Project -=[Black Viper]=-

[JorisS]

Project -=[Black Dragon]=-

Hey all!

After months of preparation, by means of purchasing hardware in bits and pieces, I've finally gotten to start on my first project build

I'm naming it -=[Black Dragon]=- for now.

So basically the parts that I'll be using for the rig are the following:

PC Hardware:

Case: Lian Li G70 black with powdercoated internals (thanks AydST )

Motherboard: Asus Striker II Formula - completely watercooled

Powersupply: BeQuiet Dark Power PRO 1000W modular

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8600

Memory: 4 x 1 Gb Crucial Ballistix double-sided PC-8500 DDR2 with Thermalright heatsinks (for now)

Graphics card: 2 x eVGA 8800 Ultra OC

Storage: WD Raptor 150Gb system disk + some storage disks (not sure how many / what size yet)

Water cooling:

Pump: 2 x Laing DDC-Ultra 18W @ Petra Tech top

Radiator 1: Thermochill PA120.3 + 3x Noctua NF-S12

Radiator 2: Innovatek Konvekt-O-Matic

Reservoir: EK Multioption 100 & 250

CPU: Swiftech Apogee GTZ

GPU: 2 x EK-FC8800 GTX/ultra - Nickel-Plated

Motherboard: EK Northbridge + Southbridge + 2 x Mosfet

Tubing: Tygon R-3400 3/8" ID

And then a lot of small stuff and trinkets

Here's the current status with a load of pictures & description - I'm doing stuff pretty much at random at the moment, haven't gotten to any assembly of parts yet so just doing whatever I feel like and have time for:

-=[ Fitting the EK-FC8800 GTX/Ultra ]=-

Original card:



Removed the original cooling & cleaning the chips and memory:





All cleaned & EK block awaiting:





Block fitted:







Note that I used the back plating of the original cooling - seems to be there for a reason, so might as well leave it there

-=[ Delivery of new toys ]=-

Box with gadgets:



ACRyan acrylic plate for later stage case modding, Fezer UV Black, fittings, 2x Vandal switch, GTZ block, braiding etc:





-=[ Motherboard preparation ]=-

I bought the board off eBay, and it came with EK blocks and Apogee GTX included. I've sold the GTX as I wanted to try the new GTZ instead. Being thorough and not knowing how the previous owner mounted the stuff, I removed all blocks and cleaned chips and reapplied cooling paste, then the blocks:

(NB my camera is somewhat messed up, which results in 'bending' at the bottom and top of pictures - in the picture the motherboard looks to be severely bent, this is not the case!)









The new CPU & GTZ block:









Everything cleaned and fitted:



-=[ Fixing the radiator in place ]=-

I bought the Lian Li case off AydST here in these forums, it already was pre-cut for a PA120.3 rad. Had to fix threading in the radiator:



Semi-stripped case:



Top plate, rad grill and the anti-vibration dampening thingie:



Getting the stuff in place:





Yoqko, aka 'fluffmaster', couldn't keep his attention at peak level at all times:



Rad and fans mounted - unfortunately I discovered that I couldn't mount the top with the rad fixed in place, due to obstacles at the rear - had to remove most of the screws fixing the rad so I could bend it down slightly:







Removed the fan cover/thing, which doesn't seem very useful in a watercooled rig:



Vandal switches mounted:



The Innovatek radiator:



Braided one S-ATA cable and realized I'll be needing more braiding :





So currently I have a couple of considerations:

1) How can I hook the 3 Noctua fans together, so the 3 of them only require one fan connector? (I'll be using a mCubed T-balancer BigNG fan controller)

2) Should I use 2 separate loops for the water cooling, or hook everything up together (but with 2 pumps possibly)? If I use separate loops, will the passive Innovatek radiator keep decent temps or not? And how should I divide the loops - 2x 8800 Ultra in one loop, CPU + motherboard in the other?

Calling it a day now, gotta do some other stuff. Any comments or suggestions very welcome and much appreciated!!

