Zeus

[x88x]

Ok, a few updates on this.

First, while I was at Micro Center to get the coolant, I finally get a tripod for my camera.
It's fairly nice; metal frame, extendible legs, and the best part..normally $8, open box so it was marked down to $6...and on clearance for 50% off, so $3.

So, now I can actually get stable shots without the flash...

A couple more tools; I finally got a glue gun, and I paid a visit to the local hobby store and found this weird little thing.

Basically, it's a small electric heat gun designed for model landscape shaping...it also works quite nicely for heatshrink tubing. Not quite as maneuverable as my old little butane torch, but a lot more dependable (the torch has been being really finicky lately).

So, with that in hand, I finished up the last of the wiring (for now). ..ignore the blob in the top left, that's gonna be replaced in the not too distant future.

Now to start it up and see how it does with the new equipment.

[x88x]

Ok, first, I don't think I've posted a shot of the interesting side of the interior yet.

Here ya go (the aluminum bar is because I noticed that my card was actually noticeably bending under the weight of itself and the waterblock...I'll be replacing that with something a little more...in fitting with the theme...later):

Now then, I've got it up and running now, and I'm quite impressed with two things:
1) The noise level. I think I mentioned this when I was testing the loop, but the loudest thing in this system now is definitely the pump. Has anyone tried undervolting pumps? I'm sure I don't need the high level of flow that I have, and if I could knock a few hundred RPMs off it, I'm sure it would be quite a bit quieter.

2) The temps! Ok, so they're actually slightly higher than before, but keep in mind I'm moving half the air that I was before!
old:

new:
idle:

load after 10 minutes of prime95:

Keep in mind also, that except for the first GPU temp, this is all temps with new AS5, so after a week or two everything should drop a few C.

Seeing these temps, I think I will invest in 6 more fans to set up a push-pull arrangement, but even then I doubt I'll be topping 30dBA. Maybe below 20 if I can turn down the pump!

I gotta say, all that aside, it is soooo nice to have my desktop back in working order again. It's been, what, 2 weeks?

Well then, right now I'm gonna clean up my desk a little, then put in some long overdue time working on my Borderlands character. Gotta get it ready to take on General Knoxx!

[msmrx57]

Nice progress. As far as quieting the pump, how about making a smallbox for it and packing it with foam of some kind? Just my 2 cents.

[artoodeeto]

Ok, a few updates on this.

First, while I was at Micro Center to get the coolant, I finally get a tripod for my camera.
It's fairly nice; metal frame, extendible legs, and the best part..normally $8, open box so it was marked down to $6...and on clearance for 50% off, so $3.
So, now I can actually get stable shots without the flash...

A couple more tools; I finally got a glue gun, and I paid a visit to the local hobby store and found this weird little thing.
Basically, it's a small electric heat gun designed for model landscape shaping...it also works quite nicely for heatshrink tubing. Not quite as maneuverable as my old little butane torch, but a lot more dependable (the torch has been being really finicky lately).

Nice...gotta love Micro Center's clearance stuff. I miss being within driving distance of one. I used to work at the one in Santa Clara, CA, but now that I'm near LA, the closest one is 2 hours south in Tustin. Oh well.
I like the heat gun - I need something for heat shrink tubing (been using electrical tape, then cover that with scotch tape since electrical has an annoying tendency to unstick over time). But I also will be working on model landscaping...two birds with one stone, so I'll have to check out my local hobby shop too. And I love the aluminum bar. Well, ok, I know it doesn't really fit in, but I've jury-rigged a lot of stuff like that in my own case over the years. You know, "temporary" solutions that end up being semi-permanent.

I've never tried undervolting a pump before, but I'd imagine it would be easy enough to get a resistor to knock the voltage down a few notches. Actually, come to think of it, you could probably use a fan speed controller to do it. They're usually designed for 12V connections and then you could manually control the pump speed. Dunno if that's good for the pump though, but then again, it would be unique.

I gotta say, all that aside, it is soooo nice to have my desktop back in working order again. It's been, what, 2 weeks?

I hear ya! I just got mine back together last night, after pretty much a month and a half hiatus.

[mofo]

I think pumps require a pwm to regulate the speed, but like R2 said a pwm fan controller (with enough watts) could regulate the pump.

[artoodeeto]

I *think* the following is the case, someone correct me if I'm wrong:
if it's a DC pump designed to run off the PSU +12V a fan contoller designed for the same type of connection should work fine. if it's an AC pump that has to plug into the wall, then yeah a pwm controller would be necessary.

[x88x]

I like the heat gun - I need something for heat shrink tubing (been using electrical tape, then cover that with scotch tape since electrical has an annoying tendency to unstick over time). But I also will be working on model landscaping...two birds with one stone, so I'll have to check out my local hobby shop too.

It took me a bit to find this one, it was kinda tucked into a corner behind the trains. ..though I suppose I could have just asked someone..

And I love the aluminum bar. Well, ok, I know it doesn't really fit in, but I've jury-rigged a lot of stuff like that in my own case over the years. You know, "temporary" solutions that end up being semi-permanent.

Hahaha, yeah, I get the feeling that this is gonna end up being a lot like that...especially since it's stable enough now that I wouldn't worry about moving it...

I've never tried undervolting a pump before, but I'd imagine it would be easy enough to get a resistor to knock the voltage down a few notches. Actually, come to think of it, you could probably use a fan speed controller to do it. They're usually designed for 12V connections and then you could manually control the pump speed. Dunno if that's good for the pump though, but then again, it would be unique.

