CM Trooper + H100 in sidepanel mod

[Xenomorphical]

Allrighty then, about a year ago it was time for me to do the 5 year full pc upgrade again to keep up with the latest games.
The main parts from the old rig ware a Core 2 Duo and a 8800 GT, so simply outdated stuff these days.
So, time for a new build and after watching Tom's youtube vids two things ware certain i wanted: the CM Trooper case and a Corsair H100 CPU cooler.
Along the way i modded the CM Trooper sidepanel to fit a Corsair H100 in the sidepanel in push/pull.

The specs for this system i ended up with are:

Intel i7-3820, 3.60GHz, 10MB, overclocked to 4 GHz @ 1.125 V.
Corsair H100 in push/pull in the sidepanel
ASRock X79 Extreme7
CM Storm Trooper
Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC edition
Corsair Vengeance 16GB @ 1600 in quad channel
Corsair Force GT 60GB for windows 7 64bit
WD Caviar Green 500GB 7200rpm 16MB for games and documents
CM spawn gaming mouse
Thermatake challenger ultimate keyboard

And now the pictures from the build below:

Cooler master CM trooper pc case
Gigabyte gtx 560 TI 448 cores
Intel I7 3820, socket 2011, 3,6ghz CPU
3x 140mm Xigmatek red LED fan (case fans)
4x 120mm Cooler Master sickleflow red LED fan (radiator fans)
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Stock fans.

Xigmatek 140mm red LED fans installed.

The old case V/S the new case side.

The old case V/S the new case front.

Scyte Kaze Q-8, 8 channel fancontroller,
Cooler Master M2 silent pro 1000 wats PSU.

Scyte Kaze Q-8 closeup front.

Scyte Kaze Q-8 closeup rear.

Scyte Kaze Q-8 in adaptor brackets.

The Scyte Kaze Q-8 fan cables are pretty long so i can connect all the fans to it.

Scyte Kaze Q-8 installed in the top slot.


The next part is a mod i did to the case to fit the H100 radiator in the sidepanel:

Fold the mesh clips that hold the mesh up so you can take boh layers out.

I kept one layer of mesh in the final mod to keep the airflow to the fans the same to prevent strange howling sounds of the fans.

Drill out the holes in the sidepanel with a drill that is slightly larger than the screws that came with the H100.
Also, make sure to use a large drill to flatten out the area around the just drilled holes.
Take the LONG screws that came with the H100 to mount the fans and the radiator to the sidepanel.

Use the SHORT screws to mount the seccond pair of fans to the radiator like so.

Put the mesh back in and fold the clips around in their original state and you are done.

The next step is to put in the Asrock x79 extreme7.

And the Corsair Force GT 60 GB for the OS.

As well as the Corsair Vengeance 4 x 4 GB 1600 Mhz, in quad channel setup.

Still plenty of room because of the size of the case.

From the top to bottom:
X-dock
Fancontroller
DVD drive (modded the case so it slides in further so the front cover hides it)
Secondairy harddisk
SSD harddisk behind the fan

The same view from inside the case towards the front.
Because everything is mounted in the top of the case,
the two front fans can blow in cold air without being blocked by anything but the small SSD.

Everything in and connected.
All the fans are hooked up to the fancontroller, including the 4 fans from the H100.
The front fans of the case are still connected to the case fancontroller.

Final product pic 1.

Final product pic 2.

The reason i decided tyo put the H100 rad in the sidepanel is because i don't like the idea of it being in the top where the warm air is.
Also with this setup the rad gets cooled with cold air from outside of the case instead of recycling warm interior air.
On top of that the whole front air intake area of the case is free, and the air that goes trough the rad blows onto the GPU as well.

Idle room temp while typing this: 17 degrees C
CPU temp right now: 28 degrees C

Max CPU temp ever reached while gaming for hours (planetside 2/crysis 1&2/ Skyrim): 36 degrees C

Lastly a youtube vid i made for the H100 sidepanel mod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjMh34NWU8g

Hope you guys enjoyed this
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[airdeano]

welcome to the OC3D forums.

great start to a new member on the forums.

 

[AverageNinja]

Really nice mate! Though if it's just a gaming build, a FX8350 with a sabertooth board would've allow you to get a much higher end GPU

 

[Xenomorphical]

Really nice mate! Though if it's just a gaming build, a FX8350 with a sabertooth board would've allow you to get a much higher end GPU

You just try to get that into the head of person who has been going with intel since windows 95 :lol:
But yeah you are probably right tho.

 

[Xenomorphical]

Righty then time for a small update on the rig.
I finally decided to follow Tom's overclocking vid for a small 3,60 to 4,00 GHz overclock at 1,125 Volts.
The hottest core never went over 65 C in OCCT and runs at 35 C in idle with the 4 fans at 20%.
The idle temp of 35 C is in a room with a 28 C ambient temp so thats pretty nice imo

Seccond to that, my Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti 448 started showing artifacts lately so i had it replaced with Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC edition:

So far no glitchy crap going on either and way smoother gameplay in all the games as well so it was a great success

 

[Feronix]

Whoa dude, where's the cable management?
Also the H100 fits in the roof of the Storm Trooper and that way it won't blow warm air over your GPU either.