 

[tinytomlogan]

Deffo 2 loops for water dude if you have room.

Not sure how effective the passive will be, you deffo want the 2 GPUs on the Thermochill.

Maybe see what temps are like with the cpu and mobo on the passive, depends how much you plan to push the clocks?

 

[kataras]

Radiator 2: Innovatek Konvekt-O-Matic

This rad, looks pretty darn restrictive. Where are you thinking to mount it?

Suggest to get rid of it and replace with something better, maybe a pa120.1 and put it in the front of the case? well thats a thought anyway

Looking pretty impressive and im sure this gonna be one hell of a rig :yumyum:

 

[JorisS]

Was thinking of mounting it on the side of the case, if nothing else it shouldn't make the cooling worse at least (unless it puts a huge strain on the pumps and flow rate)

Tbh I don't really know how much capacity a PA120.1 has?

At the moment I'm not really planning for any hardcore clocking, pretty much newbie to it. Will probably try and clock the CPU somewhat though.

 

[FarFarAway]

Loks nice mate, good start

Deffo look at the PA 120. though, it won't hurt your flow so much

 

[JorisS]

Have only done a minor amount of work, been out fishing all day yesterday and only had a bit of time today. Managed to revert the fans so their cabling points out back and can be hidden there - also made a cable which couples the three Noctua fans together, into one single contact which can be connected to the T-Balancer later on. I'll have to look up how much Wattage the T-Balancer can handle though (and how much the fans use at max speed).

Some pictures:

A bunch of 'scrap' cables:



Cutting, soldering, generally having fun:



The result, braided and ready to go:



Connected to the fans in the case:



I'm not sure where I'll mount the T-Balancer, possibly on the side of the hard-disk mounting rack if it fits there (out of sight).

This has already taken more time than any previous build of mine

*edit*

I changed the project name to 'Black Dragon' by the way, suits me better - tried to change it in the topic too, but it seems to still display as 'Black Viper'? If any admin can help out here, please feel free

 

[JorisS]

Minor update again, had some fun with my Dremel and fixed some more space for cable management at the bottom of the case.

'Original' case:



Close-up look shows that there's only a small opening for cables or such there:



Creating extra space:





Finishing off with edge trim:



Also braided the USB/Firewire/sound cables from the case top:



Soon time to get some hardware installed I think

Need to fix cabling to the Vandal switches though, don't know how to connect them yet (lots of pins, no explanation ).

 

[JorisS]

Been away partying most of the weekend, so not too much time for the important work unfortunately

Did some more braiding, but right now I've decided to wait in the new braid - new order on it's way as I ran out of the stuff pretty fast, for some reason :stickpoke

Here's some more update pics:

Yoqko eager to get started :



Braiding the power and reset and LED cabling:





Mounting the motherboard and EK reservoir:









After mounting the motherboard I did some testing with cable lengths from the Lian Li case top connectors, and found that I can't manage the Firewire nicely hidden all the way around - if I want to connect it, it has to take a straighter path Probably will leave it hanging loose in hiding for now, as I've never used firewire in my life tbh.

A more prominent problem was the EK southbridge block, which seems incompatible with the 8800 Ultra with EK block - the barbs on the SB block were in the way, even without tubing. Luckily I purchased another block here in the forums some while back (Anfi-Tec), which solved the problem (ofcourse had to completely remove the motherboard again to gain access to the backside ).

EK SB blocking the GFX:





Anfi-Tec doing a better job:







I'm basically at the stage where I want to test and see if all components are actually working as they should, haven't tested the motherboard yet for example. Problem is I need PSU, memory and HD's from my current rig, but I can't miss it just now :nono:

So well, guess I'll wait in the coming delivery and continue in a day or two.

The current plan is to use only 1 pump and loop, but with both radiators. The Innovatek radiator will be mounted on the outside of the case, with a Koolance PCI slot cover connecting outer and inner case tubing. I'm planning to actually test with and without the Innovatek radiator (simply linking the two PCI slot openings directly) to see if it makes any noticeable difference for temps.

