ThatOneGuy
New member
So, no lie there I was, deep within the Korean jungle, in hot pursuit... but enough about last Friday at the bar, that's not the story I came here to tell.
*Disclaimer: All but two of the photos were taken with a potato... I mean, a cellphone.
I first got into "building" computers at an early age, and by that, I mean that my grandfather would bring home random computer bits from work for me to disassemble. For the next ten years, nothing much happened. School, work, friends, and poor decisions; they all kept me out and about.
Four years ago, I got married, started a family, and joined the army. Not necessarily in that order. Finding myself with obligations at home and with a steady paycheck, I discovered the joys of computers. Starting off with a case I scavenged from the Dumptser Gods and an assortment of random parts lying about, I built my first computer. It was barely capable of doing much more than turning on, but by the Gods it was mine and I'd made it myself. Scoring a great deal on a Corsair 800D, I decided to transplant it into its new case, along with a few upgrades.
It was at that point that I realized I'd underestimated the size of this case. Seriously, it was way larger than I had anticipated. (Obligatory "That's what She said" joke) that's why the PSU was on top; the connectors weren't long enough to reach the MB power socket at the top of the board.
At this point, the specs are, as best I can recall, as follows:
8GB of 1333Mhz DDR2 RAM
Some AMD 3-core CPU running about 3-ish Ghz
500 watt PSU
Asus Blu-Ray burner
Corsair H100 CPU Cooler
Kingwin FPX-002 fan controller
Assorted HHDs (4 in total)
And an Olive Drab paint job.
And yes, those are bread ties holding the cables together.
It lived in this configuration for about 3 months, from the holiday season of '13 until the spring of '14. At that time, I completely overhauled the rig, the only original parts being the case, PSU, and Optical drive. Miscellaneous screws and cables may have migrated as well. Honestly, the only reason it stayed in the case was because the replacement hadn't come in yet.
After nearly a month of waiting due to a billing issue and warehouse inventories among other things, my new case from NZXT came in and it was time to have some fun.
I went all out on this one, far beyond the scope of my experience and well outside of my comfort zone. Can you tell that this was my first ever water-cooled build?
This is also the point at which I realized that just because something came with fancy LEDs, doesn't mean you have to use them. This thing looks like it belongs in Vegas.
Being that I was bleeding the system and needed to access the rads, and also a strong fear of getting my GPU wet, neither the drive bays nor the GPU are installed here. And sadly, I didn't take pictures of it when I put it all back together.
Specifications:
AMD FX 8350 4.0GHz 8 Core CPU (running @ 4.4GHz)
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard
Kiongston HyperX 1866MHz RAM - 4x 8GB
EVGA GTX 760 GPU
Crucial M500 120GB SSD
Toshiba 3TB HDD Storage Drive
850 Watt modular power supply
ASUS BluRay Burner
NZXT Switch 630 Windowed Edition in Matte Black
The liquid cooling:
-XSPC Parts:
EX360 360mm Multiport Radiator
EX240 240mm Multiport Radiator
Raystorm CPU Block
X20 750ml Pump / Reservoir Bay
-Other parts:
10 Feet of 1/2" ID 3/4" OD tubing
2L of Feser One UV Reactive red Coolant
Compression Fittings
There were a few more cables that aren't pictured here, but this is more or less what I had to deal with. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the completed cable management at this point, but I do have some of the finished product, below.
After carefully assembling it, I got to enjoy it for all of 2 months before I had to ship off across the pond (the big one), entrusting my precious creation to the care of the moving company.
Poor choice.
The movers that shipped it from the US to Korea managed to break off one of the feet of the case (Visible in the lower-left of the photo).
Also, at some point during shipping, the interior pressure of the coolant loop dropped enough to collapse all of the tubing. This ended up forcing me to re-plumb the whole thing.
3 nerve-wracking, leak springing, Oh-God-I-Wish-I-Had-Another-Hand hours later, this is what I was left with.
Note to self: add a drain valve on the next iteration.
All things considered, it came out quite well.
After trimming nearly 30cm of excess tubing, I think it looks much nicer like this. Additionally, I was able to free up a lot of space for drives after I relocated the 240mm radiator, and I was even able to add a couple more fans.
Last but not least, the final cable management shot. And no more bread ties!
So pretty... I really like the way the red, black, and white contrast with one another, and yet still somehow complement as well.
You can find all of the pictures I have of the build in the following album:
Imgur Album
If you would like any additional pictures, have any feedback or criticism, or anything of the sort, just drop me a comment. Thanks for having a look!
