Project Dianoga (Previously: Project Elvis)

[AlienALX]

LOL! Glad you got it all sorted Alien. Always little bumps in the road with water cooling.

Yup and it was one of those little bumps that exposed the leak lol.

I'm going to replace the cheap fitting on the down pipe with the chrome chain gun. Not that I've had any aggro with those 99p Thermochills. I just think it will look nicer (even though you won't see it lol.

At least I have saved £150 due to the 1050ti being a bit pants.

Ok, either it's really late, i'm really tired, or I have a filthy mind, because I read that OCUK COMPLETELY differently the first couple of times.... Maybe all of these at once. I don't know....

Anyway, sorry to hear that the fitting is toast. At least you have found some good replacements!

No worries man. If I was replacing "Like for like" sort of thing I would probably be a little bit annoyed. Fact is that these chainguns are going to look super chuffing awesome so I really don't mind. I've only spent £15 and I would happily pay that just for them to be in the final photos.

Talking of which I started shooting some experimental photos last night using flash in a darkened room. Due to the paint being metallic silver it absorbs the flash and thus I don't get any flash burn. This is awesome, as it means that I don't have to wait for the sun before I can shoot the final pics.

I also bought 2l of coolant (I still don't know why as it used just under a litre to fill) so hey, it's here. It would only have sat until it went bad any way and more crap to hide in this flat.

 

[AlienALX]

Wow. So last night I decided to strip out the bottom 45' fitting to the 120 rad. When I got it out it too had a couple of beads of green coolant around the seal. Good thing I ripped it out really. Any way, I have the replacements coming tomorrow (XSPC) but I noticed these on OCUK today for £1.99 each.

They were showing four in stock so I ordered all four. My reasoning was they are obviously better than £4 full priced XSPC fittings, and because my block is copper they would look OK. However, I then got an email from OCUK saying they only had three in stock (which was fine, I only need two) so they are replacing the 4th with a black one.

So hopefully they will be here soon. I will probably use those tbh, it's a pretty critical connection is the CPU block.

 

[Surfie]

A suggestion, if you are interested: do your leak testing with distilled water...

The only problem (for you) is the hassle of draining ahs refilling with coolant once the leak test is done.

 

[AlienALX]

That's not really an issue tbh dude. It's very, very easy to drain. However, the coolant I am using specifically states not to mix the coolant with anything else, including distilled water. And there is no way for me to completely 100% drain and dry the system with it as it is. The res for example has a second pump bay and that remains full of coolant. The only way to drain that is to remove the res completely and take off the cover plate with the Oring on. It was full of water when I got it.

Dr Drop seems to work OK. I will then put a couple of paper towels under the rebuilt area and keep a close eye on it. Nothing else leaks and won't either, because the other fittings are very simple. Apparently 45' are the most unreliable fittings there are. I have been doing a crap ton of reading and apparently they are pretty terrible for leaking. That is why I have decided to buy and hopefully use (if the order goes through properly) those orange Monsoon ones as they are far more reliable than XSPC (which I have actually seen leak in pictures).

The problem is caused by pressure pulling the fitting. If there is any slack the Oring loses contact with the fitting and it leaks. If they are kept perfectly centered they remain leak free but the problem is (due to cheap and poor manufacturing) some of them are very loose and have a lot of slack.

That's why both of the crap ones I bought leaked. And EDIT why they did not leak for four days until I moved the rig and bumped it. TBH? I could have probably pulled them around a bit and got them to seal but that's not good enough for me

 

[Surfie]

That's not really an issue tbh dude. It's very, very easy to drain. However, the coolant I am using specifically states not to mix the coolant with anything else, including distilled water. And there is no way for me to completely 100% drain and dry the system with it as it is. The res for example has a second pump bay and that remains full of coolant. The only way to drain that is to remove the res completely and take off the cover plate with the Oring on. It was full of water when I got it.

Dr Drop seems to work OK. I will then put a couple of paper towels under the rebuilt area and keep a close eye on it. Nothing else leaks and won't either, because the other fittings are very simple. Apparently 45' are the most unreliable fittings there are. I have been doing a crap ton of reading and apparently they are pretty terrible for leaking. That is why I have decided to buy and hopefully use (if the order goes through properly) those orange Monsoon ones as they are far more reliable than XSPC (which I have actually seen leak in pictures).

The problem is caused by pressure pulling the fitting. If there is any slack the Oring loses contact with the fitting and it leaks. If they are kept perfectly centered they remain leak free but the problem is (due to cheap and poor manufacturing) some of them are very loose and have a lot of slack.

That's why both of the crap ones I bought leaked. And EDIT why they did not leak for four days until I moved the rig and bumped it. TBH? I could have probably pulled them around a bit and got them to seal but that's not good enough for me

Interesting that the xspc fittings are notorious for leaking...

