[Project Log] Hex-Gear R40 Monochromatico

[NoobCase]

Ever since I saw the first articles on the R40 from Hex-Gear I've wanted to build in it. Just finishing Frost Titan I really had no need for an upgrade or a new build, but the urge got too strong when I found a cheapish 2nd Titan X, that had only been running for 3 months at stock and no watercooling.

This Time I wanted a more industrial and perhaps stealthier look, so I will be using fittings instead of bendning the hardline tubing. New clear blocks for GPUs and CPU is also ordered - cause they look a lot more sexy!

Should save me some time as well as I'm hard pressed for spare time with a newborn (10 weeks) and a 4 year old who wants dad to build Lego all the time

But progress on this build may be pretty slow.

Anywyas I present to you: MonoChromatico! As the name implies it wil be a black/grey/white colour scheme.

Partslist (I wil be re-using a lot of the parts from Frost Titan):

Asus Gryphon Z97 [Armor Edition]
Intel I7-4790K
16 GB Kingston hyperX Beast
Samsung EVO 500 GB SSD
Samsung EVO 250 GB SSD
EVGA Titan X (x2)
Hex-Gear R40
Icemodz Custom PSU Cables
Noctua NF-F12 x 5 (won't be doing anything to them as they will be hidden in the top and bottom compartments)
Seasonic Platninum 1000W PSU

WC Parts:
Rads, blocks, backplates and Pump/Res combo + Dual Parallel Link from EKWB
Shitload of Bitspower fittings

First things first - Assembly of the R40. I used quite a bit longer than the 60 mins estimated....

Box containing the Case + EK Mount and RmATX accent pack (ended up not using it)

Lotsa good stuf

More or less half way

Getting closer:

Fitted PSU and MB - I need to measure the exact lenghts for my Icemodz order.

Side Panel on (Tried it with the nuts on the outside - not liking that will use the hex screws on the outside insted. And I only got 7 nuts with the case and need 8 - hopefully Hex-Gear will ship me a new one)

Up next:

Spray painting the Gryphon Armor and Chip Heatsink and the SATA connectors on the MB white.
I had originally intended to cover the PSU with a custom cover made by Hex-Gear, but they couldn't come up with a design that would finish of some of the edges in a pleasing manner. So following their advice, I went with custom cables. I've thought of painting the PSU, but frankly it looks pretty good and the colours fit the coulor scheme spot on.

Measuring the cables lenghts needed as mentioned earlier.

Waiting for most of the WC parts to arrive...

 

[NoobCase]

Update:

Got the lenghts of the cables measured last night as well as painted the armor and some of the motherboard and chipset heatsink - I even managed to squeeze in a coat more this morning. Pictures are from the first 2 or 3 coats.

Now i just need to order the custom cables... and boy.. The Seasonic PSU cables are... well let's just call them proprietary at best... PCI-E are double 8/6 coming from a 12pin. the Motherboard 24 pin.... well I didn't even count the pins at the PSU side... it's a 2 part connector.... Hope Icemodz can make them look good...

And a bit disappointed with the sleeving that PSU comes with... its really expensive.. at least use all black wires!

And Hex-Gear came throug. I received the screws and nuts I needed... the day after I wrote them.. Thank you p0Pe!

That is proper costumer service that is.

 

[AlienALX]

Hexgear = the new Caselabs.

 

[NoobCase]

Hexgear = the new Caselabs.

Aesthetically more pleasing than CaseLabs if you ask me, but that's all in the eyes of the beholder I guess

Oh and Update!!!

Icemodz confirmed that he should have no problems making the Custom Cables for the Seasonic... all is good.. Untill I start drilling wholes...

 

[NoobCase]

Guess it wasn't only the kids who fell asleep.

Got the Motherboard put back together and painted the cover plates for the PCI-E slots. No pictures of them, but last coat (hopefully) was applied last night.

here's the pictures of the assembled motherboard. As mentioned not completely perfect, but it will do.

And got the ROG SLI bridge modded. Took it apart and used grid 220 sand paper. Will give it a frosted white look instead of the stock red.

That is about all I can do until I get the rest of the watercooling bits and bobs. Well.. I'm going to be testing the motherboard to see if I broke anything....

Also ordered the custom PSU cables from icemodz.com. Mundi from icemodz was extremely helpful as some of the Seasonic cables are a bit wierd. (Thanks for all the help Mundi!)

The rather annoying cables:
24pin

Dual PCI-E

And here's the intended "design" - I got mad paint skillz...