*Disclaimer: All but two of the photos were taken with a potato... I mean, a cellphone.
I first got into "building" computers at an early age, and by that, I mean that my grandfather would bring home random computer bits from work for me to disassemble. For the next ten years, nothing much happened. School, work, friends, and poor decisions; they all kept me out and about.
Four years ago, I got married, started a family, and joined the army. Not necessarily in that order. Finding myself with obligations at home and with a steady paycheck, I discovered the joys of computers. Starting off with a case I scavenged from the Dumptser Gods and an assortment of random parts lying about, I built my first computer. It was barely capable of doing much more than turning on, but by the Gods it was mine and I'd made it myself. Scoring a great deal on a Corsair 800D, I decided to transplant it into its new case, along with a few upgrades.
It was at that point that I realized I'd underestimated the size of this case. Seriously, it was way larger than I had anticipated. (Obligatory "That's what She said" joke) that's why the PSU was on top; the connectors weren't long enough to reach the MB power socket at the top of the board.
At this point, the specs are, as best I can recall, as follows:
8GB of 1333Mhz DDR2 RAM
Some AMD 3-core CPU running about 3-ish Ghz
500 watt PSU
Asus Blu-Ray burner
Corsair H100 CPU Cooler
Kingwin FPX-002 fan controller
Assorted HHDs (4 in total)
And an Olive Drab paint job.
And yes, those are bread ties holding the cables together.
It lived in this configuration for about 3 months, from the holiday season of '13 until the spring of '14. At that time, I completely overhauled the rig, the only original parts being the case, PSU, and Optical drive. Miscellaneous screws and cables may have migrated as well. Honestly, the only reason it stayed in the case was because the replacement hadn't come in yet.
After nearly a month of waiting due to a billing issue and warehouse inventories among other things, my new case from NZXT came in and it was time to have some fun.
I went all out on this one, far beyond the scope of my experience and well outside of my comfort zone. Can you tell that this was my first ever water-cooled build?
This is also the point at which I realized that just because something came with fancy LEDs, doesn't mean you have to use them. This thing looks like it belongs in Vegas.
Being that I was bleeding the system and needed to access the rads, and also a strong fear of getting my GPU wet, neither the drive bays nor the GPU are installed here. And sadly, I didn't take pictures of it when I put it all back together.
Specifications:
AMD FX 8350 4.0GHz 8 Core CPU (running @ 4.4GHz)
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard
Kiongston HyperX 1866MHz RAM - 4x 8GB
EVGA GTX 760 GPU
Crucial M500 120GB SSD
Toshiba 3TB HDD Storage Drive
850 Watt modular power supply
ASUS BluRay Burner
NZXT Switch 630 Windowed Edition in Matte Black
The liquid cooling:
-XSPC Parts:
EX360 360mm Multiport Radiator
EX240 240mm Multiport Radiator
Raystorm CPU Block
X20 750ml Pump / Reservoir Bay
-Other parts:
10 Feet of 1/2" ID 3/4" OD tubing
2L of Feser One UV Reactive red Coolant
Compression Fittings
There were a few more cables that aren't pictured here, but this is more or less what I had to deal with. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the completed cable management at this point, but I do have some of the finished product, below.
After carefully assembling it, I got to enjoy it for all of 2 months before I had to ship off across the pond (the big one), entrusting my precious creation to the care of the moving company.
Poor choice.
The movers that shipped it from the US to Korea managed to break off one of the feet of the case (Visible in the lower-left of the photo).
Also, at some point during shipping, the interior pressure of the coolant loop dropped enough to collapse all of the tubing. This ended up forcing me to re-plumb the whole thing.
3 nerve-wracking, leak springing, Oh-God-I-Wish-I-Had-Another-Hand hours later, this is what I was left with.
Note to self: add a drain valve on the next iteration.
All things considered, it came out quite well.
After trimming nearly 30cm of excess tubing, I think it looks much nicer like this. Additionally, I was able to free up a lot of space for drives after I relocated the 240mm radiator, and I was even able to add a couple more fans.
Last but not least, the final cable management shot. And no more bread ties!
So pretty... I really like the way the red, black, and white contrast with one another, and yet still somehow complement as well.
You can find all of the pictures I have of the build in the following album:
Imgur Album
If you would like any additional pictures, have any feedback or criticism, or anything of the sort, just drop me a comment. Thanks for having a look!
entertaining stuff 