Pretty much ALL of my fittings are xspc. Including the old ones.

I never had an issue, but then i wasn't twisting on the fittings much either.

 

[AlienALX]

Interesting that the xspc fittings are notorious for leaking...

Pretty much ALL of my fittings are xspc. Including the old ones.

I never had an issue, but then i wasn't twisting on the fittings much either.

I wasn't putting any pressure on them either. It's just the way they are made tbh. I have quite a few XPSC straight fittings in the PC and they are awesome. Well, apart from the fact that they can wreck acrylic because they have two cut outs in them that shave off the acrylic. I just made sure that whenever they met acrylic that they went into it once and didn't come back out

 

[AlienALX]

Just Dr Dropping it now. It seems fine though. I wasn't going to use the XSPC fittings but when they arrived they were considerably more chunky than they looked. They're also stiff, so my hands are now like super buggered.

If it holds pressure for another 30 mins I will start filling it again I mean in theory it never leaked from anywhere else so if it does now it's highly likely to be from the new fittings and stuff, but they feel super firm.

 

[AlienALX]

Take two lol. It can only leak from the new fittings and I've left plenty of air pressure in them (and wiggled them etc, they're rock solid) so I deemed it safe to be filled. This time though I will leave it for a day or so before igniting the hardware again (he said, not being quite sure...).

 

[AlienALX]

Update. This will be quite long due to me philosophising over water cooling and whether it was worth it or not. Not just worth it financially (note before I even begin, it wasn't worth it financially. It's cost me a small fortune even with half of it being free !) and as to whether the final result was worth it. I would say on that I am completely happy, thrilled even.

I've not been putting up rig pics for a while as I had to take it all apart again after the leak but I now have the face plate mounted up properly and bolted on (something I thought I was not going to be able to do due to a mistake I made ) but any way, just leak testing it now with paper towels etc so it looks stupid any way.

OK, so here is the total cost of Dianoga. And when I say total cost I mean, total cost. Even though I probably have £30 kicking around in spare fittings and £10 worth of bolts I did not use or only used half of etc. I have, however, left out any tools whatsoever because I do not count those into the costs of builds. They will all be reused at some point any way no doubt and well yeah, they're tools.

Total cost of Dianoga

PC itself - free​

CPU block - £10.53
GPU block - £16.09
M3 black bolts - £4.78 (not used)
Molex - 6 fan distro - £4.70
NIC card for killer - £4.39
8 x LED strip - £4.44
Alien head metal badges £3.08 (not used.. Yet...)
20 Green pre wired 12v single LED - £2.99
UNC bolts short (for fans) - £1.99
UNC bolts long (for fans) - £5.89
Steel mesh - £3.19
50mm fan for memory cooler - £0.99
Green dust caps - £2.99
Memory cooler - £13.99
Lime A4 vinyl X2 - £1.98
Met green candy apple vinyl - £6.58
Green SATA cable - £3.29
Bitfenix Alchemy USB 2.0 extension (black) - £5.99
Feet - £8
Fans - £39.94

Fittings​

O-rings - £3.30
Barrow fittings - £5.60
Hose - £10.77
XSPC straight - £6.64 and £7.80
45' after refund - £4.72
Acrylic - £17.88
Black acrylic (A4 ) - £3.85
OCUK order 1 - £10.73 (ball valve)
OCUK order 2 - £10.98 (coolant and face plate for res)
OCUK order 3 - £12.97 (fittings and coolant)
OCUK order 4 - £16.97 (fittings)
OCUK order 4 (XSPC temp guage) - £5.99
Other order 1 - £11.92
Other order 2 - £17.92
Rear radiator - £10

Total cost £303.86

At some point today I will rake back through the figures and basically deduct anything that I did not use. For example to this I bought 6 Thermochill fittings that are still wrapped in paper, four Monsoon 45' as back ups, a white chain gun fitting no longer needed and so on.

So that's the cost of water cooling a PC "on the cheap". When I say on the cheap I mean it. Every fitting was at least 1/4 of the price it should have been. It's actually quite scary when you sit down and do the calculations. You start to see the costs rack up and then realise just how much you've been had Joking aside though I have really enjoyed the project so far and a couple of hours will get me to the finish line. I will then snap some pics, before a complete redesign of the living room and most notably PC area.

Three days ago my wife (after having used her desktop only twice) said I could have it back. It's not just any old desktop either. 2009 Area 51 8 core Ivy with a Fury X and all bionic fans and AIOs. So my plan is to basically take all three desktops down, get rid of her chair, monitor and speakers and then set all three desktops up on her old desk and get myself a 4 port USB switch KVM thing. I don't need to switch video, as my monitor has three inputs IIRC so I only need to switch the K M and my mic.

