[shnur]

Oh hi you!

Here's my build log for Shnurok 3.0 as of last update.

In Russian, adding a suffix "ok" at the end of certain words makes it "small/smaller" than the original, hence this is me, but smaller

Make sure to post questions, comments and/or insults regarding things I've done, I'm always looking to improve!

Spoiler: Final pics as of 11-10-2011

Table of Contents:

1. Original build idea/start
2. Watercooling planning/attempts
3. CPU/GPU install
4. Waterfall res & testing the waters
5. Planning to add GPU to the loop
6. Noctua fans & DAS Keyboard
7. More planning and side view
8. New tubing, new rad, GPU block
9. Installing GPU block, putting loop back togheter
10. Future plans and new CPU block
11. Sleeving, pump top, CPU block, lapping paper & new PSU
12. Pre-cut hearthrink
13. Sleeving
14. PSU 100% sleeved
15. I got a camera & a bunch of new sexy stuff!
16. Better sleeving thanks to Lutro0
17. It's autumn
18. CyberDruid's Waterfall reservoir
19. Next update provided you by CL
20. RGB LED's are in!
21. CaseLabs has arrived.
22. Unboxing with Mammouth.
23. More sleeving, Waterfall reservoir received!
24. Lights!
25. Pump cable re-crimping!

26. Installing Watercooling and firing it up!

27. Semi-Final pictures

28. Change fans/SSD/Sleeving

 

[shnur]

Hey guys!

At first I'd like to thank the whole community for the support I've gotten by being able to shave off some dollars there and there by buying deals and used parts.

Second, it's my first custom loop watercooled rig, so I might not be doing things as they should be done, stop me if I'm about to ruin everything, I've lost count of the amount of money spent on this thing and I don't want to think about it, I just want to enjoy it; I think many people will understand me.

I decided to get an i7 because my mom wanted an HTPC so she could watch Netflix on the TV, I started playing more and more games in 4v4 in StarCraft 2; it's getting laggy

Also my friend h0p3r decided to get an i7 and buy half my parts, so I had no computers, except my M11x laptop.

I've also realized that since I earn some extra 2$/hr I can afford getting the computer of my dreams

The build at this point consists of:

- HAF X
- 6GB (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9)
- i7 940; from OCN
- Sabertooth X58
- Xonar D2X; from OCN
- 500GB Blue; from i3
- 60GB Vertex Turbo; from i3
- 750TX; from i3
- Scythe Kaze Master Pro (6-chan fan controller); from i3

Now what I have lying around:
- 3 Scythe DFS123812H-3000 (38mm x 120mm); from OCN
- 2 Scythe SY1225SL12SH (25mm x 120mm); from OCN
- 1 Scythe SFF21E (25mm x 120mm)
- 3 CM 200mm x 25mm fans from the HAF X
- 1 CM 140mm x 25mm fan from the HAF X
- Stinger V6i; from OCN.
- 2 MCR220-QP Res/rad; from OCN
- MCP655 pump; from OCN
- About 10 feet of tubing (I can get more at Canadian Tire, it's like 2$)
- About 5-10 feet 1/8" black sleeving, lots of SATA/USB sleeving, and a lot of sleeving for the 24-pin cable; part of the Starter sleeving pack from MDPC-X.com

Am I missing anything? I'll need more screws, but I'll find some around.

How would you guys go as to placing the pump and routing my water tubes?
Do I need a res or I can just use the fill port in my radiator?

Thanks for looking!

----

I've started unpacking and realized the case is humongous...

That's a summary of the watercooling stuff I have at the moment.

And this is what I have left of sleeving; sleeved a whole 400W PSU, just ran out of small cable heatshrink

Not really sure how to mount the rad on top...

Hopefully my table will be a lot cleaner when I'm done; and I'll have a beautiful Das

And it's a beautiful day!

I'll update soon with pictures that I just took too!

Update 1:
Ok, that was quick; I got my mobo in; looks amazing, I'll let it "reheat" a bit before putting it in though.

 

[pioneerisloud]

All that hardware and no GPU?

 

[h0p3r]

I unfortunately bought his GPU ...

 

[shnur]

First follow-up:

I flipped the radiator inside the case, made more sense to me.

Did some starting cable management in the back, I'm still unsure as of what I'll do there.

I've also installed my Fan Controller, it looks good to me

Two hard drives already in place:

Now I'm just waiting on my CPU to arrive and I'll be up and running

Quote:

Originally Posted by pioneerisloud All that hardware and no GPU?

Quote:

Originally Posted by h0p3r I unfortunately bought his GPU ...

Here's your answer

Although I'm thinking so much about which one to get that I forgot to write it down >.<'

 

[shnur]

Ok so today I flashed my OCZ Vertex Turbo's drive to 1.6 firmware; had to use my last CD

So I've installed the board and it looks so small!
I don't think I'll have any clearance issues with my 38mm fans near my rad.

The sound card fits properly behind the video card, and the floppy molex power that goes into it can reach without the whole cable out of the grommets

So I have an idea of how the CPU block will fit on it; I've swapped the rad by 180 degrees so I'll save on some tubing and pass everything over the RAM.

