ケイ - Watercooled Enthoo Primo

[airdeano]

Bleeding is taking forever.

the rad lower than the pump/res will make it hard to bleed. if you can pull
the pump/res out and lay the case back, it'll help a lot to relieve the
pressure in the lower rad and burp the air blockage to the GPU.. then the
upper rad...as long as the res is higher, the air will work towards the res.

 

[Kei]

Cheers for the info. Gave it a lot of moving around, adjusting the pump speed and shifting the pump angles which finally dealt with the remainder of the air.

I've put it all back together now, sadly somewhere during the process my ancient enermax fan controller has gotten damaged and fan 1B no longer functions. Some sort of fault in the potentiometer. (pressing it in makes it work, but as soon as you let go it stops again) So I am a fan down on the EX rad. The other case fans need to be run off voltage reducers as the motherboard seems to want to run them all at full chat. (it is enabled in the bios, but i reckon only 2 of the headers are speed controlled) I've got a trip back into the loft now to find three speed reducers and my zalman fanmate. Gives me an excuse to get a better unit next month though. (suggestions are welcome)

Idle temperatures with two of the case fans off and the one rad fan off and the rest running silently is 37 degrees for the cpu and 41 for the gpu. Not run anything yet but I reckon load temps will be greatly improved.

Here are some better photos. The completed loop. You can now see all the connectors on the HDAV H6 daughter board hiding underneath the essence ST. (this is what uses that ugly ribbon cable)

The hidden mess of cables isn't quite as bad as it was before. Lots of green cable ties. (not sure why i chose green but just went with it. Not that you can see any of them) Coolermaster grommets for the holes will be ordered next month.

The aquacomputer aquagratix block is very smart, just wish they did a backplate for the 6970 like the one they have for the 7970.

The alphacool XT45 is a very tight fit up top. With some severe difficulty, i can just about manage to remove the memory without needing to shift the radiator.

So, next on the agenda is:

1. New fan controller as the enermax is on its way out (it is about 8 years old now)
2. 2x gentle typhoon AP-15's for the bottom radiator
3. 2x 140mm case fans. Should be BeQuiet silentwings USC's to match the side panel but they are insanely expensive. Probably end up with 3x of something else that cost less but match.
4. Braid the unbraided cables. Might consider bitfenix alchemy extensions for some of it.
5. Get a 2TB+ hard disk and migrate current drives/partitions across. Also considering getting an icybox backplane so i can fit more drives into the 5.25" bay.
6. Replace integrated reservoir/D5 top with a tube and separate top to make things tidier
7. May well consider changing the XSPC EX for a thicker unit like an alphacool UT60 or a monsta.
8. Fanless or superquiet seasonic psu
9. Replace dominator ram with another pair of hyperX genesis to match or replace the lot with something superior and give me 16GB. (got 12GB presently)
10. Migrate to an X6 thuban or steamroller when it eventually rolls out

 

[SeekaX]

please get sleeved cables, or at least black ones, the cabling makes it look so awful

 

[andrevautour]

I like the look of all the parts used (tubing, res, blocks etc) and I like the blue. The blue fins on that deep cool fan are nice. Good looking system.

 

[Kei]

Changed the TIM from arctic silver 5 to prolimatech PK1 and got a fair change in temperatures.

Before

After

Not entirely sure why, but I had similar improvement before whilst using air cooling. Thought i'd give AS5 another go this time around. The contact patch was fine too. I think I need to improve my case airflow though as ambient temperatures inside the case rise into the 30's. This is how i have the case fans set at present. Blue arrows show intakes, red show exhausts. (I know it doesn't help that no two case fans are the same, but that will be sorted, hopefully going to 140mm fans all round)

 

[airdeano]

just for giggles, for better cool flow, reverse the floor fans from push to pull.
yes its pulling air into case (heated) but not as well to immediately take the front
air intake and exhaust it. plus the area under the case is too close to properly
ventilate (30mm minimum)

all lower fans to intake, all upper fans to exhaust (or delete the rear fan, all
together), all side-panel as intake.

that'd make 5 intake and 3 exhaust

 

[badtaylorx]

ive given up on Teflon tape tbh...ive had the stuff end up in a cpu block once and one time i had a alphacool top leak with that stuff on....

after stopping the use of that stuff....never had a leaky fitting since!!! just make sure your o-ring is o-k


Great looking for your first att. btw.

 

[alpenwasser]

(or delete the rear fan, all
together)

Only on a computer forum will people delete fans :lol:

ive given up on Teflon tape tbh...ive had the stuff end up in a cpu block once and one time i had a alphacool top leak with that stuff on....

after stopping the use of that stuff....never had a leaky fitting since!!! just make sure your o-ring is o-k

Yeah the only leaks I've ever had in 10 years were related to cracked tubing. The PUR stuff that used to be popular in German speaking circles for push fittings was stiff to begin with and would become brittle over time. Once cost me 4 brand new HDDs (shorted out a SATA controller circuit on my M/B ). Luckily, I could RMA 3 of them (4th had private data on it, couldn't risk that).

But the O-Rings on my fittings have always done their job.