I think that's what I'm gonna try; just throw a variable resistor in there to find the sweet spot, then get a resistor that value and put it in permanently. I also might build a foam-filled box for it...definitely wouldn't hurt.

[x88x]

Ok, it's been a couple months, but I'm starting this build back up again. Yay for more ridiculous upgrades.

Here's a general rough mockup of what's gonna happen (though, upside down):

Basically, I'm gonna be placing the Monsta flat on the top of the case with a layer of fans above and below. On top of the upper layer of fans will be my 140x2, with two more fans on top of that. The Monsta and 140x2 will be run in parallel to make the tubing run prettier, but I'll probably do some testing over the next few weeks to figure out if running them in series would give me enough of a performance boost to justify the awkward tubing arrangement that would be required.

I'm also gonna be lapping my CPU to try and fix the oddly high temps that it's been getting.

Oh, and I want to have this all done by tomorrow morning so I can use it for the Defcon CTF quals starting tomorrow afternoon.

I got it dismantled last night and already started running into some problems. Apparently the 140mm screw holes on the Monsta and the fans I got and the 140mm screw holes on the case and my 140x2 don't quite match up....so that's gonna be interesting... Also, since I'm moving the upper inner fans to 140mm, I'm gonna have to figure out some way to improve the tubing run from the 120x1 rad on the back. Or, I might end up dropping that rad and just having an intake fan there. We'll see.

So, modding crunch time! Wish me luck.

[x88x]

Hmghwhaneh? ..Ugh, ok, that was fun...today, not so much.

First off, no pics. Sorry, I did take some but I took them with my camera (instead of my phone), so they're at home...

So, what happened last night? And why do I feel like a steamroller just drove over me?

Well, after hours of cutting, grinding, fitting, grinding, refitting, regrinding, more cutting, drilling, and so on, I got the top ready to accept the Monsta, and got all four rads mounted. I ended up extending the mounting holes for the rear 120mm so that it would actually fit with the 140mm fans in the top. I also had to modify two of the 140mm fans to enable mounting of the 140x2 on top of the Monsta, because they normally have a solid tube around the screw. I cut out the solid tube so I could get a screw going out each side, going into the two rads. I'll post pics of that once i get back to my camera.

I also finally got the WC loop completely assembled and reorganized (I took Spawn's advice and grouped all the rads together after the blocks), and that was where I started to run into problems. First off, I'm thinking the parallel routing isn't going to work, possibly because of the mounting of the rads, possibly for some other reason, idk...I'll think about that later once my brain starts working again. Long story short, the fluid just straight up is not getting into the 140x2 radiator. I can see it in the tubes going up to it, but it never gets more than about half an inch above the top fittings on the Monsta. I think it's just that since the 140x2 is the highest point in the loop, the pressure required to push up into it is more than my pump can do (18W DDC-12V). Between the probably ~16 feet of tubing, 4 block, and 3 other rads, ~2L of fluid, and the pump being the lowest point in the loop, I'm thinking it just can't...hmm, actually, come to think of it, it might just be that there's no way to push the air out of that rad...hmmmm...

IDK, anyways, like I said, I'll figure that out later. Worst case, I'll redesign the loop to a full series design.

Now, after about 10 hours of work on this thing last night, I finally got it assembled, filled (well, except for that pesky 140x2 rad) and leak free...by this point it was 5AM, so I left the fans and pump running and promptly collapsed into bed.

As it turns out, the little power brick I use for testing fans/etc wasn't quite up to the task, because it is only rated to 2A, and with everything hooked up, I was pulling ~3.5A... By the time I woke up (~11AM...I had my alarm set for 8, but apparently when I blew my circuit breaker earlier that night I had set my alarm clock to the whenever AM instead of PM..so my alarm never went off...fortunately my work schedule is very flexible), the fans were going in bursts, and the power brick was hot to the touch...I don't think I'll be doing that again.

So, by the time I woke up/showered/started functioning again, all the air was out of the lower portion of the loop (below the 140x2), and everything was ready to test.

....
....
....

...and... My GPU isn't working.

When I pull my GTX260, the onboard works just fine, but with it in it never puts out video, and the the debug code on the MBB, that's because the GPU is bad.

So, that's out of the running for the weekend, and I had no time to test it, but I'm really hoping that it's not actually dead.

[x88x]

Ok, I've got pics, good news, and bad news.

First, pics!

Since I was going from a 140x2 rad on the roof to a 140x3, I obviously needed to make the hole bigger. So, several hours of measuring, grinding, fitting, re-grinding, etc later, I had this:
Nice big hole for my new rad.

Monsta fitted to roof:

That was Thursday night. ...a looong Thursday night... I didn't take any pics of the semi-finished product then, but it's mostly like it is now except for the wiring bits I did today.

To make the wiring to the fans up top more sane, I'm combining them all into a single line that'll then run down through a tiny hole in the back of the case. A side benefit of this is that I won't have to tear apart my fan power splitter because now I'll only have 12 connections!

And the finished product (for now...it's still far from finished, but I'm waiting on some tubing to redo the loop to pull the two top rads into series):

Ok, so the good news is that my GPU was just fine! I just forgot that if I plug anything into SATA ports 2 or 3 on my MBB, that the PCIe graphics stops working...I have no fsking clue why, but it does, and I only need 3 of the 6 ports, so I ignore it.

Bad(ish) news is that my idle temps are exactly the same as they were before When I redo the loop I'm going to lap my CPU, and hopefully that'll take care of that part anyways.
/shrugs
Oh well, the point of this was more to future proof, and prepare for my eventually adding more stuff to the loop than to improve my current temps anyways.