I am oldskool.

Before.

ukUxzQN.jpg


I actually thought that the black inside part was nickle coated, but nope.

Och28Lw.jpg


All copper ! Before.

nqsu55r.jpg


After.

p6XzbhA.jpg


For the inside I used a Dremel wire brush and then compound on a polishing attachment. For the bottom I went P1200, P1500, P2000 and then P3000. Not a mirror but hey, it'll do :)
 
AlienALX said:
For the inside I used a Dremel wire brush and then compound on a polishing attachment. For the bottom I went P1200, P1500, P2000 and then P3000. Not a mirror but hey, it'll do :)
Click to expand...

Never understood why people did lapping to mirror finish. TIM works best when it can fill the imperfections of a somewhat "rough" surface. What you have done there is perfect for optimal cooling.
 
Warchild said:
Never understood why people did lapping to mirror finish. TIM works best when it can fill the imperfections of a somewhat "rough" surface. What you have done there is perfect for optimal cooling.
Click to expand...

TBH mate as long as there isn't a green or black film over it I am happy. It's oxidisation that will cause poor cooling. I will give it one last polish before I fit it, then rely on the paste to keep that area from the air. The cold plate is shiny and smooth. The rest? it's full of tiny little pits. I think it was cast, not machined.

Oh yeah the Super Glue came, so today it's "Fun with O-Rings". Will crack on with that a bit later.
 
For the inside, the pitting is likely (theoretically - in my head) to improve the heat transfer as there will be more surface area for the water to make contact with and it will cause more turbulence.

For the bottom it's about getting as much metal to make contact with the cpu or at least be as close to it. That means being as flat as reasonably possible. Flat != shiny. Perfectly possible for something to be mirror-shiny and not flat. A ball bearing for example - shiny but clearly not flat.

If you have trouble with the superglue setting, you could try spraying one side with activator. Search for "Mitre Adhesive" and you'll find some - not sure if I can post the links. It's basically superglue and a spray that causes it to set instantly on contact. Not sure if there would be any problem with spraying it on the nitrile rubber...that's for you to Google if you need it :-D
 
AlienALX said:
TBH mate as long as there isn't a green or black film over it I am happy. It's oxidisation that will cause poor cooling. I will give it one last polish before I fit it, then rely on the paste to keep that area from the air. The cold plate is shiny and smooth. The rest? it's full of tiny little pits. I think it was cast, not machined.

Oh yeah the Super Glue came, so today it's "Fun with O-Rings". Will crack on with that a bit later.
Click to expand...

I think your current finish on that block is fantastic. The pits unless deep can be ignored. There was a test once on martinslab and "your" finish resulted in lower temps than a mirror finish.

In the end.. suggestion was to take a wet n dry and roughen up the block slightly. But who does that with a new block?
 
Warchild said:
I think your current finish on that block is fantastic. The pits unless deep can be ignored. There was a test once on martinslab and "your" finish resulted in lower temps than a mirror finish.

In the end.. suggestion was to take a wet n dry and roughen up the block slightly. But who does that with a new block?
Click to expand...

me if I had known about it lol. I totally get it though. I guess that is why on some blocks no matter how much you clean them with alcohol you always seem to get grey on the cloth. Probably because of those pits.

I've got me some Kryonaut Grizzly for this build. Direct to die? yeah, that's gonna be one cool ass Athlon lol.
 
Making Orings 101. First you need a block and some nitrile rubber.

m5W4GCB.jpg


Remove old Oring and fit new.

qr5WVky.jpg


Mark, cut (making sure the cuts are perfectly straight)

CirYC8n.jpg


And...

bGDEqbM.jpg


OK so I admit it took me two attempts. Lessons learned from mistake... 1, you need a tiny amount of super glue. 2, you only get one shot. If you miss the glue dries and goes hard and then the Oring will not bond. So you can either shave it off and try again, or just start again like I did.

I also got out the heat gun and Isoprop and made the PSU a little more palatable.

rLRJTNy.jpg
 
Update. So yesterday I decided to test the hardware itself, after making the Oring and modding the PSU. It's been an awful long time since I used XP and I have had to learn where everything is again. I first tried to install Windows 2000 onto a 16gb CF card but then realised the card was as slow as balls. 20/25. So I gave up on that (hours wasted) and then moved to XP on the IDE drive. I installed a Dell version first (which took a while) and then realised it wouldn't take my genuine XP serial so I scrubbed that install and installed a hacked version (WTG Microsoft, forcing people to do that because you have about 200 versions of XP that all need different serials !). Any way I got that on and then I started having big issues.

