ケイ - Watercooled Enthoo Primo

[Kei]

For what? Please don't tell me you're getting a window panel with a fan hole in it :huh: :blink:.
They are really really unneeded, ESPECIALLY in a water cooled rig like yours. The build looks great btw. Like everyone else, I was a bit "meh" on the color scheme, but it looks awesome.

I agree with you that looks wise it would be far better without. The need for the side panel fan(s) is down to case pressure. Without them I'd have 2 intake fans and 4 exhaust. The VRM's and northbridge also get very hot without the direct airflow. When i fully upgrade the system I'll look at adding a motherboard waterblock which should help solve that problem. (EK made one for mine but it's long since discontinued)

Second issue is that i seriously doubt i could make a decent job of making my own windowed side panel as me + power tools = disaster. Hence my choosing to go with the stock coolermaster 690-II window panel. I might consider trying to make a replacement acrylic window for the precut side panel, but i'm not going to attempt making a mess of my standard side panel.

 

[pcjunkie429]

I agree with you that looks wise it would be far better without. The need for the side panel fan(s) is down to case pressure. Without them I'd have 2 intake fans and 4 exhaust. The VRM's and northbridge also get very hot without the direct airflow. When i fully upgrade the system I'll look at adding a motherboard waterblock which should help solve that problem. (EK made one for mine but it's long since discontinued)

I'm assuming you have the bottom rad fans set to exhaust? I say put them on the bottom of the rad and set them as intake. With that piece of foam on the bottom of the pump/res fixture, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt the fins, right? Basically, have every fan except the top 2 set to intake, with the top 2 as exhaust. This gives you positive case pressure, and also helps with convection (the natural tendency for heat to rise upward). As for the mobo cooling issue, I thought I remembered you saying you had plans to upgrade it anyway?

Second issue is that i seriously doubt i could make a decent job of making my own windowed side panel as me + power tools = disaster. Hence my choosing to go with the stock coolermaster 690-II window panel. I might consider trying to make a replacement acrylic window for the precut side panel, but i'm not going to attempt making a mess of my standard side panel.

Yeah, if you don't feel comfortable chopping a hole in your stock side panel, I'd definitely say to pop the plexi that comes in the CM one out, and get some Scotch 4010 double sided tape and a replacement piece of plexi that is the approximate size of the cutout. It doesn't have to be cut to the same shape as the window hole, it just has to be a big enough rectangular piece to cover the hole and have about 1/2-3/4 of an inch room around the outside of the hole to put the tape.

Hope this helps

 

[Kei]

Cheers, will look into that once i sort out replacing the panel with the windowed one.

Having the lower radiator fans set to intake resulted in very high case temperatures. (in excess of 33 degrees) Having them the other way around keeps it around 30. I may just have to either live with negative pressure or a fan in the side.

 

[Kei]

I conducted a small test this evening by disconnecting my pair of side panel fans. (to simulate a window panel) Bad news is, although it still functions, ambient temperatures inside the case were nearly 40. Switching the two base fans to intake still makes it worse. Only issue i've found so far with my current config is that the bequiet 140mm fan that is the front intake doesn't appear to be creating much airflow with the case mesh & filter over it. In free air it shifts a decent amount of air, about even with an AP-15 at the same rpm.

I don't know what you guys with silent water cooled systems do to keep temperatures down, but i'm obviously doing something wrong as i can't seem to get it right.

 

[alpenwasser]

I don't know what you guys with silent water cooled systems do to keep temperatures down, but i'm obviously doing something wrong as i can't seem to get it right.

Not necessarily, there isn't really anything you can do to defeat physics. Keep in mind that
your build, while quite tidy, is rather cramped (at least on my scale of measurement). Packing
this much stuff inside a case will have an impact on inside ambient temps, especially if you
have some intakes covered by radiators.

How much have your actual system temps worsened? 40 C is nothing I'd be concerned about
in and of itself tbh. As long as your component temps are still good it's fine imo. Not great,
but fine.

If you do want to lower temps, you might want to look into getting some more powerful fans.
Aside from that, the only thing I can think of is maybe get a bit more space between the
bottom radiator and the pump mount or otherwise optimize airflow in that bottom section,
but it's tricky to tell how much of a difference that would make from here.

 

[Kei]

I agree with you that my build is quite cramped. Sadly the CM690 is as big a case as i can fit under my desk. The pump/res sitting on top of the lower radiator definitely isn't helping matters and is on my priority list.

I've done some testing with a few different fans, and have come to the conclusion that nothing i've got (even the 140 or the s-flex) comes close to the gentle typhoon. I've swapped the front fan over and now get decent flow at the front but now the rear intake is poor, so i definitely need to get another AP-15 for that position. I've taken one of the side panel fans out so i can simulate what it'd be like running the "ugly" window panel and things seem to be reasonable, sitting at an ambient of 33. (cpu max is 53 and gpu max is 57)

 

[Throbbi]

Just read from start to finish, it's great to really see the full evolution of a build from it's humble beginnings to w/c'd beast. Really like the colour scheme too, blue/green is always good.

