considerably as well

The MO-RA 3 seems even more efficient now that it is standing free instead of being attached to a side panel
Previous setup maintained a 4.5c delta at 800 rpm

Memory & Chipset heatsinks feel pretty hot; so the heatsinks are doing their job
As neither is overclocked I don't feel the need to add an outtake fan

Corsair HX650 seems to have no issues; previous GTX480 overvolted is comparable to SLI 670

Case is very stable despite not being able to put the Lian-Li wheels at the back due to PSU filter

Step drill bit is a must when you need to install lots of Bitspower pass-through ports

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::Future Upgrades::

-Window
Might be possible to take the new Fractal R3 window kit and mod it into an XL side panel
I would prefer to have someone water/laser cut the panel
Also some UV leds, Aquaero controlled of course

-More sleeved extensions (GPU etc) and custom sleeving for some other cables
In case I decide to get the window, else I won't care
also have to get some blue O-rings for the Bitspower parts then
won't get backplates for the cards, I like PCBs better

-New Aquacomputer reservoir
They just released a reservoir that features Aquaero compatible fill-level sensors and some other goodies

-Socket 2011 / Triple or Quad SLI / 1200+ Watt PSU
In a year or two ... or three. All watercooled of course!

-18 new fans for the radiator, Aquacomputer Power Adjust 2 for fan control
In case I do the previous upgrade I will outfit the MO-RA with as much fans as possible (9 on each side)
Probably also get the waterblock for the Aquaero or get some extra Power Adjust 2s

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Thanks for following this build log, hope you enjoyed it / learned some new stuff / found some inspiration !









Original Opening Post (Click to show)
Edited by n0n44m - 7/22/12 at 3:04pm

[All pictures are taking with my mobile phone ... I'll promise to take good pictures with a decent camera once I've completed this build ]


So I started with cutting and drilling.

Well no, actually I started with lots of planning which took me multiple months lol, but I won't bore you guys with that

So this is what the Define XL looks like once you've removed all separate parts



As I needed to install quite some fillports, I decided to buy a new drill bit that allows you to make nice holes from 16 to 30 mm. Perfect because the Bitspower Fillports need about 20mm. It was a bit tricky at first but the results were nice in the end.

I started out with the bottom, because if I messed up you wouldn't see it anyway this here will be the drain port



When that turned out OK, I decided to go straight for the top lol. this will be the fillport and reservoir holder (I'll show you in a minute)



Now that I was comfortable with using the hand drill and its new attachment, I decided to attack the rear of the case where I needed to put in two fillports which will act as pass-throughs for the external connections to the MoRa radiator. Unfortunately here I hit two problems.
1 : The drill's battery doesn't last long when drilling these holes it involves quite some power, oil and pieces of smoking metal fly around so maybe I should've used a cable-powered drill.
2 : Because the drill is handheld my top port here turned out to be quite some millimeters off-target ... luckily the side panel still fits in the end



So while the drill's battery was charging I decided to grab the Dremel (clone) and start attacking the top. I had not used the Dremel for a long long time but I'm pretty pleased with the results. I needed to file for an extra ten minutes but it turned out pretty clean.

Can you tell what it is for?



This is more clear probably





It's the Aquacomputer Filter, a nice unit which filters out all sorts of crap flooting around in your loop, which in my case (distilled+silver) is mostly the plasticizer coming from the tubes. Usually I just monitor the flowrates with the Aquaero unit, and once they've dropped significantly it is time to take out the filter and clean it. The beauty of this thing is that you can separate it from your loop using the two valves on the bottom, then open up the glass on top and take the filter out. Now that I have it on the top of my case (instead of stuffed somewhere deep inside like in my previous build) opening and cleaning the filter should be more easy than ever before

so today I'm going to take out the bottom HDD cages to make room for the double pump setup, modify the mid plate a bit, make another cable management hole, tear down my old build, install the Lian-Li wheels on the Fractal, and place the pumps in the bottom. Hopefully all before the Euro2012 Semi-Final ^^
Edited by n0n44m - 6/27/12 at 3:47am

Good to hear you guys like it so far

So this afternoon I continued, first thing I did was drill yet another hole; this one is intended to guide cables for the Aquaero into the drivebay from the back



Now it was time to work on the midplate. Before I started removing it from the case, I tapped around on the metal with my fingers and noticed some noise/reverberation. I concluded that the midplate might be prone to vibration noise, and with two pumps beneath the midplate I decided I should add a couple of extra rivets to eliminate any movement/flexing of the midplate. So I drilled some extra holes between the existing rivets.