So later today I went to my distributor, picked up a 6870 from PowerColor (the only brand they had in stock) and I've go a CPU in the mail

Now the card itself is as I would imagine it, but there's a huge sticker on it, that barely sticks!
I'm wondering if I can remove it and still keep my warranty, any thoughts?

After installing everything in; everything fits perfectly!

I really hope to get rid of that stock Intel cooler as soon as possible; it's just... not pretty...

Temporary result:

Now I'm about to order more sleeving and get my watercooling setup done tomorrow, I need some special screws that would fit the length of the 38mm fans and fit the radiator.

I'm still clueless as of where I need to put the radiator... on the bottom? On top of the hot-swappable drive bays?

Do I need a res or I can use the fillport on my rad?

 

[shnur]

Yesterday I got my watercooling reservoir.

Looks and feels very solid, I was pretty happy about it.

I then had to cut through the little retention legs of my case for the drives so I could slide it in, took me a good hour.

I was then able to make it fit:

I then placed everything like I planned and it turned out "ok"

I say "ok" because I originialy though that the pump would leave my 2 hard drive slots and it would not be really stuck in there, unfortunately, that's the case

I'll be looking into getting a video card block and then move the pump to the "high ground" on top of the power supply plastic that holds the cables.

I realized there's a small leak at the bottom of the pump at the entrance, which with the help of this forum and my friend h0p3r I was able to quickly fix

And that's the waterfall in front, looks pretty good and makes a small calm sound

And this is the end result :

I'm looking forward into upgrading my top radiator for a 320mm one and then adding my video card in the mix.
Maybe add a 140mm rad behind?
I'm not sure what good fans exist in a 140mm variant.

 

[shnur]

Some time has passed and now my tubing is blurry, I don't understand how that happened, but I'm planning on getting some quality Primochill tubing instead; I'm also adding my GPU to the mix and I was thinking of this setup:

I'd be moving the pump out of the drive bay, makes the tubing kink and when I'll make the move towards 3/4" OD it'll probably be a lot harder.

 

[Billy_5110]

Nice, With the GPU WCed that would be really great.

I got a idea about this... If you got some extra money ^^''

Get another Rad before the GPU. I don't know if the rear fan of the HAF X is 140mm or 120mm for both rad exist. You could add it because a single loop is loosing lot of temp and an aditionnal rad could be usefull. And compression fitting wouldn't be useless in that case. Safer and really more beautiful!

[ French ]

Sinon, beau setup, je suis de QC moi aussi et j'ai trouvé ton topic via ton profil. Je t'ai ajouté sur skype et steam en passant. J'espère que tu prendra mon idée en considération

Ça pourrait être pas mal pour un single loop tout en ayant de temps quasi équivalentes Ã* un dual loop.

[/ french ]

Cya!

 

[shnur]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billy_5110 Nice, With the GPU WCed that would be really great. I got a idea about this... If you got some extra money ^^'' Get another Rad before the GPU. I don't know if the rear fan of the HAF X is 140mm or 120mm for both rad exist. You could add it because a single loop is loosing lot of temp and an aditionnal rad could be usefull. And compression fitting wouldn't be useless in that case. Safer and really more beautiful! [ French ] Sinon, beau setup, je suis de QC moi aussi et j'ai trouvé ton topic via ton profil. Je t'ai ajouté sur skype et steam en passant. J'espère que tu prendra mon idée en considération Ça pourrait être pas mal pour un single loop tout en ayant de temps quasi équivalentes Ã* un dual loop. [/ french ] Cya!

I've actually ordered a 320 rad from Swiftech; sold the 220 I have now.

I'm still unsure about the compression fittings; they look nice, but not so much on my bill yet. I need to fix some other stuff in my case before I get them.

There's place behind for a 140 rad, I'm unsure how tubing routing will go though... also I have 3 choices to buy a 120 rad (same price goes for the 140).
- Buy from a guy here for 30$ +20$ shipping
- Buy from NCIX; Thermochill 120.1 = 100$ +tax + 6$ ship
- Buy from FrozenCPU; cheapest at 50-60$ (same price as for a 320 rad...) + 25$ shipping...

I'd like to get a hold of an AX750 PSU (100% modular), sleeve it (already have the sleeves) and make things look a bit better. Then figuring out what I want to do with the hot-swap; they're nice but take a lot of space!

I'll be planning things further though; just finished my "desktop", received a DAS Keyboard today

I've also replaced the front fan by 2 Noctua's that my buddy gave me:

It's interesting that they don't need any kind of screwing/modding, they just fit in and don't move at all.

I've picked up some clamps at Canadian Tire along with some washers (to reduce vibration/noise)

Hopefully I'll get my parts tomorrow; I have a day off work!

 

[Billy_5110]

Nice

I hope you ordered new real tubing like primochill...

for the loop you doesn't have many choices...