Pics coming soon (I promise) but until then it's all something to ponder

 

[Warchild]

Update. This will be quite long due to me philosophising over water cooling and whether it was worth it or not. Not just worth it financially (note before I even begin, it wasn't worth it financially. It's cost me a small fortune even with half of it being free !) and as to whether the final result was worth it. I would say on that I am completely happy, thrilled even.

I've not been putting up rig pics for a while as I had to take it all apart again after the leak but I now have the face plate mounted up properly and bolted on (something I thought I was not going to be able to do due to a mistake I made ) but any way, just leak testing it now with paper towels etc so it looks stupid any way.

OK, so here is the total cost of Dianoga. And when I say total cost I mean, total cost. Even though I probably have £30 kicking around in spare fittings and £10 worth of bolts I did not use or only used half of etc. I have, however, left out any tools whatsoever because I do not count those into the costs of builds. They will all be reused at some point any way no doubt and well yeah, they're tools.

Total cost of Dianoga

PC itself - free​

CPU block - £10.53
GPU block - £16.09
M3 black bolts - £4.78 (not used)
Molex - 6 fan distro - £4.70
NIC card for killer - £4.39
8 x LED strip - £4.44
Alien head metal badges £3.08 (not used.. Yet...)
20 Green pre wired 12v single LED - £2.99
UNC bolts short (for fans) - £1.99
UNC bolts long (for fans) - £5.89
Steel mesh - £3.19
50mm fan for memory cooler - £0.99
Green dust caps - £2.99
Memory cooler - £13.99
Lime A4 vinyl X2 - £1.98
Met green candy apple vinyl - £6.58
Green SATA cable - £3.29
Bitfenix Alchemy USB 2.0 extension (black) - £5.99
Feet - £8
Fans - £39.94

Fittings​

O-rings - £3.30
Barrow fittings - £5.60
Hose - £10.77
XSPC straight - £6.64 and £7.80
45' after refund - £4.72
Acrylic - £17.88
Black acrylic (A4 ) - £3.85
OCUK order 1 - £10.73 (ball valve)
OCUK order 2 - £10.98 (coolant and face plate for res)
OCUK order 3 - £12.97 (fittings and coolant)
OCUK order 4 - £16.97 (fittings)
OCUK order 4 (XSPC temp guage) - £5.99
Other order 1 - £11.92
Other order 2 - £17.92
Rear radiator - £10

Total cost £303.86

At some point today I will rake back through the figures and basically deduct anything that I did not use. For example to this I bought 6 Thermochill fittings that are still wrapped in paper, four Monsoon 45' as back ups, a white chain gun fitting no longer needed and so on.

So that's the cost of water cooling a PC "on the cheap". When I say on the cheap I mean it. Every fitting was at least 1/4 of the price it should have been. It's actually quite scary when you sit down and do the calculations. You start to see the costs rack up and then realise just how much you've been had Joking aside though I have really enjoyed the project so far and a couple of hours will get me to the finish line. I will then snap some pics, before a complete redesign of the living room and most notably PC area.

Three days ago my wife (after having used her desktop only twice) said I could have it back. It's not just any old desktop either. 2009 Area 51 8 core Ivy with a Fury X and all bionic fans and AIOs. So my plan is to basically take all three desktops down, get rid of her chair, monitor and speakers and then set all three desktops up on her old desk and get myself a 4 port USB switch KVM thing. I don't need to switch video, as my monitor has three inputs IIRC so I only need to switch the K M and my mic.

Pics coming soon (I promise) but until then it's all something to ponder

Pretty impressive considering I spent over £300 on just my fittings alone and doesnt include blocks, rads or tubing etc.

 

[AlienALX]

About Waynio.

Waynio, AKA Wayne Wilkinson was a modder who used to frequent the Bit-Tech community. That was where I met Wayne. Wayne's work was incredible, and he soon became the modder I looked up to. Wayne was such a nice person.

Sadly Wayne died recently of a very aggressive form of cancer. Please take the time to have a look through Wayne's work logs. You can find them [http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3783064&postcount=26]here/url]

Even though this build is not befitting of the work Wayne produced and his incredible talent I would still like to dedicate this build to him.

The end

 

[Wraith]

Quality! Very nicely done fella, take a bow.

 

[AlienALX]

Quality! Very nicely done fella, take a bow.

Thanks man

Going to take a rest now, I'm absolutely exhausted both physically and mentally.

Then no doubt next week I will look at all my fittings and spare res etc and then water cool my 2008 lmao.

 

[RobM]

An end result well worth your efforts nice job bud

 

[AlienALX]

Thanks Rob

 

[Excalabur50]

Bloody Brilliant well done mate!

 

[AlienALX]

Cheers Now to set all three of them up and get some pics just waiting on a KVM switch I ordered.

 

[AlienALX]

Dianoga, Redux.

