Slider46

This is the rebuild of my second watercooling project.

After being plagued with a crappy MoBo chipset, system unstability, lack of cooling power and wrong parts ordered, i've finally gotten the system re-assembled with the new motherboard and additional cooling parts.

Here's the list of original PC hardware:

• Case - Antec 900
• PSU - ABS Tagan 700w Modular - **Changed to 800w Modular
• Motherboard - ASUS M2N-E 570 Ultra
• CPU - Athlon X2 64 6000+ 3.0Ghz
• Video Card - EVGA GTX 260

New Motherboard:

• Biostar TPower N750 - nForce 750a SLI

Original Cooling Hardware:

• Thermaltake AquaBay Res
• Thermaltake P500 Pump
• Thermaltake Flow TX Plus
• Alphacool Nexxxus AM2 CPU Block
• EK Full Coverage GTX200 Series VGA Block
• 120mm DD Rad (interior)
• Primochill tubing and coolant
• Koolance Spring Wrap - Black

Added:

• Black Ice Pro II 240mm Dual Rad
• Swiftech Rear Mount RadBox
• 2x Rosewill 90cfm silent fans w/ control
• More tubing / wrap

Mounted the 240mm rad on the back and kept the 120mm rad inside and kept it just before the VGA card in the loop.

Also fabricated a bracket to help old up the free end of the GTX 260. It was bending and sagging a little due to the weight of the block/fittings/tubing pushing down on it last time.

Made the bracket out of a PCI slot cover. (will post pics soon)

Temperatures Before:

CPU Idle: 35c
CPU Load: 50c

GPU Idle: 52c
GPU Load: 100c+

Temperatures After:

CPU Idle: 27c
CPU Load: TBD

GPU Idle: 32c
GPU Load: TBD

This board is awesome. Tons of overclocking options and plenty of voltage options

All I need to do now is do a clean install, possibly flash the BIOS, get some stock benchmarks and see how high I can push this thing!

I'll post some pics of the new radiator and tubing setup and i'll be sure to update when I get some new stats.

Just for reference, the old pics are below..

Attached Thumbnails

       

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legendor

Nice, shiny really

Slider46

It should look even better once I get some new pics up. Thanks!

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DerkaDerka

Damn man that looks really nice. Hopefully when I get my loop setup I can have some nice glowing effects as well.

Slider46

Well i've finally got some pics of this thing up and running.

My setup runs as follows:

Start
1. Res
2. Pump
3. CPU
4. 120mm Rad
5. GPU
6. 240mm Rad
7. Res
Finish

Temps are a lot better now! Still need to reinstall windows and start benching..

The new MoBo has some onboard red LEDs which are kinda cool since they tell you the status of hardware (CPU, RAM, HDD, VGA, etc) but they are also so bright that they drown out the UV light. I'm going to have to add get some more UV green dye when I put new coolant in it.

Some pics with the lights on:





With the lights off:



While I was installing the 240mm Rad:





Here's the bracket I fabricated for holding the GTX 260 up:





I'll post some screenshots when I start benchmarks!

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Slider46

Ok got some benchmarks...

11900 in 3DMark06 stock settings.

Got the CPU up to 3.54Ghz by upping the voltage to 1.55v and dropping the memory to 667.

CPUz

I was running ATi Tool to test the video card at stock settings and i'm still getting an audiable noise coming from the video card. It's a very faint, high-pitched beeping/buzzing and it's consistant (matches pace) with the counter on the ATi Tool when running the stress test. (So it seems like it's making noise under heavy load..) ATi Tool ran for about 20 mins with no errors but i'm sure this card has issues.

GPU Idle Temp: 40
GPU Load Temp (ATi Tool for 20mins): 48c

I think i'm just going to RMA and get another card as i've changed the motherboard...anyone had this issue before?

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Slider46

I can't get a stable Prime95 run!

Validation

Temps seem fine! I'm hearing a buzzing from the CPU now while running Prime95! Possibly a faulty PSU?

I just want a stable overclock! AH!

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ira-k

Yeah your CPU shouldn't buzz, or at least none of mine ever have, they might whine a little about the voltage, but thats about it.....

Look at fans or the PSU for buzzing sounds...I had a on board buzzer once that would do that every now and then, I'd just tap it pretty hard and it would quit..

I'd pull 2 sticks of the ram out and see if you can get a little more stable that way...

I'd try that first then try a little more v-core, then a little more v-dimm if its still not stable..Don't be afraid to play with you NB and SB voltages, and your ram timings also...Just change one thing at a time boot into Windows and run OCCT or something for 10 minutes and see if it helped...

You have to pound a OC into submission, just wear it down...There are many nights I've done 20-30 boot up playing with settings...I'm just happy when it blue screens if it will do it all automatically and I don't have to turn it off by hand...

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**Water Cooling Essential Threads**Relay Wiring **480 GTX-Temp's w/wo Shrouds **TEC Essential Threads

** E8600 @ 5.75Ghz 10x **E7200 @ 4.5Ghz 9x **5000BE @ 3.5Ghz 10x**150 Opty @ 3.2Ghz 12x**

Slider46

Well i'm figuring it's the PSU lol..

I just took this...

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Slider46

And that was on STOCK settings! Glad I ordered an 800watt PSU earlier today just to be sure lol (and another 260 while i'm at it!) (RMA time!)

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