I then drilled out the original rivets to remove the midplate and the bottom HDD racks.

However this is where it gets interesting;

I had already noticed last November when I first got this case, that one of the rivets that connects the top to the front was missing. This caused the front left corner to be slightly raised. I didn't care about it because it seemed like a quick 30 second fix.

Now that I had removed the midplate and the HDD racks, I noticed that the noise remained when tapping my fingers on the motherboard tray. After a few minutes of searching I found the cause:

Out of the 6 rivets that hold the motherboard tray to the top and bottom of the case, no less than 4 (2 top 2 bottom) turned out the be spinning/moving when I touched them with my finger ...

So I spent the next hour drilling out these faulty rivets and replacing them with new ones. Which was a total pain in the ass due to the tight spot they were located in and the size of the rivet tool

So yeah I was a bit disappointed to have not only 1 completely missing rivet but also 4 rivets that don't hold anything together in the end though I concluded that my replacement rivets worked fine; the tray is firmly attached and makes no more noise

Ah well, this is what it looks like with everything out



Now there was only another bit of drilling left to put in the fifth and final fillport in the midplate. This one will connect the reservoir (which hangs above it) to the drain port & pumps below



Then I was out of time, so tomorrow I'll have to continue with finishing the midplate. My original idea was to cover the large hole (which originally was some sort of door/hatch I don't see the use of) with a seperate plate of aluminium. However the issue is that the sides of the hole are folded inward, so a plate would never sit flush.

Therefore I've now decided to leave it open, and cover the entire bottom of the midplate (fillport area excluded) with a thick (slightly flexible) noise insulating plate. I'll then cover the top part of the midplate with 3M Carbon vinyl, which I also used on my previous build. This should sufficiently cover up the hole, reduce any noises from the pumps/PSU and not introduce potential new vibrations by a cover-up plate that doesn't fit.

My original intention was to also cover the top of the case with this carbon vinyl, but now that I managed to put in the filter&fillport without damaging the original paint I'm going to leave it stock and cover another part of the exterior with carbon instead

stay tuned

so this afternoon I worked on the front of the case

first thing I did was to take out the power button, remove the white LED (heat up the glue with a heatgun), then drill in the LED holder until it accepts a larger 5mm LED and finally install the new LED using lots of ductape I also frosted the plastic a bit to improve diffusion of the light

(also had to use lots of tape to put it back in the front piece as the new cable is way thicker than the old one, so the original mounting plate did not fit any more)

the new LED is a rather special one, people familiar with the Aquaero 5 should recognize it I'll show how it works when the build is finished



I then disasembled the rest of the front, which consists of the front piece itself with the hinges, and the door. The door consists of two plates that are sandwiching the hinges; the front plate is plastic which has been brushed/painted to look like metal/aluminium, and the rear plate is covered with sound dampening foam. All in all the parts are rather heavy, but it is mostly plastic unfortunately (...)

anyway this is what it looks like



after that was finished I put some carbon vinyl on the top of the front piece, using the heatgun to get into all small nooks of the USB and headphone area and a Stanly knife to cut away excess vinyl. I kept the headphone outputs covered as I'll only be using HDMI audio from the GTX670 or the USB DAC in my headphone amp; so no onboard sound for me. This is what it looks like in the end; it's not without imperfections up close but it looks pretty good still



so now I decided to go for the front plate ... Originally I wanted to cover the top of the case in carbon vinyl, but after my earlier drilling and Dremel'ing didn't damage the paint on top, I thought to myself that doing the top in vinyl would create 3 different colors on this case : 1 carbon top 2 plastic metal-look front plate 3 the black metal on the rest of the case.

so I've decided to leave the metalwork on the case in the original black and cover that plastic door instead this is the result (which I'm really happy with )



