BackDraft Evo (a Nanoxia DS1 Build)

[23RO_UK]

Hey all

I'm new to the forum and have a build ongoing that I'd like to share with you.

First things first to bring you up to date on the current state of play, please bare with me as the build is already under-way; it's been subject to change thus far and likely will be changed further still lol...

BackDraft Evo...


BackDraft is a concept I’ve been toying with for some time (12 months plus), the basic brief is for a high air flow water/hybrid cooled rig for general use, video encoding, gaming and to satisfy my passion for overclocking and benchmarking; as both the CPU and GPU will be overclocked a heavy emphasis will be on cooling but I also want for it to be nigh on silent and energy efficient.


As the name suggests it will be a project that evolves in stages.


2 of the principle components -


An EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard 8D

My performance lapped 2600K

And here is some more of the pre build stockpile just after Christmas

The case I’ve opted to use is the Nanoxia Deep Silence 1

Very R4 I think you’ll agree

(it wouldn't surprise me if they are manufactured at the same facility lol)

The first nice touch is the pop up I/O panel

Next up we have in the rear area of the top cover a sliding mechanism called "Air Chimney" by Nanoxia, raising this panel up gives any underlying fans the breathing room needed while still offering some sound encapsulation.

Pop open the front and you have two slider variety fan controllers (three channels apiece).

Three 5.25" drive bays and below those there are two 120mm fan mounting points behind the bottom door with removable mesh dust filters.

Here are a couple of features I'd like to mention -

Another well thought out touch.

The eight hard drive bays are divided into three cages, two for three and one for two drives;thanks to the two modular bays and the secondary placement possibility, you can pretty much mix an match to suit your requirements.



And now to strip it down...

Front panel PCB

From left to right you - reset button, power button, two three channel fan connections and a power connection for the fan controller.

The associated connections

From left to right - power switch IO, power LED IO, reset button IO, two groups of three male (3 pin) fan connections and a 4 pin molex connection which powers the fan controller.

Roof mounted IO panel PCB

From left to right - two USB 2, two USB 3 and HD/AC97 audio.

The associated motherboard connections

From left to right - USB 3, USB 2 and HD/AC97 audio.



And now finally the chassis in it's naked form.

I've replaced the standard tubing grommets with the solid rubber grommets provided (another nice touch), I'd rather they weren't there in the first instance but hey that's me lol.

You have around 20 mm of space behind the motherboard tray to route cables.

Right impressions on the chassis so far...


Nice build quality
Some well thought out features
You can mount 240 radiators in the roof and horizontally in the front of the case out of the box


The bloody cheap case feet have to go!!!

 

[barnsley]

I love the Nanoxia! I nearly bought one myself. I'm going to watch this with interest.

 

[sheroo]

Looks interesting - I like loads of piccies.

 

[alpenwasser]

Yes, this is a nice case and it's looking like an interesting build.

Question: How much better temps do you get with the lapped CPU?

 

[23RO_UK]

I love the Nanoxia! I nearly bought one myself. I'm going to watch this with interest.

More on the way

Looks interesting - I like loads of piccies.

Plenty of those to follow

Yes, this is a nice case and it's looking like an interesting build.

Question: How much better temps do you get with the lapped CPU?

I knocked 5-6°C off my load temps

 

[23RO_UK]

12th March 2013

I finished stripping down my former rig this morning and couldn't resist doing a size comparison (the smaller chassis is that of a Silverstone PS07).

And now on to the subject of case feet...

The standard case feet on the DS1 are just nasty and cheap for lack of a better word, my only gripe of the entire case.



Now spot the difference

Before

After



Some of MNPCTech's finest Silver Diamond Knurl Case Feet


Pure quality and I love em!!!

I've used the washers that come with the feet as spacers on the underside of the chassis and 4 x 6-32 25mm long screws to mount them, end result = PERFECTION

 

[23RO_UK]

The DS1 has provision to mout fans as follows -


Front: 120 mm x 2 (included)
Rear: 140 mm fan x 1 (included)
Side: 120/140 mm x1 (optional)
Top: 120/140 mm x2 (optional)
Floor: 120/140 mm x1 (optional)



These are the fans that come with the case (2 x 120mm mounted in the front and 1 x 140 mounted as the rear extract)

For obvious reasons I won't be using these.


