Zeus

Ok, so I got some industrial strength velcro for the pump, got everything hooked up, and started filling the loop.

Everything went well for a while, then....a leak. Of course the one fitting that leaked was the one on the BOTTOM of the reservoir! :facepalm:

I tried tightening it in place, but it was still leaking, so I flipped the case over and started pulling it apart enough for me to fix it...working on that atm.

w00tz! Lowes was open till 10pm! Just barely made it! Seriously, they called '5 minutes till closing' right as I got to the plumbing isle. Now I has teflon tape! I wanted to get it just to make sure, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense that it would leak without it. I mean, it's the lowest point in the loop, right at the bottom of the res, so it's got much higher pressure on it than any other fitting...I know, I know, I should have used teflon tape on all of them, but...well...I didn't have it, so...I didn't use it. :facepalm:

Well, fitting is teflon'd and refitted, and it appears to be working so far. I'm letting it run for a while to clear out the air bubbles. Meanwhile, I'll be working through the rest of the wiring.

Ok, it's been running now for what, almost 2 hours? So far that fitting is perfectly dry, and I'm not seeing any more leaks. Also, I turned on all the fans about an hour ago, and holy crap! The radiator housings are almost cold to the touch; I'd say probably at least about 10-15 F below ambient! I can't wait to see what kind of temps I get once I actually power everything up!

btw, for anyone wondering, the pump and fans are running off a power supply off an old external HDD.

It shouldn't be able to cool below ambient...Just FYI lol

Hmm, you're right, I remember having this discussion somewhere here recently...idk, according to my thermostat my apartment was sitting at about 68F, and the rad body definitely felt cooler than the air... Either way, I'm still really excited to see what temps I get when I actually start the thing up. I checked all the fittings again this morning, and didn't see any fluid coming out, but then I realized that the pump got turned off at some point.. :facepalm: So, tonight after work and Avatar, I'm gonna finally hook up the last of the wiring and fire this thing up!

The metal will feel cooler then the air because the metal "sucks" the heat out of you quicker then the air; this is the same reason that when you get into your car on a hot day, the metal buckle will burn. The metal has a higher heat transfer, similar to the effects of water. This is why water cooling works better then air cooling. (I'll try to find you a link)

Can't wait to see this thing working.

Edit: (This lnk should do it.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer

Thanks, I was thinking it was something like that but couldn't remember what it was called.

Also, three cheers for OCZ and FedEx for getting my SSD home one day early!

Ok, finally got everything wired and up and running (well, not the second SSD..still need to check the firmware on that first, and that is not a job for 2am...).

Now, I'm not entirely sure what all the other temps are, but I know the first GPU is my onboard 9400, the second GPU is my GTX260, and the 'Core' temps are all my CPU cores. I am quite curious what the others are though, seeing as how one of them is freaking 13C.

I'm more than a little surprised at the high CPU temps, though I do take comfort in the fact that from idle to full load (once the temps stopped rising) was only a change of about 2-3C.

Should we be alarmed at the box of matches next to the case? :D

I'd guess on that 13C temp, it's probably a spot somewhere on the mainboard, away from the hot stuff. I had a similar experience with Speedfan (and that's my only complaint about it) - it's pretty vague on what some of those things are that it's measuring. But, I suppose that's the price you pay for free and generic.