OK so I pointed out that this build started off as a bit of a joke. However, once the parts started flooding in it got a little bit more serious than that. It reached the point where I was happy enough to make it a tribute for Wayne. The hardware though was pretty dire. Very old then, let alone here over a year later.

I have used the build quite a lot because I had networking issues with Win 10 where I could not watch any football streams. Plus it's damn near silent and I like Ubuntu a lot. However, due to recent events I am now needing a gaming PC to take to my mother's house. I recently put one rig on the TV so that only leaves Dianoga.

Upgrade parts.

I don't need to upgrade the GPU. It's a GTX 950 but I can clock it stupid. It does 1500 quite easily and IIRC I almost got it to 1600. When I play with friends I only play the bread and butter stuff, L4D, L4D2, Borderlands and so on. All of which it does with ease in Ubuntu. However I want to switch back to Windows now so I can play more games.

Last summer I overhauled my Triad rig with a 14 core Broadwell and new board. This left me with an X99 board.

It's a real ugly duckling. However, power that bugger on and you have a swan. Killer E2200, Intel Proset wireless, Intel Gigabit LAN, Soundblaster Recon 3D and so on. It also supports triple SLi and gawd knows what else. So it's more than man enough. I will probably paint the sinks all satin black and then try and make a full board cover for the first time. I will need to scan it, if it fits under the scanner of course.

For the CPU I picked up one of these.

https://ark.intel.com/products/92981/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2630-v4-25M-Cache-2_20-GHz

For £169 with the postage. Not got any RAM yet, but that will come last. I also ordered this from OCUK on the cheap.

I can get the "arms" for around £15. I may just make them myself tbh. I want them black any way, so yeah I will see about that..

More to come soon

 

[AlienALX]

In a twist of irony I went through countless purchases on Ebay and it turns out I had ordered the CPU from the same company I got the 14 core one from lol. This eased my nerves a little. I do always feel nervous buying these CPUs. Not sure why, I've bought loads now lol. The last time I tracked the CPU and it took 48 hours to show. I wasn't best pleased about this (see also nerves, and handing over £360). This time though it arrived on time. Had a good look at it up close and there is no evidence of it ever being used.

Also kinda ironic is that the boost speeds/core speeds when boosting are pretty much the same as the one I have now. So this CPU will be almost as fast at pretty much everything. Which is good considering it cost less than half of the last one !. I consider £160 for a 2.8ghz on all 10 cores CPU to be about the best value for money on a CPU anywhere in the market right now. It's just unbeatable

Block should arrive tomorrow, then I can ID the exact arms I need and order those.

I am also considering making a full cover for the mobo. It won't be expensive but it will be serious amounts of work. It will require scanning the board to scale and then chopping out everything that wants to come through it. However, that shouldn't be too hard. What will be hard is fitting it under the scanner. It may simply be too big. Which not only means I would need to scan it in two halves but also plotter cut it in two halves like I did with the hex pattern. That wasn't so much of a problem with that but a board needs much higher accuracy.

I shall ponder it. Would be nice though eh? a board cover the same colour as the mid plate making the whole thing look sorta invisible

 

[AlienALX]

Another update, and a huge sigh of relief and plus some comedy for Gareth (because he always seems to laugh when I am in pain lmao).

OK so I found some RAM. TBH? this was the most daunting part of the upgrade. I don't need to explain how much DDR4 costs now (hint - about a ton for 8gb). I really begrudged paying that tbh. A real kick in the nuts when you are on a budget. Any way I found these Hynix sticks on Ebay (UK seller) for £70. Offered the guy £50 offer rejected but counter offer of £55. I offered £50 again this time with a note explaining I really didn't have any more than that (which I don't it has come out of my savings for now).

I literally waved my arms around in the air like this.

All because I scored some bare green RAM for £50. Nuts isn't it? any way, after celebrating I started to think about how to make it look like £100 RAM. Pondered a couple of my usual "go to" coolers but then I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.

I had four to play with. I bought these for the coolers a very long time ago for a fiver (4x1gb DDR3 1800) so wasn't worried whether or not I would "Do a Dominator 2" and rip the entire chips off, cooler and all pmsl. I started to experiment and then long story short realised that you need heat. Lots and lots of luvverly heat. I burnt my ring finger tip so bad it's like glowing red. However, I got there in the end..

I did find out something very interesting about Corsair's methods of attaching coolers, though. Now when I heated this thing I needed to heat it to the point where there was literally smoke coming off of my gaming mat. Then you can pry them off quite easily. It was nasty gooey sticky stuff and I figured I would just attack that with white spirit and then isoprop to get them like new. However, I soon found out that once this stuff cools down it immediately turns to concrete and isn't sticky any more. As they would say in the Southern USA "Now ain't that a thing?". So I am going to grind it off with a wire brush on a Dremel, then polish with a rag end.

Decals will obviously be replaced.