The GPU driver went on and immediately dropped the res to 640x480 and 4 bit colour. That is 16 colours. Not 16 bit, but 16 lol. I tried various different drivers to no avail and almost gave up. Then I thought that instead of constantly keep installing and removing drivers I should look into the problem. Eventually I wound up looking at the monitor properties, and noticed a tab that said "Hide modes this monitor can not display". According to who? Microsoft?

I disabled that and immediately it jumped to 1024x600 (the full res of my mini test screen) and 32 bit colour.

Then I spent hours trying to find the drivers for it. Even the ones on Asus's site were wrong. So that gobbled up loads of time continually moving from PC to PC with a memory stick.

In the end I got there but I still need to locate and install the sound driver. It doesn't help that all of the mainstream web browsers no longer support XP so you can't install them, and the stock IE won't connect to any websites ffs.

I forgot what days of fighting with software and drivers were like if I am honest. It's just all so easy these days !
 
AlienALX said:
Update. So yesterday I decided to test the hardware itself, after making the Oring and modding the PSU. It's been an awful long time since I used XP and I have had to learn where everything is again. I first tried to install Windows 2000 onto a 16gb CF card but then realised the card was as slow as balls. 20/25. So I gave up on that (hours wasted) and then moved to XP on the IDE drive. I installed a Dell version first (which took a while) and then realised it wouldn't take my genuine XP serial so I scrubbed that install and installed a hacked version (WTG Microsoft, forcing people to do that because you have about 200 versions of XP that all need different serials !). Any way I got that on and then I started having big issues.

The GPU driver went on and immediately dropped the res to 640x480 and 4 bit colour. That is 16 colours. Not 16 bit, but 16 lol. I tried various different drivers to no avail and almost gave up. Then I thought that instead of constantly keep installing and removing drivers I should look into the problem. Eventually I wound up looking at the monitor properties, and noticed a tab that said "Hide modes this monitor can not display". According to who? Microsoft?

I disabled that and immediately it jumped to 1024x600 (the full res of my mini test screen) and 32 bit colour.

Then I spent hours trying to find the drivers for it. Even the ones on Asus's site were wrong. So that gobbled up loads of time continually moving from PC to PC with a memory stick.

In the end I got there but I still need to locate and install the sound driver. It doesn't help that all of the mainstream web browsers no longer support XP so you can't install them, and the stock IE won't connect to any websites ffs.

I forgot what days of fighting with software and drivers were like if I am honest. It's just all so easy these days !
Click to expand...

Sounds like you had a fun day :D I think Firefox 52 is the last version to support XP so I'd guess you can still download and install that
 
Ahh the joys of ancient hardware. :) Love this project man, keep hammering at it! I wonder if you'll be relegated to an ancient version of Internet Explorer. :D That's a fate worse than death, LOL!
 
g0ggles1994 said:
Ah damn it, I think if you go back a few versions, like 48 or something you'll probably get it to work.
Click to expand...

A mate of mine has sent me two to try. Plus he has also sent me the missing drivers, so I think I will be OK. It's the drivers that are hard to find, there were about six versions of this mobo. This is the elite tier with the gigabit network card. The only thing it is missing is SATA itself, but that one cost a king's ransom.

Not done anything today. Mum came over earlier, then the water went off and I was messing around all day trying to get that sorted. Then I had a nap.

However, the 4gb compact flash card (with the really quick RWs) arrived and I am now reinstalling Windows again. I want it booting off of those, the 20gb hard drive whines and will really get on my nerves.

I am also looking at 17" LCD monitors (1280x1024 IIRC) and a small workstation to set it up on. I want it separate from my other rigs, plus could you imagine 1440p on a 64mb GPU? lol.
 
Best update yet :D The block is now being machined. Here is the block being milled.

mvtDT0J.jpg


And to size.

vU6mQUo.jpg


I had a choice of chamfered or rounded edge. I chose rounded.

vKk2VNr.jpg


And the edge finish from the mill.

qTsSHIJ.jpg


I will be polishing that out myself :)
 
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