My choice in weapon so to speak will be these...

They are Xilence 2CF's (the 2CF prefix stands for 2 Component Fan)

Yes I've gone for German yet again lol

Other than being aesthetically pleasing and well built (they use a semi rubberised cable braid) they are designed so that the vibration of the fan is effectively damped due to the rubber compound frame; the rubber frame in turn serves as a stable and vibration retardant base for the fan motor.


Further more they tie in to perfection with the colouration of the motherboard

 

[23RO_UK]

Time to do some testing of the components and some mocking up -


First up the Installation of the motherboard

Looking at that I couldn't of placed the holes for cable routing any better if I designed the case myself



Now you only have to do a web review search or pick up a recent publication and you'll see how highly regarded the new Corsair H100i is; so how do you improve it's already excellent performance?

Well you could use fans that produce a higher static pressure than the standard Corsair fans, you could front and back the H100i with two pairs of fans in a push/pull config, you can even use a shroud to eliminate the deadspot of the push config fans...

Me, I've done all three of the above



The H100i will be mounted vertically at the front of the case hence the name of the build - BackDraft



First up is the high static pressure push fan element of the build

Two AP15's, a personal favourite, tried, tested and in my opinion the best radiator fans money can buy.


Another component of the build is the BitFenix Recon

I'm not a fan of the fixed (glued in place spaghetti) but this is one very very impressive bit of kit especially when used with the third party Phoebetria software; despite it still being an evolving Beta application it functions far better than BitFenix's own Recon control software (please note it doesn't yet support the mobile phone app).

Download Link


And here we have the H100i unit with two pre installed Xilence 2CF's (the pull element) and a 30mm Pulse Modding 240 shroud.

 

[23RO_UK]

And now the installation of the H100i and AP15's

Problem free install, always a good thing

 

[sheroo]

The installation of that H100i looks excellent. Its quite dramatic how different the blade design of those fans are when you compare them with the standard Corsair fans or the SP120's. I found the stock grey Corsair fans to be utter crap - noisy and ugly - they really should bundle a proper pair of pmw SP120's with it.

 

[Mgutierrez33]

Mother of God... that lapping job you did on the CPU turned out beautifully! Sub'd!

:beerchug:

 

[23RO_UK]

AND THIS IS WHERE THINGS WENT PEAR SHAPED

Sequence of events -

• New project build assembled, wired up and ready for first start.
• Power on.
• Flawless, not a single error code or beep and straight into the BIOS.
• It’s then I notice the CPU temp 68, 69, 70... yup climbing rapidly with no sign of leveling out.
• Instant switch off and power down.
• Check the H100i block/pump and backplate YET AGAIN (pc ocd at play here).
• All good.
• hmmmm
• Power on again and much the same, this time however I’m looking at the interior of the case as it powers up.
• H100i block illuminates with white illuminated logo which then goes bright yellow, pale yellow, muddy brown then off...
• It repeats this process this process twice before a loud shrill squeal is heard to come from the block and I once again power down before the CPU exceeds 90 degrees C!!!!!
• The *CENSORED FOR REASONS OF POLITENESS* CPU is on stock settings!!!!!
• At this point I uninstall the H100i.
• I then install a stock out of the box Intel reference CPU cooler and low and behold the CPU temp settles at 30 degrees C...

Now all I can say at this point is Corsair I hope your Customer Services are up to speed because your quality control and product truly SUCK!!!!!

 

[sheroo]

I hope your rma goes smoothly. I had some trepidation about getting the AIO units, but I have both the H80i & H100i, and other than those noisy crappy ugly grey fans they supply with them, oh and the lack of a spare set of screws to mount fans in push/pull (H100i), they have worked flawlessly. Having said that I haven't buggered about with firmware updates and the Link s/w, but the temps are good.

 

[Feronix]

Good job on the case feet mod. That's one thing that's always annoyed me about Nanoxia and Fractal cases

 

[alpenwasser]

[...rant...]

It would appear somebody is having a rather stressful morning... :lol:

Seriously though, I know how much it sucks when something breaks, especially if it's a
crucial component of a build. Even if it's RMA'd without trouble, it's still a rather big hassle
to go through.

