tha d0ctor

Hey what's going on everyone I'd like to start first for thanking everyone for their help... I wouldn't have gotten this done if it wasn't for this forum.

That being said, this build was several weeks in the making (exclusively waiting on deliveries and funds) but when I came home to find my case case in the mail yesterday I immediately set out on a 12+ hour endeavour to not only paint the inside of my case and open a tubing hole on the back, but also to complete my first water cooled loop and thefirst system I've ever built from scratch.

It took too long in my opinion especially the painting, cable management and the loop assembly but as far as I'm concerened it was more than worth it and a huge step up from my previous dual core, ddr2 setup. Here's whats powering this puppy.

------------Hardware----------------
1x Core I7 920
1x Foxconn Bloodrage
3x 2gb G.skill Trident 2000mhz
2x PNY GTX 275
1x Coolermaster 1250w ATX PSU
1x LG Blu-ray Burner
1x HP dvd/rw driver
2x WD 80gb 10000rpm HDD
1x Seagate 1tb 7200rpm HDD
1x Thermaltake Armor + vh6000bws
several fans and cables etc, vista 64 bit

-----Water Cooling Components ------
1x Swiftech 120mm resavoir/radiator combo (3/8)
1x Danger Den 1366 MC-TDX waterclock (1/2 fittings)
1x Thermaltake BigWater 760is WC system
1x Swiftech 240mm Quietpower radiator
many feet-o-3/8 and 1/2 Tubing
@x 1/2 to 3/8 converter barbs
1x Danger den 500 pump

Here's a little of what I did to set up the actual loop:

I took a stock 'leak water' 760is system from thermaltake and removed all their barbs, tubing fan, placed sealant around all the joints and then installed it using my own 3/8 tubing and bars (they advertise it as being 3/8id but the factory barbs are 1/4... bottleneck much). Once this was done all I had to do was make sure the 3/8 to 1/2 converters were in place before and after the CPU block and my NB block because of their fittings.

Then I assembled the loop like this:
Leakwater > 120mm (exhaust fan) > DD Pump > NB > CPU > 240mm > Leakwater

In hindsight I wish I didn't have the first part of the loop be the exhaust because this might heat up the water but if this is the case im willing to make that exhaust fan an intake seeing how I have some more exhaust. Either way im pretty happy it works and I managed to keep it all internal (for the most part)

The loop being complete I installed several 120mm coolermaster 90cfm fans over all the rads except for a 120mm red led fan by rosswill (75cfm) over the leakwater rad to get the nice red glow from the bigwater bay.

I then installed a 120mm fan on the top vent of the case for exhaust, a 140mm at the front intake, a 120mm infront of the video cards, and switched the LEDs on the 230mm from blue to red. Unfortunately the top fan has blue leds which I forgot to take out so I might address this later but I think it adds a slight but kinda nice touch that isn't too noticable.

After I installed everything, and got most of the cables tucked away everything booted up fine. I wanted to leak test but really din't that much because, A: I didn't feel like waiting any longer and B: I didn't know at the time how to jump start a PSU without running my MOBO aswell. Either way it seems to be running great and after I left it on last night it still doesn't have any problems.

The CPU has since been idling at around 31-36 degrees, has gotten up to 62 with a full load from Prime95 and only loads around the low to mid 50s in games like Arma 2 and Empire Total War. The GPUs are idling at around 41-42 and have not gotten over the high 50s in games, 58 max I think. The NB has been relatively stable and kept at mostly 38-40 degrees. I'm debating resetting the CPU waterblock with possibly some new paste but for the meantime after reading about the I7 temps online I'm pretty content.

The next step for me is to start overclocking this beast once I get all the drivers updated. I'm deabting whether or not I should update the bios or not since they are on version 6.0 of the bloodrage bios which seems fairly new to me.

Please let me know what you think, I'm more than happy to take any pointers. Thanks!!!!!!!


Here are the pics: (sorry about the quality,they're from my cellphone)


close up w/o window with CCFLS on


w/o window again


bottom radiator, yea the zip tie has to go but otherwise the tubing rubbed my side fan


perspective w/ window


same but closer, better lighting


front view, this overpowers my ancient p4 dell, not to mentin weighs around 70 pounds


top with easy access to refill the res and ccfl switch


side view w/o window or lights


close up: kind of shows CPU, ram etc..

That's about it lets me know if you have any questions or what to see more.

Conspiracy

looks cool

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Windows 7║Fan Club

dixson01974

What are your temps ?

Dark.Wolf

I really like that case Nice job.

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Lookin to do new things, hopefully watercooling.

tha d0ctor

according to hwmonitor the different cores idle anywhere between 32 and 40 if there are some processes going, with prime95 it gets up to 62 which leads me to believe I might need to reset the waterblock, but the NB could be warming to water a good amount before it hits the processor

iquark

What clocks are you running? Couldn't a fan on the NB do more than the necessary amount of cooling even on 4ghz+ with the i7's integrated memory controller? Could lose a lot of heat in that loop if you cut the northbridge.

Very nice system btw!

tha d0ctor

how much do you think I could lose, I feel like I'll cut it at some point but for right now Im kind of settled it and want to keep it the way it is atleast for a week after all the work I put in. Plus I didn't bother putting a t joint in to make it easy to drain the liquid out, I wish I did now though

speeds are at stock (2.66) but I plan on overclocking tonight once I read up a little, im guessing the temps should climb too high, I want to bring it to around 4.0 or 4.2 max to leave it for something that I could have 24/7 if I wanted to

iquark

Someone with more i7 WC experience could give you better numbers, but suffice it to say, that NB under water for and i7 isn't really that necessary. I have a feeling you're going to be running into thermal issues before you see 4.0 if you're really at 62* now.

62* is pretty high even for an i7 at stock. I'd bet a reseat would be a good idea, which paste did you use, and how did you apply it? Looks like you're on your way to a decent setup.

EDIT: Oh btw... hate to ask but you did take the plastic off the blocks right? It's a common mistake!

tha d0ctor

hah yea I took the plastics of, as for now im using Mg Chemicals 'silver conductive grease' from microcenter it cost a lot and the associate recommended it, I just put a glob in the middle and kinda spread it around a bit real halfassed, what's the best way to put in on for an i7 and I'll reapply it i about an hour

iquark

Most likely if you spread it around yourself it was probably too much. A lot of people put too much grease on, and in return get air bubbles which kill the heat transfer, and excess compound pushed past the heat spreader.

I've never used Mg Chemicals but if it's like Mx-3/AS5 here's a great video on the different types of application. I've always done the pea style with quads/i7's in builds, and lines in dual cores.



Looking at MG chemicals website, the thermal conductivity is extremely low, but I'm not really sure how they did their test compares to how Arctic Cooling does theirs. May look into getting some Mx-3 or AS5 even though you already have something else depending on how the reseat goes. Also remember to slightly twist the block as you get it seated on the processor, it will help make sure the pea is evenly spread over the heatspreader surface. Just a slightly twist left and right and then screw down nice and tight.