Semi-old man here, age 42. I've been building systems for years, but never did the "pretty lights" thing before, nor ever touched water cooling. So when I built my most recent PC, I got the water/bling bug about 2/3rds of the way through the build (DOH). This won't be pretty or professional, in any way. The stuff you guys do here AMAZES me, and since I'm not even cutting on my case, it will be a crap build in comparison. Plus, it will most likely be overdone with gaudy lights, blingy reservoirs, UV tubing, LEDs, etc, and I'll be embarrassed for posting it within weeks.
Oh well, it'll be good for a laugh!! Feel free to chime in with ANY advice, don't be shy. I'll do 10,000 things wrong, but I'll learn, and I'm not afraid of criticism. Let it rip if need be!
Enjoy!
So once upon a time, not so long ago, in a galaxy not very far away, an old nerd bought some stuff:
Very pretty stuff:
Some reasonably quick stuff with big boobs:
Some of the stuff was on sale & would later turn out to be a pain in the ass:
Some of the stuff was very big stuff:
Some of the stuff was cool stuff:
The old nerd assembled some of the stuff, and was happy:
The stuff lived:
Then, disaster struck. The old nerd logged onto Overclock.net, to find out how to properly overclock his new 3820. To his shock and amazement, the old nerd discovered that OCN had a section dedicated to some voodoo magic known as "water cooling". He then made the worst financial mistake of his life: he started to read other people's build logs. This created movement in the old nerds pants (a sensation long thought dead), and his credit card. The old nerd did some research, but his nerd boner short-circuited his brain and shortened his patience, resulting in disaster!!
Being a Canadian nerd, research uncovered some great (and very helpful) YouTube videos done by a local guy named Daz, who also happened to sell water cooling parts:
He then ordered more pretty stuff from Dazmode.com, and a lot of wet stuff:
Then he figured it he was going to put his rig underwater, he might as well do it right with this funky stuff:
When searching for a GPU block, the old nerd discovered how much headache a non-reference video card can be for a noob water cooler! He spent hours looking at pics of water blocks and comparing them to his video card. He never wants to see this picture again:
Thanks to the helpful bunch of gents in the Dazmode.com forums, the old nerd located a GPU block for the non-reference hemorrhoid in question. He also wanted some bling, so he ordered the GPU block, a FrozenQ blood red UV helix reservoir, and some red UV tubing from his American neighbors down south, PerformancePCs.com:
My precious!
Oooooo, shiny yet black, and hard as hell to get a proper picture of:
The old nerd fired it up dry in the dark to test the UV light / inverter. He then realized taking acid in his teenage years gave him an appreciation for pretty glowing things:
He test-fitted the XSPC dual bay reservoir, only to find it a VERY tight fit, a common issue with the 800D case. Case rail sanding/filing will be needed:
Tight fit, but perfectly flush:
The old nerd prepared for leak testing:
He then realized he needed a proper tube cutter:
He persevered without one, because he was too lazy and/or drunk to leave the house:
Thankfully, the old noob nerd did SOME things right. He bought an external power supply so he could leak test without needing to jump his only power supply. Thus, we had BUBBLES:
More importantly, the XSPC kit was leak free! The old nerd then realized one of many noob mistakes: NOT ordering more compression fittings! DOH! He only had enough fittings for the XSPC custom Raystorm kit he bought (6). So to leak test the other components, he improvised and started substituting the other parts that needed leak testing in place of the CPU block. First, the precious:
Then the GPU block:
XSPC rad balanced on an empty power supply box (I mean EMPTY, not even the cardboard shell inside. DUMB:
The old nerd then made his first disastrous error while trying to adjust pump speed. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU:
The old nerd did not realize both his D5 variable pumps came set to max speed (5) from the factory. The foolish old nerd had ASSumed they were set to power 2, because the slit for the screwdriver adjustment was pointed at the number 2. He did not notice the rather LARGE RED ARROW pointing in the opposite direction to the number 5! Therefore, the old nerd twisted the damn stick right off. Thankfully, he didn't break the resistor on the pump, so it's now set to speed 5 for all eternity. Or at least until the old nerd can get a proper fan controller to throttle down his pumps!
Yes f**khead, that's an arrow. Pretty obvious don't you think? The old nerd felt awful stupid about this one:
The good news was: ALL PARTS WERE LEAK FREE! Woohoo!