Res-RAD-CPU-RAD-GPU-Pump-res

You ordered a 320 RAD? what kind of fan you would put on this? I know 360 (3x120mm) does exist but not 320 XD Or i didn't pay attention to size before.

Yea a modular PSU look way better. When ill change my setup ill choose: Corsair AX or Cooler master Silent pro Gold. Non-Modular psu is always lots of trouble for cable management and it's messy in the case sometimes. I got a normal PSU and i had lot of trouble to hide it in my haf 932( wich is big.)

Finally, i don't know why you put 2x 120mm fan in the front, the red led big fan give a pretty ncie look to the HAF serie cases and you don't need that much airflow for a WCed cpu and GPU. The stock fan is enough to cool the HDDs.

 

[shnur]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billy_5110;12084752
Nice

I hope you ordered new real tubing like primochill...

for the loop you doesn't have many choices...

Res-RAD-CPU-RAD-GPU-Pump-res

You ordered a 320 RAD? what kind of fan you would put on this? I know 360 (3x120mm) does exist but not 320 XD Or i didn't pay attention to size before.

Yea a modular PSU look way better. When ill change my setup ill choose: Corsair AX or Cooler master Silent pro Gold. Non-Modular psu is always lots of trouble for cable management and it's messy in the case sometimes. I got a normal PSU and i had lot of trouble to hide it in my haf 932( wich is big.)

Finally, i don't know why you put 2x 120mm fan in the front, the red led big fan give a pretty ncie look to the HAF serie cases and you don't need that much airflow for a WCed cpu and GPU. The stock fan is enough to cool the HDDs.

Yup, Primochill RED tubing; I'll add some blue tubing later on, somehow I can't get the BLUE one from NCIX. Not in 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD

I got the MCR320 rad. I have 2 Scythe Ultra-Kaze fans, the third is at my friend's place; will need to pick it up.

As for the front fan being removed;

I like it more that way

I've also got a special "premium" clamp from koolance:
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=40967&vpn=CLM-19&manufacture=Koolance

I might consider getting compression fittings when I get a second card/xfire water-bridge.

 

[Billy_5110]

Good news ^^

 

[shnur]

Got a package in today; about to drain everything and make things nicer

Hopefully I'll be able to finish tonight, that way I can leak-test all day tomorrow.

At the same time I'll be doing some small sleeving for the front panel connectors, flipping the back Noctua fan to make it an intake since otherwise it creates too much negative pressure

Updates tonight or tomorrow morning

 

[shnur]

After a whole week-end of working on this (and going to work) I finally have some time to upload the pictures:

Changing the stock heatsink for a waterblock was quite easy, there were specific steps for the 6870's, the longest part was probably cutting and placing the thermal pads on the card itself. Quite happy with the end result.

Since I couldn't get my third Ultra-Kaze I just took 2 25mm fans and made a push/pull. It's actually good since there's no clearance on the middle of the top of my case.

After checking for clearance, I've realized that the space between the video card and the pump was very small, had a hard time cutting to the right length.

Afterwards I decided to do some extra sleeving and cable management on the back of the case.

Now, after a long week-end of work, I went and washed my car

So that's the end result

Quite happy with that I must say, but I already have some planned upgrades in my mind, such as a modular power supply which I will sleeve in Red/Black/Blue
A second 6870 is my mind, but I'm yet unsure how I will place the pump if I ever go cross-fire.
Thinking of getting a replacement top for my pump and compression fittings everywhere.

After that I'll be pretty much set... for some time

 

[KG363]

That's looking sweeet

 

[SaltwaterCooled]

Nice work! Personally I'd go 7/16ID over 1/2 barbs clampless, intead of compressions, but that's just me. I like the sleeker look.. Otherwise, great hardware and great build quality! I'm glad to see another MCR-320 out there, they're great rads. Same for the D-5, can't wait to see that top! Also love th Stinger block and the plexi mount.

 

[shnur]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KG363;12156568
That's looking sweeet

Thanks! I was freaked out for a while to get watercooling, but decided to go over what I'm comfortable with and it payed off

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaltwaterCooled;12183750
Nice work! Personally I'd go 7/16ID over 1/2 barbs clampless, intead of compressions, but that's just me. I like the sleeker look.. Otherwise, great hardware and great build quality! I'm glad to see another MCR-320 out there, they're great rads. Same for the D-5, can't wait to see that top! Also love th Stinger block and the plexi mount.

I had a leak on my first try so I got clamps, I love the look of clampless builds, but I think compression fittings look awesome too!
I got the MCR320 because I've yet to understand why I should buy a 100$ triple rad over a 50$ triple rad...

I'm unsure when I'll update this build though; I'm trying to figure out esthetically how I can make blue and red fit together.

 

[TamaDrumz76]

Looks good. How are temps?

 

[shnur]

CPU at stock (backed out my OC because had a few too many BSODs) is at:
IDLE - Max @ 100% load ([email protected])
31 - 53
29 - 52
32 - 53
30 - 52
As for the GPU @ 985/1105 OC with no volt increase
IDLE - Max
29 - 40

Basically amazing temps from my point of view.
I'm still trying to overclock but folding is important