With regard to the ambient temps in your case, as AW says, you can't beat physics. The thing is though you appear to be, probably unintentionally, trying to. All that heat naturally wants to rise, the lower rad fans exhausting is fighting that and most likely creating a few deadspots. The rear fan and side fans are likely doing the same. I spent years working in air conditioning and in all my experience the main thing to remember is that air will always go for the easiest possible route. Extracting against the natural flow will always result in issues.

I have a couple of suggestions which may (disclaimer - or may not :lol help:
- Move the front be quiet fan down to the lower 140mm mount. Nearly half of the flow from that great fan is being blocked out by the HDD's.
- Switch the rear to exhaust as others have suggested. Right now it's creating swirls when connecting with the airflow from the additional 80mm front fan which sits heating up before being pulled through the rad.
- Get some vented PCI slot covers (or vent the existing ones), I guarantee that the space between the GPU and sound card is a horrible dead zone made worse by the side panel fans. I suspect that the dead zone there will be radiating heat elsewhere in the case.

And as you planned get a windowed side panel but at least just try it without fans in, once the other suggestions are in place you might be surprised at the results. They look horrid in a window and they only really give a benefit when fully aircooled and even then it's debatable. They disrupt the airflow through a case terribly and I've frequently seen them cause more heat issues than they solve, especially in cramped cases.

Wow, sounds like a right downer of a post on a log I really like. There is of course always the chance that I'm talking utter bollocks and none of it will work but things like those have made big differences to the rigs of friends so it's not totally made up (even though I'm fully aware it sounds like it )

 

[Kei]

Thanks. Suggestions like this are always helpful.

Moving the front fan down isn't something i'd actually thought of, but having just looked at it, i can see that it definitely makes sense. Those hard disks don't get particularly hot anyhow. The vented pci slots i'd wondered about. Not difficult to test that by taking the blanks out. That 80mm front fan is gone as it was too noisy and didn't seem to make any difference to the performance.

The lower radiator is a contentious issue, some say push the hots air out (down) and others say pull it in as it rises anyway. I've tested this one and consistently get cooler temperatures with it blowing the hot air out. The hot air coming from the radiators whilst gaming is around 40 degrees so bringing that into the case really heats things up.

It'd be nice to be able to perform a smoke test to see how the airflow behaves but i don't have the kit to do it.

I've bought another AP-15 to replace the last of my 120mm fans. Might be here today if i'm lucky.

 

[Kei]

I've been at the overclocking again to see how much further i could persuade the chip to go. Managed to coax just over 4GHz out of it which i was quite surprised by as i hadn't been able to get it passed 3.8 previously.

I also fitted the 6th gentle typhoon. I also believe i've figured out my ambient temps. The sensor that i'm getting the readings from is located in the top of the 5.25" bay above the bluray writer. The hard disk in the bottom seems to heat the entire bay up which makes the sensor warm. Using a separate temperature probe in the case in the space by the cpu socket showed 28.2 vs the bay being 30.3.

Measuring between the sound card and gpu showed a hot spot at 37.1. Between sound card and psu was even higher at 40. The air beside the pump is at 29.3 and between pump and gpu is 34.5. The room ambient temperature for these measurements is 25.5.

 

[Throbbi]

Measuring between the sound card and gpu showed a hot spot at 37.1. Between sound card and psu was even higher at 40. The air beside the pump is at 29.3 and between pump and gpu is 34.5. The room ambient temperature for these measurements is 25.5.

lol Just kidding Nice to see you've broken that magic 4ghz barrier!

The temps you say are around the rest of the case make a lot more sense, I really couldn't figure out why they were so much higher. 28-31 is plenty cool enough for anything in my opinion

 

[Kei]

Gave my system it's monthly dust and refitted my corsair dominator modules after removing them for doing 32m superpi runs. Doing this 4GHz super pi efficiency competition has proved that i had a better chip than i thought and i could push my memory alot further too. I was sitting atop the AMD results but got knocked off the top spot by someone with much faster G.skill memory. (and by all of 0.250s) The amount i managed to squeeze out of the cheap kingston kit was a big surprise. I got them from 9-9-9-27-36 1T 1600 @ 1.65V up to 7-8-7-18-17 2T 1656 @ 2V. My dominator 1600c9 modules are absolute crap compared to the hyperX couldn't get anything tighter than cl9 out of them no matter how much juice they were fed. No idea what IC's either have for certain, but suspect the kingston might use elpida BFSE. I also found out that my C2 955 has a maximum core speed of 4.1GHz @ 1.6V, 4.2GHz fails to get into windows and just over that fails to post. NB seems quite comfortable running at 2.9GHz with 1.425V.

I've taken the opportunity to improve my 24/7 overclock based on my findings, improving both the NB speed and memory timings. Will see how stable it is after some testing. (3.75GHz, NB @ 2662MHz, ram @ 9-9-8-18-20 1T 1612MHz)

It's nice to see that 3 months down the line since fitting the watercooling kit there are no signs of trouble in the coolant. (as it should be ) The case is now fully decked out with gentle typhoons and is virtually silent with them set at 1100rpm, plus it still maintains mid 50's maximum temperatures. (even whilst folding on both the cpu & gpu)

I'll replace the standard solid blanking plates with some vented versions to improve airflow to reduce the deadspot which gets toasty between the sound card and gpu. I've taken the blanks out for now.