So he started planning the layout and figuring out what would fit where:
The old nerd had to be told his FrozenQ reservoir was UPSIDE DOWN in this pic! NOOB:
While he waited on fittings, the old nerd did some noob heat shrinking in an attempt to clean up the clutter of the XSPC Raystorm LED mounts:
Being a BMW E46 fan, the old nerd decided to attempt to make his own ///M colored power supply cable. He didn't realize you can't simply whip up a replacement for MODULAR cable sets, and that the pin layouts can be power-supply specific. Therefore he ordered the wrong stuff (2 female ATX end caps). He also didn't realize that the single pre-sleeved pretty cables he ordered had both male AND female ends. You can also see in the pic below that the old nerd thought he was being clever by ordering a pre-made ATX power cable in UV red, in case his ///M cable didn't work out. He expected that cable to be a straight modular replacement, not an extension! Once again, the old noob nerd learned something! Double FUUUUUUUUUUU:
The old nerd then broke something else, due to cheaply made reservoir clips. He won't blame himself for this one, as the clips provided with the res were el cheapo junk. Wine was not a factor, as the old nerd is a professional alcoholic:
So that's where it stands as of tonight. An order of fittings is on route, and I just placed another order for a ball valve / fittings to set up a proper drain, as well as slim 140mm rad, just because.
The part list is as follows:
Asus Rampage Extreme Gene motherboard
Intel i7-3820 CPU
Corsair Dominator Platinum 1866 (4 x 4GB)
Corsair Obsidian 800D Case
Corsair AX750 Pro Gold modular Power Supply
Corsair H100 CPU cooler (about to be ditched)
ADATA S510 120GB SATA6GB/s SSD x 2 (RAID 0)
Sapphire Radeon 7950 Dual X 3GB
Carried over 5 x 1TB of storage from previous system, but due to lack of SATA ports, only 4 x 1TB is inside.
The water cooling stuff is below.
Dazmode custom XSPC Raystorm kit including:
XSPC Raystorm CPU block (includes 3mm blue LEDs, replaced with red)
XSPC dual bay reservoir with dual D5 pumps (in serial for redundancy, includes 5mm blue LEDs, replaced with red)
EX360 radiator (comes with 3 XSPC fans, replaced)
6 x 120mm Coolermaster Red LED SickleFlow 2000 RPM Case Fan R4-L2R-20AR-R1 (doing push / pull IF I have the room)
10ft Primochill red UV tubing (main stuff) + 10 ft clear XSPC tubing (for leak testing and measurement)
Indigo Xtreme phase change TIM
UV cathode kit
Darkside red UV ATX / PCIE extension cables
Light blue UV / dark blue UV / red lava UV single Darkside cables
More to come! Once I get more fittings, I can start putting it all together. Thanks for playing along!
Bart
So once upon a time, not so long ago, in a galaxy not very far away, an old nerd bought some stuff:
Very pretty stuff:
Some reasonably quick stuff with big boobs:
Some of the stuff was on sale & would later turn out to be a pain in the ass:
Some of the stuff was very big stuff:
Some of the stuff was cool stuff:
The old nerd assembled some of the stuff, and was happy:
The stuff lived:
Then, disaster struck. The old nerd logged onto Overclock.net, to find out how to properly overclock his new 3820. To his shock and amazement, the old nerd discovered that OCN had a section dedicated to some voodoo magic known as "water cooling". He then made the worst financial mistake of his life: he started to read other people's build logs. This created movement in the old nerds pants (a sensation long thought dead), and his credit card. The old nerd did some research, but his nerd boner short-circuited his brain and shortened his patience, resulting in disaster!!
Being a Canadian nerd, research uncovered some great (and very helpful) YouTube videos done by a local guy named Daz, who also happened to sell water cooling parts:
He then ordered more pretty stuff from Dazmode.com, and a lot of wet stuff:
Then he figured it he was going to put his rig underwater, he might as well do it right with this funky stuff:
When searching for a GPU block, the old nerd discovered how much headache a non-reference video card can be for a noob water cooler! He spent hours looking at pics of water blocks and comparing them to his video card. He never wants to see this picture again:
Thanks to the helpful bunch of gents in the Dazmode.com forums, the old nerd located a GPU block for the non-reference hemorrhoid in question. He also wanted some bling, so he ordered the GPU block, a FrozenQ blood red UV helix reservoir, and some red UV tubing from his American neighbors down south, PerformancePCs.com:
My precious!