 

[JorisS]

-=[ Update 2008-11-05 ]=-

Here's some pictures and updates from the past 2 days - was waiting in a delivery with new stuff (mostly braiding).

New stuff arrived:





And put to use immediately (did I mention I really like the home-brew braiding? ):



Here's a shot with the fans in place - unfortunately I didn't get 6mm black shrinking stuff when I ordered it (out of stock I guess), so I had to use blue instead. Works for me though, otherwise I'll change it a later time, np.



The Koolance PCI slot cover:





Not too pleased with this thing, the barbs don't go in all the way so I had to use the white isolation tape to secure waterproof fit (at least I hope it is, will have to test at a later stage). The Koolance stuff is made for barbs with very short threading.

Realized the time was there to remove parts from the current rig:



PSU installed:



Harddisks installed:



I'm thinking of swapping the harddisks around though, so the cables will be in the front side, quite out of sight. Problem is the fan that's located there and takes in cool air to cool the disks - with a bunch of cables there the cooling will be less I reckon. Any suggestions perhaps?

So obviously I have a problem here:



The word that popped to mind is 'cable management' Ofcourse this was just a quick setup as I wanted to test the hardware was ok (some new parts which I haven't used/tested before), but clearly there would be a mess of cables if I didn't do something about it.

At this point I did a quick test of all the hardware, and found that the system wouldn't POST. Tested with 1 memory and it went ok, after which I tested with the various sticks (4x1Gb) in all the different slots and somehow found that 2 of the memories worked in all slots, one worked in slots 3 and 4 and 1 didn't work at all. After a post in Swedish forums I got the answer to that problem - the Voltage was set to AUTO (1.9V) and the sticks weren't too happy with that obviously. After booting with 1 stick and adjusting voltage to 2.2V the system booted fine with 4 sticks installed

So with that sorted and the other parts apparently working fine, it was time to get back to the cable management problem. Here goes, removed the HD block and PSU again:



Probably not the most elegant way of fixing a hole, but a hole it did fix (one has to make do with the equipment at hand):





But after some filing and sandpaperwork and edge trim the result was quite ok I think:













One note to self: USE PROTECTIVE FILM ON THE INTERNALS OF THE CASE!

I didn't have any, nor did I think it'd matter much. In fact, in daylight everything looks pretty good still, but the flash is relentless in revealing all minor scratches and small filing that got stuck between plates and so.

Next step is to mount the motherboard and other hardware and work on the cabling. After that I'll attempt to fix the water cooling and tubing and run a leak test. But then we're talking 1 or 2 more days ahead, probably.

Any suggestions or comments are very welcome, at this point I can still easily make changes and adaptations to the plan!

Any suggestions for what order to put the components in the WC loop?

Parts are:

Pump

Radiator (PA120.3 only for now)

Reservoir

CPU block

NB block

SB block

2x MOSFET block

GPU 1 block

GPU 2 block

Cheers

//Joris

 

[Kerotan]

Looking good mate, never dabbled in the WC myself so can't help you there, but what you have done so far is really nice work! Look forward to seeing it progress!

 

[JorisS]

Cheers m8, always nice with comments

Not going to do anything more today, still at work and planning on some nice food and some episodes of 'Dexter' with the missus tonight.

 

[JorisS]

Ran into a minor problem when I just did some quick work last night:





I'm planning on using the Asus soundcard, but it doesn't fit with the 8800 Ultra and it's backplate The silly thing is that the backplate is 'original', i.e. it came with the original cooling. I chose to keep it with the waterblock as it probably is there for a reason, it's got a square pad on the backside which cools some small chips there. I've tested removing the cover from the soundcard, but that doesn't help much as it's the big condensator that's blocking things.

Three options I could come up with:

1) Remove the backplate - risk of stuff getting too hot though?