I really need some short SATA cables to neaten this side up. Still, it's not bad considering the non modular psu. I should be able to loose the other loose cables on the right if i get rid of my cathode tubes and shift the psu fan on to the fan controller.

Dare i say it though, i am contemplating a move to that new corsair 540 cube case, as it'd fit under my desk quite nicely. I'll save that for when i move upwards from my phenom first. Still a bit miffed about the change of colour on gigabyte motherboards, as their top of the range kit for haswell won't suit my colour scheme. (I was probably one of a handful of mad people in the world that always chose gigabyte because of the blue pcb)

Out of interest, can anyone recommend any ram that can run really tight timings (CL7 or better) up to 1866 or so? I've had a look around, but most stuff i can find is a few years old and only 2 or 4GB. (G.skill Pi, mushkin redline ascent, corsair GT 2000 etc.) Ideally i need a minimum of 8GB. I've been wondering about samsung green, but all i can ever find out is well it clocks. (which isn't possible on a phenom as the imc tops out around 17-1800mhz)

 

[alpenwasser]

Gotta say, of the "colorful" builds I've yet come across I definitely like this one the best,
it really has turned out quite nice!

 

[Kei]

I caved in after the price drops on the GTX 780 combined with the free games and bought an MSI reference model and EK full cover block. This will be my first ever nvidia card. (after 13 years of Radeons) Only thing i am depressed about is that the card has a brown pcb (and blue doesn't exist, not even green either). I'll be getting the matching backplate next month which should cover it up nicely.

It is going to be severely bottlenecked by my phenom II, but should still outshine my current 6970 by a huge margin. I'm hoping to upgrade the cpu and motherboard in the new year. As yet i don't know what to though as i've never been inclined toward intel. I've also been contemplating changing the CM690-II for a corsair 750D to improve my watercooling space and (360 in the roof 240 in the bottom) and changing the reservoir for one of those new fangled XSPC photon D5 units that is made of glass and acetal. (since the acrylic is beginning to craze due to the ethylene glycol content of my coolant)

 

[Kei]

It has arrived. Not looking forward to the draining and refilling of my loop as bleeding took hours last time.

 

[Sir-Weasel]

Nice upgrade bro
And that water block is gonna look sweet in your rig
but there is one thing that bugs me about this rig
and that is that you have 2 kinds of ram (but that just me beeing a bit ocd :lol: )

Btw awesome job on the cable management it looks fantastic
and usualy i don't like colourfull rigs but this is an exception

 

[Kei]

Cheers, the ram is a minor annoyance as i would go for something uniform throughout if the cost hadn't shot up so much. (those 8GB hyperX sticks cost £30)

I finished fitting the waterblock this morning then had to go to work for 7 hours. Now running, this EK block is either miles better than the aqua computer block or the GPU is much more efficient as it's idling at 28 now vs 44 before and load temps peak at 46 vs 58 previously.

I decided rather than drain and refill, I would attempt to perform a swap with the loop still full. Taking the GPU feed hose off first and squeezing it flat to restrict flow and plugging it quickly minimising fluid loss. Then doing the same for the bottom hose. Less than 50ml of coolant lost and only a small amount of air introduced. No leaks either which is always a good thing.

Took the old aqua computer block apart to see if there were any signs of corrosion and found nothing but lovely shiny copper inside.

 

[Feronix]

Quite like that

Also, is that an Eclipse II?

 

[Kei]

The keyboard is a cyborg V5 which is basically an eclipse with black key caps & red lighting.

 

[alpenwasser]

Yay, updates! Looking good!

 

[Kei]

Tubing is looking more purple than it did originally. Not so sure that the backplate is going to be worthwhile now as the pcb colour matches the asus sound cards so doesn't look as out of place as i originally expected. Seems the card has caused my TX650 to start whining once the boost clocks kick in. (was especially bad folding a core 15, but is silent on a core 17) Was quite noisy with batman arkham origins too. (will double check but pretty certain the noise is coming from the psu not the card) Will probably look at the antec HCP-750 next.

Some air is still cycling through the system (damn xspc reservoir design) luckily it's just a few small isolated pockets. Temperatures seem to be good, so it's not adversely affecting performance. Presently folding away at 1150/1800 with stock volts and sitting at a comfortable 41 degrees. Not used to the green side for overclocking so it's going to take me some time to get it right. North of 1228-1241 on the core with 1.2V seemed a bit iffy, but 1215 seemed like it might be ok. I'll probably settle with 1175-1200 if i can get it to remain stable. Probably needs more voltage to remain stable beyond this, which would mean messing with the bios which i'm disinclined to do.

It's a good looking block though. Stuck with copper what with the history of EK nickel plating and acetal rather than plexi due to the glycol content of my coolant. (which seems to have lost it's green pigment, probably as i've been topping it up with DI water which has probably over diluted it)