Oooooo, shiny yet black, and hard as hell to get a proper picture of:
The old nerd fired it up dry in the dark to test the UV light / inverter. He then realized taking acid in his teenage years gave him an appreciation for pretty glowing things:
He test-fitted the XSPC dual bay reservoir, only to find it a VERY tight fit, a common issue with the 800D case. Case rail sanding/filing will be needed:
Tight fit, but perfectly flush:
The old nerd prepared for leak testing:
He then realized he needed a proper tube cutter:
He persevered without one, because he was too lazy and/or drunk to leave the house:
Thankfully, the old noob nerd did SOME things right. He bought an external power supply so he could leak test without needing to jump his only power supply. Thus, we had BUBBLES:
More importantly, the XSPC kit was leak free! The old nerd then realized one of many noob mistakes: NOT ordering more compression fittings! DOH! He only had enough fittings for the XSPC custom Raystorm kit he bought (6). So to leak test the other components, he improvised and started substituting the other parts that needed leak testing in place of the CPU block. First, the precious:
Then the GPU block:
XSPC rad balanced on an empty power supply box (I mean EMPTY, not even the cardboard shell inside. DUMB:
The old nerd then made his first disastrous error while trying to adjust pump speed. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU:
The old nerd did not realize both his D5 variable pumps came set to max speed (5) from the factory. The foolish old nerd had ASSumed they were set to power 2, because the slit for the screwdriver adjustment was pointed at the number 2. He did not notice the rather LARGE RED ARROW pointing in the opposite direction to the number 5! Therefore, the old nerd twisted the damn stick right off. Thankfully, he didn't break the resistor on the pump, so it's now set to speed 5 for all eternity. Or at least until the old nerd can get a proper fan controller to throttle down his pumps!
Yes f**khead, that's an arrow. Pretty obvious don't you think? The old nerd felt awful stupid about this one:
The good news was: ALL PARTS WERE LEAK FREE! Woohoo!
So he started planning the layout and figuring out what would fit where:
The old nerd had to be told his FrozenQ reservoir was UPSIDE DOWN in this pic! NOOB:
While he waited on fittings, the old nerd did some noob heat shrinking in an attempt to clean up the clutter of the XSPC Raystorm LED mounts:
Being a BMW E46 fan, the old nerd decided to attempt to make his own ///M colored power supply cable. He didn't realize you can't simply whip up a replacement for MODULAR cable sets, and that the pin layouts can be power-supply specific. Therefore he ordered the wrong stuff (2 female ATX end caps). He also didn't realize that the single pre-sleeved pretty cables he ordered had both male AND female ends. You can also see in the pic below that the old nerd thought he was being clever by ordering a pre-made ATX power cable in UV red, in case his ///M cable didn't work out. He expected that cable to be a straight modular replacement, not an extension! Once again, the old noob nerd learned something! Double FUUUUUUUUUUU:
The old nerd then broke something else, due to cheaply made reservoir clips. He won't blame himself for this one, as the clips provided with the res were el cheapo junk. Wine was not a factor, as the old nerd is a professional alcoholic:
So that's where it stands as of tonight. An order of fittings is on route, and I just placed another order for a ball valve / fittings to set up a proper drain, as well as slim 140mm rad, just because.
Asus Rampage Extreme Gene motherboard
Intel i7-3820 CPU
Corsair Dominator Platinum 1866 (4 x 4GB)
Corsair Obsidian 800D Case
Corsair AX750 Pro Gold modular Power Supply
Corsair H100 CPU cooler (about to be ditched)
ADATA S510 120GB SATA6GB/s SSD x 2 (RAID 0)
Sapphire Radeon 7950 Dual X 3GB
Carried over 5 x 1TB of storage from previous system, but due to lack of SATA ports, only 4 x 1TB is inside.
The water cooling stuff is below.
Dazmode custom XSPC Raystorm kit including:
XSPC Raystorm CPU block (includes 3mm blue LEDs, replaced with red)
XSPC dual bay reservoir with dual D5 pumps (in serial for redundancy, includes 5mm blue LEDs, replaced with red)
EX360 radiator (comes with 3 XSPC fans, replaced)
6 x 120mm Coolermaster Red LED SickleFlow 2000 RPM Case Fan R4-L2R-20AR-R1 (doing push / pull IF I have the room)
10ft Primochill red UV tubing (main stuff) + 10 ft clear XSPC tubing (for leak testing and measurement)
Indigo Xtreme phase change TIM
UV cathode kit
Darkside red UV ATX / PCIE extension cables
Light blue UV / dark blue UV / red lava UV single Darkside cables
More to come! Once I get more fittings, I can start putting it all together. Thanks for playing along!
Bart