2) Go at the plate with my Dremel and cut off the (small) part of the plate that is actually blocking the soundcard - the major part of the plate will still be in place in that case, so in effect I'd only lower the cooling potential somewhat

3) Get another soundcard. Costs extra money though, and on top of that I'm not quite sure any PCI card would fit in easily either.

I'm leaning towards option 2 for now, but there's some time left to decide. Suggestions?

 

[PV5150]

I'd be using option 1 myself. The 8800 Ultra will be fine with the waterblock on there, instead of chopping the soundcard backplate bits or investing in a new one. The backplate on the 8800Ultra would be there to help draw waste heat away, and to provide additional support for the longer air cooler. With the waterblock on it, the card should be nice and stiff and significantly cooler now anyway - ditch the backplate.

Does the 8800 Ultra have RAM under that heatsink? If so you may need to use BGA ramsinks on the rear of the card

 

[JorisS]

I'd be using option 1 myself. The 8800 Ultra will be fine with the waterblock on there, instead of chopping the soundcard backplate bits or investing in a new one. The backplate on the 8800Ultra would be there to help draw waste heat away, and to provide additional support for the longer air cooler. With the waterblock on it, the card should be nice and stiff and significantly cooler now anyway - ditch the backplate.

Does the 8800 Ultra have RAM under that heatsink? If so you may need to use BGA ramsinks on the rear of the card

Thanks for the reply! No I don't think so, will take a picture and post it in a bit but from what I recall it's mostly small resistors and such. I'll go with option 1 then, at least on the top card. Doesn't hurt to have the backplate on for the lower slot card I reckon.

*edit*

Pulled the 2nd Ultra apart and mounted water cooling. Obviously the previous owner had a leak and used blue coolant.

Stripped, naked card - note the blue stuff which was under the plate normally surrounding the chip (for some reason I decided to remove those prior to mounting the water blocks):





Cleaned (Arctic cleaning stuff, 2 small bottles) and ready for the EK block:





I'm using custom thermal pads which I purchased a while back, as the stuff I got with the EK block is silly - tiny square thermal pads which have been previously used and shaped - totally unworkable

Here's a picture of the backside, the major part of the area between the four center screws is what's otherwise covered by the backplates thermal pad:



The Twins - lovely :worship:



Gotta drag myself through some boring hours at work now before I can rush home and get to some serious work getting it all inside the case, with neat cabling and all.

 

[JorisS]

* MODs I figured it would be nicer and easier to read the progress and see pictures by not having them as clickable thumbnails, so I changed style here. Hope that's ok, otherwise please let me know! *

Managed to get a lot of work done yesterday - stuffed all in the case, fixed tubing, did leak-testing (and a good thing I did, had some leaks allright ) and am currently working on cable management and getting everything installed and ready for a first official bootup. Here's a summary of yesterday in pictures!

Before getting to the fun part with the water cooling, I decided to swap the harddisks around so their cabling is at the front, out of sight. I'll take the reduced airflow from the front intake fan for what it is, if the disks run too hot I'll find a solution

Anyway, the PSU came with a cable with 4 SATA connectors, which was perfect. However, the cable length between the connectors caused problems as I don't have much space between the disks and the fan:

I recalled seeing a mod for this in a project thread some time ago, so I decided to be bald and give it a go. Removed the connectors from the cable and connected them to the disks, then pushed the cable in place and fixed it all together again:

Result is a tight fit of the cabling, and it fits smoothly in the case and doesn't obstruct the front fan:

Next I decided to start working on the water cooling and tubing. Here's a step-by-step overview:

I had to make some adjustment when I was halfway - initially I had a tube running from the Coolance PCI slot directly to the reservoir IN, but I realized it'd become a mess to connect the NB and SB, with unnecessary tubing running over the graphics card (I'd already cut tubing for the NB when I 'discovered' the SB and that I'd forgotten about it ). So instead I chopped up the tube from PCI slot to the SB, and from there to the reservoir. Unfortunately my reservoirs are v1, so they have the connectors at the bottom. One connector at the side bottom would have been more suited. Might order one and see that I get it installed at some point in time...