Nice card upgrade though

 

[Xenomorphical]

Actually it doesnt really matter where you put the rad since it only makes 3 degrees C difference as MacLeod showed in my other tread: http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=53355&page=2

On top of that the 660 is allways 3 degrees cooler than the CPU so the air that comes out the seccond set of rad fans is cold enough aggree?

About the cable management, i think the dvd , ssd , hdd cables can get some extra work yeah lol
Besides that there's not much more i can do about it besides moving the GPU cables a bit.
Keep in mind the 4 wires coming from and going to the rad make it very crowded as well.

Also without the flash on it looks alot better:

PS: the red wire on the left is gone as well since the cold cathode died after half a year.

 

[Innocent159]

Nice build newbie

 

[tinytomlogan]

Why oh why oh why?

*shakes head and runs off to be sick*

 

[son of spanner]

well its not were id fit a rad if your not going to take the side off much its ok
but hot air goes up so why fill the case with hot air ? wen the fans in the roof are going to pull the hot out anyway

 

[Terrifictez85]

This is a disaster waiting to happen. If that side panel gets open too aggressively............. well i think it is a little obvious what could happen.
Cudos due for being brave (is that the right word) enough to try it out.

 

[JR23]

Been there, done that. I'm afraid to say bro one day your gonna wake up and your rig will be like this....

I know it hurts, but its the truth.

JR

 

[Wraith]

Been there, done that. I'm afraid to say bro one day your gonna wake up and your rig will be like this....

I know it hurts, but its the truth.

JR

Holy crap your rad has dandruff! Time for some wash'n'go!

 

[JR23]

Holy crap your rad has dandruff! Time for some wash'n'go!

Don't worry I cleaned it! That was my old rig, well kinda the same one actually, I still have the CPU but that's all. I tend to go with incremental but radical upgrades!

 

[Xenomorphical]

Why oh why oh why?

*shakes head and runs off to be sick*

Lol i get what you mean now Tom :lol:

I decided to do a big cleaning session on the rig after a year and a half.
This also since the pics on this topic haunted me in the back of my head and i had to see for myself.

So here's a report of it:

Slight dust traces on the outside of the sidepanel where the rad is on.

The back of the fans that held the rad to the sidepanel..... used to black plastic all this.

Now where have i seen this before eh?

Strangely enough everything else behind the radiator was pretty damn clean, concidering this hasn't been opened for 1,5 years,
while the rad looks like that?

As you can see here.

Anyways, time to do it the proper way with a whole buch of new cablemanagement on top of it as well.

The rad is now in the absolute centre position of the roof, since running it in push pull the extra fans hang to far down over the mobo.
Also i wanted to see if it made a difference, as well as keep two fans in the sidepanel to fill up the gaps.

As seen here.

Idle temps in a 20 C room: 32C with a single set of fans on fans on 40% speed.
Also i decided i don't like the sickleflow fans anymore since 2 out of 4 make a added noise to the airflow sound.
So yeah when i get a job again those are the first to go, mayebe get a window, add white light so see the parts :lol:

 

[Xenomorphical]

CM Trooper + H100 drivecage mod

Allright then some things happened again with and in my rig so here's a load of pics to do most of the talking:

Asus GTX 760 OC / Corsair SP120 performance edition fans.

Red rings installed since it comes with red / blue / white

Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC V/S Asus GTX 760 OC

The new goods installed (temporary) don't mind tha ghetto powercable since this will all be changed
when the radiator moves from the roof to behind the drivecages.

The SSD had to move away from the drivebays for the upcoming radiator mod.
Merged them together into a SSHD (yes these are being sold) and they are now in the top slot.

I tested the GTX 660 Ti a week ago so here's a side by side between the old and the new:

And today i decided to move the rad to where i had it in mind so here are some more pics:

Took the upper drivecage out and drilled out the treaded holes where normally the front fan screws in to.
Turned the whole drivecage around 180 degrees so the front is now the back.

Mounted the bottom fan to the radiator and used the long screws to go trough the drivecage, trough the fan, into the radiator.
With 4 long srews this radiator is going nowhere

As you can see there is nothing blocking the path of the airflow.
This is why i moved even the SSD onto the HDD in the upper slot in the case.

Same story for the bottom fan.
The only thing that is left to do is make a custom bracket to mount to the upper drive cage fan back on.

Most of this work is because i wanted to try it, and because i wanted my 140mm fans back in the roof instead of the radiator.
Now with the fans in the roof again, i feel a cold draft over my eyes when i stand half a meter away from the top fans

So yeah just that one bracket for the front fan and it's ready. (and then probably some Corsair AF120 / 140 LED's)