Zeus

[x88x]

Ok, so after my GTX260 died, I had to pull it out for RMA (I love EVGA ), so...down it all comes again..

Opening this piece, we have me lovely draining blob:

And in place:

Now, one thing to anyone new to watercooling, or just anyone designing a loop right now. Forget rad placement, forget pump placement, forget tubing conservation...the single most important thing in your loop is making a way for you to easily fill and drain it. With my first incarnation of this loop in this case I had filling down, but not draining. By this time tomorrow hopefully I'll finally have draining as well. ...it took me about 3 hours to drain a little over 2L from this loop...never again...

GPU is back in its stock cooler now, all screwed in and ready to go back to EVGA. All I need now is an antistatic bag big enough to cover it...

[x88x]

So on Sunday I decided to finally break down my loop and get my GPU back in it...and while I was at it, lapp my CPU. The GPU went fine, and so did the lapping, but when I got everything back up and running, the MBB said its NB was dead... Ok, ok, so the SATA controller was interacting weird with the PCIe system for as long as I can remember, so I wasn't horribly surprised that it eventually went further wrong...I definitely wasn't expecting it, what with it running for almost 2 years without issue, but hey, stuff breaks for no reason sometimes.. So, I picked up a new MBB at microcenter on Tuesday, drained me loop last night, and then tonight got my CPU and RAM into the new MBB and booted it up in a testbed config...

...yeah....I'm starting to think I may have killed my CPU... Tomorrow I'm gonna tear down my fileserver and throw its CPU into the new MBB, see if it works. ..I'm really hoping I just got a DOA board, but...well, given the current evidence I'm not that hopeful.

[x88x]

Strike that, reverse it..

I decided to try powering it up again one last time before I went to bed, and... it works! ...turns out I was watching the wrong monitor...stupid cable nest.. Now to curl up with Dune for half an hour or so, then get a few hours' sleep before I have to get up.

[SXRguyinMA]

yay for non-broken stuff!

[artoodeeto]

LOL! reminds me of a time years ago I upgraded my processor, turned the computer back on and...black screen. No picture...nada. tore my hair out for half an hour before I realized I hadn't plugged the monitor back in.
One drain method that works well for me, and takes under a minute when done right, you've probably seen in my worklog the way I used an air compressor. The only modification I need to make to make it easier is installing some kind of valve between my reservoirs (currently I have to pinch the connecting tube shut) because without the valve or pinching it shut, it ends up blowing air from one reservoir to the other and back out. Otherwise, it works great

[x88x]

On my most recent drain I found a method that works really great for my system. I flip it upside down, then take the plug out and replace it with a 1/2" fitting connected to ~1ft of 1/2ID 5/8OD tubing (nice and thin walls so I can pinch it off with a clamp). I then put a clamp on the tubing, holding it closed (as seen in the pic at the top of this page), flip it back right-side-up, and let it gravity-drain into a bottle. Then, once it stops flowing from gravity, I turn on the pump and it pushes out most of the remaining fluid. When the pump runs out of liquid easily available, I just push the tub under the surface of the liquid in the bottle and it's a sealed system again, so the pump pushes air for a short time (usually less than a second; any longer and I would worry) and the air pushes liquid through into the pump and out into the bottle. Once I had it hooked up I was able to drain ~80-90% of my loop (ie, enough to start pulling stuff out but there's still fluid in the rads) in maybe a minute.

[x88x]

I have a fan on my MBB now. Stupid Asus, making a ridiculous, non-standard heatsink.

Now, because the MBB has no onboard video and I couldn't find one with onboard nVidia video for under $100, so I have to pull out my old 8600 GTS to push all my monitors. So, since I can't have a real HS/F in my case, I was quite happy to discover that the NB waterblock that I had on my old MBB fits just right onto the mounting holes for the GPU chip. Unfortunately, I have no heatsinks for the RAM, so I'm gonna be running over to microcenter in the morning to pick some up, but here's a shot of all the components in place on the table.

[SXRguyinMA]

nice

[billygoat333]

awesome

[Snowman]

Unfortunately, I have no heatsinks for the RAM, so I'm gonna be running over to microcenter in the morning to pick some up,

Must be nice to be able to just run to micro center... closest place with even the slightest thing close to what I need is an hour away and I guarantee they dont have ram sinks.