I did have some quality issues when putting it back together though; the entire front is all plastic so not only did my two screws for the USB connectors in the front almost puncture through the plastic front, but one of the screw holders on the front plate of the door which holds the two door plates together completely ripped out even though I screwed it in in the most delicate way possible

annoying but I got it all fixed in the end using more tape and glue ... at least I'm done with all this plastic now next up it's time to do the midplate and do the final modding on the case

so a quick update after tonight's amazing Italy-Germany match ^^

I needed to fill up the hole/hatch in the midplate, and make it a bit better looking as well because it had all these rivet holes in it from the hdd cages I removed. Instead of putting a new plate over the hatch I decided to fit a large adhesive noise-damping plate (bitumen) over the backside to 1 cover up the hatch 2 insulate against noise from the pumps 3 give extra weight to the midplate to avoid vibrations from the pumps

so this is what the bottom side of the plate looks like; I made a small cutout for the fillport and on the right side the screws for the (only remaining) HDD cage are sticking through



the top of the plate is covered with carbon vinyl ... looks pretty good actually shame I don't have a window planned (yet)



tomorrow I'll finish work on the case hopefully; more noise insulating material, couple more holes for the mounting of the pumps and then rivet everything back together!

so the past two days progress has been somewhat slow ... came across some issues that took quite some time to solve

didnt take pictures of everything but here's what I have

first of all I don't need the bottom front fan; the top fan has been replaced by a Noiseblocker 140mm and the bottom fan mount has been closed with noise isolating plates to silence those pumps down there



then it was time to take apart the old build ... the fill/bleed port system came in handy here, just blow through the top fillport a couple of times and nearly all water is out of the system




then the issue I spent all day solving ==> pumps & wheels mounting

basically the base of the lian-li wheels Im using is too small to fit while retaining the use of the dust filter for the PSU intake. Basically I had to choose between no filter or this short wheel base. It seemed stable enough in the end, so I went with the short wheel base... counting on my HDDs, pumps, reservoir and the noise isolation in the front part of the case to balance the PSU and those GPU blocks I can always put some lead plates between the wheels I guess lol




for the pumps I decided to put them slightly diagonal, next to eachother, with 90 degrees fittings on their intakes. The pumps will have their outputs on the left side, so the first feeds right into the second whereas the second will reach the lower back fillport/QDC by using a 45 degree rotary fitting. It took quite some time to accurately measure this setup due to the two "shoggy sandwich" anti-vibrations mounts Im using, but I know it is worth the effort

didnt take pics yet, but hopefully I can fit them together with the tubing, midplate and two fillports tomorrow morning, after which the only case modification left would be to put an 80mm fan in the optical bay to cool the Aquaero. That fan is currently riveted to the Stacker, but reaching it with a drill is going to be a pain .....

after that I can start installing the blocks and fitting the components, but I doubt I'll have everything leak testing before Monday evening...

worked all afternoon, here's what I got to show

first of all I managed to remove the 80mm fan and its frame (which I created last year from some scrap metal) from the Stacker without too much issues or damage, after which I decided to tie-wrap it to the Define XL in order to avoid having to drill more holes in a hard-to-reach area

this fan is connected to the PWM fan output of the Aquaero, and is aimed at the Aquaero heatsink to keep it nice and cool when downvolting my 9 Yate-Loon 140mm fans (and possibly more fans in the future) It runs at 500 rpm most of the time, and I set it to speed up once the Aquaero VRMs go over a certain temperature limit. (This avoids triggering the Aquaero's thermal protection, which basically means it starts to run all fan connections at 12V to cool down resulting in lots of fan noise)

Together with the Noiseblocker in front of the HDDs (and the PSU fan) these will be the only fans in the case, as the motherboard will be watercooled as well the nine Yate-Loons on the MoRa are running at 400 rpm or not at all on idle, only ramping up when needed thanks to the Aquaero



then I spent the rest of the afternoon fitting, measuring and cutting the pump mounts and some extra noise isolation plates (to help with the weight due to the short wheelbase). Finally I was able to rivet the midplate back in place, which means I'm finished with the casemodding part of this build





next couple of days I'll be mounting the waterblocks and cleaning the older watercooling parts, install all components in the case, do some electrical wiring if necessary (not much because everything will transfer over fine I hope), then do the plumbing and leak testing