 

[Kei]

just for giggles, for better cool flow, reverse the floor fans from push to pull.
yes its pulling air into case (heated) but not as well to immediately take the front
air intake and exhaust it. plus the area under the case is too close to properly
ventilate (30mm minimum)

all lower fans to intake, all upper fans to exhaust (or delete the rear fan, all
together), all side-panel as intake.

that'd make 5 intake and 3 exhaust

Will give this a go once i sort out which fans to go with for the case. I'm going to sort another pair of scythe AP-15's for the bottom radiator. The case fans will be 140mm for the front and side panel. I intend to have a matching set of 140mm fans all round, but not sure on what to choose as scythe still don't make a 140mm GT and slipstream/kaze fans are sleeve bearing.

Any suggestions for a decent 140mm case fan? I've been looking at Noctua NF-A14 FLX (£19.25), Gelid Wing 14 (£15.75) and the corsair AF-140 (£9.91). I already have a bequiet silentwings USC which is no longer available, superceeded by the silent wings 2. (18.99)

 

[airdeano]

if you are looking to the Ap-15, swiftech has a helix 140 that is a match to the
AP-15.. here is the link--> LINKY

 

[Kei]

Cheers for the suggestion Deano. It would be good if they used better bearings. At £16 each plus postage I'd be far better off with gentle typhoons all round. Have to admit that I don't trust many of these companies, particularly those with fancy bearing names.(rifle, z-axis, duro etc)

 

[alpenwasser]

Would be good if they used better bearings. At £16 each plus postage I'd be far better off with gentle typhoons all round.

Yeah the double ball bearings in the GT's are absolutely awesome. I would so totally buy GT's in 140 size if they made them. But alas...

Have to admit that I don't trust many of these companies, particularly those with fancy bearing names.(rifle, z-axis, duro etc)

Well, Noiseblocker's and Noctua's bearings have fancy names and are actually very good. But yeah, sometimes a fancy name is just a cheap excuse for a bearing
Although I must admit, my Papst 4412 (about 10 years old) has a sleeve bearing (Sintec if I recall correctly) and is a lot better in build quality than many fancy fans I've seen. And the bearing does its job very well (no noises, regardless of voltage).

 

[Kei]

Papst are proper industrial fans though like panaflow and nidec. (although if you thought noctua were expensive :blink I've got some of those in 80mm flavour that are neigh on 20 years old and still going. TBH you know you are getting a good product from noctua as they back it up with a damn good warranty and decent quoted MTBF. Just wish they had a nicer colour scheme as i reckon they would seriously clash with the blue/green/black colours that i have. (although since i have no case window, it's not like you could see it)

Out of the choices i put down, I reckon the corsairs represent the best value. TTL's review suggested that they were pretty much even with the noctua's that he used. Only a 2 year warranty worries me a little as even my lowly TX650 psu has a 5 year warranty.

 

[alpenwasser]

Papst are proper industrial fans though like panaflow and nidec. (although if you thought noctua were expensive :blink

True. If I could have gotten some Papsts in 140 size I would quite possibly have gotten them for my next build. I just have a total fetish for build quality :wub:

I looked around for Nidec, Panaflow, Delta and some San Aces, but the only 140 mm fan I could find was a very pretty San Ace with an Aluminium frame of 51 mm thickness ( :dribble: ) that had 57 dB as its noise level .

140 mm just isn't popular at all in industrial environments from the looks of it.

Also, most of those fans don't run on 12 V but either on 24 V DC, 48 V DC or 120 V / 230 V AC.

And of course, prices are... not exactly inviting, as you said.

 

[Kei]

Something to laugh at. I had to put my TX650 back in the day after i fitted the antec. Ok the corsair has a noisy fan but the antec had severe coil noise when powering my 6950 in games. (oddly enough it's quiet in the other system which has a 6850) Meant i had to cut all of those cable ties and redo it all for the 3rd time.

I have also been doing some photoshopping trials for 550 paracord sleeving. I've grown fond of the blue/green LED theme from the enermax fan controller and my reservoir has a blue LED and green coolant. (plus they are my favourite colours) This is what I've come up with. The darker green I'm less certain on.

I've tried teal...

...and black.

 

[Feronix]

Your PSU is upside down mate

I personally prefer the last pic with the black cables

 

[SeekaX]

Your PSU is upside down mate

i agree, but oh lord you started a discussion here

 

[alpenwasser]

Your PSU is upside down mate

I personally prefer the last pic with the black cables

+1 for the last pic with the black paracord

i agree, but oh lord you started a discussion here

opcorn:

 

[Kei]

I have tried having it the opposite way up. It just seems to complicate matters as it means the mass of cables come out in the wrong side making it more difficult to route around into the back of the case. (particularly now that there is a radiator down there) There's a cut out in the base of the case for air flow where it can pick up cooler air from underneath the case. The TX will be swapped out for a fully modular seasonic at some point in the future anyway.

Anyway, I expected black would be the most popular choose. What about Navy instead? (I've altered the green as it wasn't a good match for what's on the market)

Vs the black

 

[pcjunkie429]

Oooo. Me likey the navy blue combo. (Then again, I like just about any color blue, except light/sky blue or turquoise. :lol