Regardless of how good your QC is, you're never going to be able to test 100% of the units.
I remember watching the most recent episode of the Tek where they had Josh Smith from
Fractal as a guest, and he said that they test 20 % of their cases coming off the assembly
line, and that that is a rather high percentage. That still leaves 80 % of manufactured products
open to defects that won't be caught.

I don't know how Corsair does this with their AIO coolers, it might be completely different,
but I just thought I'd mention this.

Hope everything gets fixed soon for you though.

 

[alienware]

They're made and tested (or rather not tested) by Coolit. The same company who completely screwed me over when I had an Eco leak and ruin my board and GPU.

They're a shoddy Canadian outfit, incapable of understanding basic customer service.

Corsair will see you right

 

[Mgutierrez33]

WOW... I thought I had it bad when JUST the R in my RGB for my H100i stopped working. That's truly haggard, sorry to hear that man. With any luck moving forward this should be a painless process, if not time consuming otherwise :-/

 

[Epiales74]

Any reason you decided to go with the h100i & not a proper watercooled setup?

PS. great job so far

 

[wassupdoc]

I love the build and colour scheme so far i hope you have a decent experience with the RMA, corsair are always great and speedy in my experience

 

[23RO_UK]

Blimey what a response

Hey all

I'm new to the forum and have a build ongoing that I'd like to share with you.

First things first to bring you up to date on the current state of play, please bare with me as the build is already under-way; it's been subject to change thus far and likely will be changed further still lol...

First of all as per my first post ^^^

I hope your rma goes smoothly. I had some trepidation about getting the AIO units, but I have both the H80i & H100i, and other than those noisy crappy ugly grey fans they supply with them, oh and the lack of a spare set of screws to mount fans in push/pull (H100i), they have worked flawlessly. Having said that I haven't buggered about with firmware updates and the Link s/w, but the temps are good.

As regards the RMA scroll down, I had actually had both the Antec KÜHLER H2O 620 and later the 920 AIO's and both were superb bits of kits and functioned flawlessly.

Good job on the case feet mod. That's one thing that's always annoyed me about Nanoxia and Fractal cases

Cheers, MNPCTechs finest and they make a HUGE difference

It would appear somebody is having a rather stressful morning... :lol:

Seriously though, I know how much it sucks when something breaks, especially if it's a
crucial component of a build. Even if it's RMA'd without trouble, it's still a rather big hassle
to go through.

Regardless of how good your QC is, you're never going to be able to test 100% of the units.
I remember watching the most recent episode of the Tek where they had Josh Smith from
Fractal as a guest, and he said that they test 20 % of their cases coming off the assembly
line, and that that is a rather high percentage. That still leaves 80 % of manufactured products
open to defects that won't be caught.

I don't know how Corsair does this with their AIO coolers, it might be completely different,
but I just thought I'd mention this.

Hope everything gets fixed soon for you though.

Someone did indeed have a bad morning when it happened yes :angry:

I can actually almost laugh about the pig sh*t fiasco it turned into, well now I can :lol:

They're made and tested (or rather not tested) by Coolit. The same company who completely screwed me over when I had an Eco leak and ruin my board and GPU.

They're a shoddy Canadian outfit, incapable of understanding basic customer service.

Corsair will see you right

Don't even go down the lines of CoolIT...

WOW... I thought I had it bad when JUST the R in my RGB for my H100i stopped working. That's truly haggard, sorry to hear that man. With any luck moving forward this should be a painless process, if not time consuming otherwise :-/

You got off lightly mate (no pun intended)

Any reason you decided to go with the h100i & not a proper watercooled setup?

PS. great job so far

Originally I went for the H100i on the backs of all the rave reviews it had received and my own experience with the Antec AIO's.

Ps. Thank you

I love the build and colour scheme so far i hope you have a decent experience with the RMA, corsair are always great and speedy in my experience

Thank you with reference to the colour scheme


To Cut a long story short...

Corsair expected me to return the H100i back to the Netherlands no less at my own expense, when I queried this they said I could indeed RMA the unit back to the vender but wouldn't get the (please note) LATEST VERSION of the H100i; basically it now transpires they have now modified the design of the H100i.

I basically gave up trying after 2 weeks of being bounced from pillar to post and binned the bloody thing in sheer annoyance and utter contempt.