Anyway, the final result with all tubing in place, running a quick boot/post sequence to see all is still in working order:

Reason the Koolance PCI slot connector is there is that I plan to hook up the Innovatek passive radiator at a later stage and see how much extra it does for cooling performance. For now I've simply connected both barbs with a short piece of tubing though, so it's just a 'dead loop'.

Time for the leak testing. Here I ran into problems after the test had been running for a while, and I started tilting the case to remove air - at this point I noticed quite heavy leaking from the backside, coming from the radiator:

This put me off and disappointed me pretty much, as 1) I usually didn't have leak problems (then again I've only used 'complete kits' previously) and 2) I reckoned the radiator was damaged and leaking and hence useless.

Some close examination however revealed that the screw on the backside of the rad had come partly loose during the installation of everything, and ofcourse when I tilted the case and coolant came up there it started spilling.

That fixed the leak-testing continued, and unfortunately there was another leak. Not quite unexpected one of the barbs of the Koolance slot cover was leaking, where I'd been using the white isolation tape to attempt a sealed fit. Obviously I failed

This took more time to fix as I now had coolant in the system already, but after pumping out the excess I managed to get at the connection, re-apply isolation tape and all and after this the leak was gone. However I'm not very well satisfied with it and will keep my eyes out for a better solution. I do like the idea of having a connection on the backside rather than two tubes straight through. Any suggestions (non-Koolance please)?

Finally though the system appears to be leak-proof, have ran it a couple of hours last night and then some during this morning, without any signs of leaking:

Now I'm working on installing all components and fixing the cables in place. Here's the 'no-management' style:

And here's a semi-managed style, not ready yet but obviously things are improving:

I've screwed the T-Balancer BigNG onto the 5.25" slot cage, with its cooling body against the cage. Figured this would both work fine in keeping the thing in place and out of sight, as well as providing extra cooling.

Hopefully my next update will be from the newly build rig rather than from my PC at work!

 

[PV5150]

Looking good mate, although admittedly very busy. You need a bigger case lol! Is that cask wine on the bench part of the install too

 

[rrjwilson]

Nice build with some mad-hatter innovations. Done yourself proud :worship:

I shall be trying the SATA mod as I run 4 HDDs like you and the end connector is ****ed so I run two cables (yes 8 connectors 4 unneeded) because otherwise it doesn't boot. If I can do the wiring then nothing will be wrong. Thanks for the confidence.

 

[JorisS]

Looking good mate, although admittedly very busy. You need a bigger case lol! Is that cask wine on the bench part of the install too

Lol yeah what gave the coolant it's colour you reckon

Nah it's actually been there for a while now, leftover from my dissertation some weeks ago - have to finish it before it turns bad though...

Nice build with some mad-hatter innovations. Done yourself proud :worship:

I shall be trying the SATA mod as I run 4 HDDs like you and the end connector is ****ed so I run two cables (yes 8 connectors 4 unneeded) because otherwise it doesn't boot. If I can do the wiring then nothing will be wrong. Thanks for the confidence.

Well I've yet to fully install Windows and all, but the HD's are recognized during BOOT and in the BIOS, so it appears to be fine. Going to try the BIOS update now, always fun to middle with 3.5" floppy solely for such purposes

(Not sure if I can use a USB stick?)

Cheers for the comments

 

[JorisS]

Unfortunately it turned out that the motherboard is defective (CPU INIT problem), so all the hard work has been in vain. Or well, it was fun to build But I've taken out my classic Foxconn Quantum Mars motherboard again, meaning single GPU and no motherboard water cooling. On the other hand, it's up and running now And there's a heck of a load less tubing involved

Have to give some thought to whether I'll leave things at this or if perhaps I'll try and get hold of another motherboard (BlackOps e.g.) and GPU (9800GX2 or a 4870 series or so).

I'll post a final picture soon.

 

[Talonaer]

ah what a shame was looking so good :*(