 

[NoobCase]

Smallish update

First delivery from Caseking.de arrived.. Now I can get started with the WC part of the build... Well most of it. There's a few parts missing like titan EKWB backplate.

 

[JonU]

I'll be interested to see how the cables turn out. I've got the same cables and making custom cables has been a small nightmare.

 

[NoobCase]

I'll be interested to see how the cables turn out. I've got the same cables and making custom cables has been a small nightmare.

i'll make sure to post pictures when i get them

 

[NoobCase]

The good stuff arrived from CaseKing.de. To my dismay I ordered the wrong straight fittings.... completely my fault, so had to put in an order for 30 of the correct ones. And Pro-Tip when handling the black sparkle fittings... WEAR GLOVES.. they pick up fingerprints and shit will stay if not removed straigh away... So I can only send back 29....

And then a small teaser.

That's my drain-port solution. Koolance quick connects. I'm going to drill a whole to have the male part come out of the case. Should make it very easy to drain the system. All I should have to do is to tip the case

Other than that all I had time to do to night was testing if the motherboard worked. All other components have been checked. Motherboard is working fine. The obeservant may notice a rather high idle temp on the CPU - I didn't seat the cooler correctly nor applied new thermal paste. Just needed to know if it would boot.

Now that I have most of the stuff I need the next updates should contain:

1. Putting the GPU block and Backplate on the first Titan X (Still waiting on one backplate. It may ship today)
2. Installing the CPU back plate on the motherboard
3. Paint the EK 360 Rad white.
4. I could drill the whole for the Koolance Quick Connect, but I'd rather wait as the position may change when I make the loop.

 

[NoobCase]

Got the GPU block put onto the Titan X as well as the Dual Parallel brigde from EKWB. Forgot that my current backplate is actually on the installed Titan X in Frost Titan... not easily removed and would render me without my main rig...

and trying out the ROG SLi bridge on for size... Should fit nicely with the color scheme.

CPU backplate installed and the painted dust covers installed on the motherboard.

More or less done painting the EKWB rad. Up to 5 coats now... a freaking moth flew in and hit the rad whilst doing the 3rd coard... Luckily it is on the side that won't be visible.. and looks like I will be able to cover it with further coats.

1st coat

2nd coat

3rd. coat and moth collision.... (Had lightning issues there... not much one can do with no photography skills and a mobile phone...)

I'll be draining my current main rig and taking out the parts I need from there. (CPU, GPU, SSD's, Lighting, 1 240 EK PE rad, Pump/res - got a bigger tube for the res and fan y splitters and extensions)

Then I should finally be able to start doing the hard line loop. The custom cables have been delayed a bit. Shipped my E22 clear Stealth Cable Combs to Icemodz for him to use, as those kinds aren't something he normally uses. So he won't be able to start sleeving until he receives those.. should only be 2-4 work days unless the Icelandic customs decide to keep em. But awesome that we could arrange it like this instead.

 

[NoobCase]

Tonight was more or less all about draining Frost Titan and removing all the parts. Not much to say, but took a good amount of pictures in the process... The old drain was a freaking b**** to drain... but I managed..

The new correct fittings arrived today, so all I need to complete the build is the EKWB backplate.

Test fitted the 240 Rad at the top as well as installed the CPU and CPU block. Also put the long res tube on the combo unit.

Not sure if i will get much done tonight. Perhaps tidy up the office.. everything is where i left it last night

 

[NoobCase]

As stated, not much progress, tidied up half the desk and installed a few of the components to start planning the loop. Think I may have it settled now. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like much is lining up so I may have to go get some of those 2 and 3 way rotatable angled fittings - just got no idea what I have to get.. perhaps someone knows? (They have to be bitfenix Black chrome..)

Here's the loop I'm planning.

 

[NoobCase]

And plans change. It is wonderful. Ran into clearance issues, so here's the new loop.

Still running into clearing issues with the ram, but hoping a 90 degree fitting not as high as the rotatable ones will alleviate that. The other fittings marked with the red boxes will also be replaced by the same fittings as it will make the alignment a small bit better.

And again thanks to p0pe for the small tips regarding the pump mount and power button placement. I think I'll have to try sleeving the wires from the pump now though. As I won't be able to hide them through the routing whole in the mounting plate anymore. and shrink wrap is good for small cover ups.. not for something that will be this sightly

Still waiting on the last backplate from Caseking.de. Hopefully it will ship this week. (Hurry up....I really wan't to harvest the power of 2 GPUs before they aren't top of the line anymore.. ) Other than that I painted a corsair AF120 grey to balance out the grey from the PSU, but alas, I wasn't really careful when removing the painters tape from the wires which resulted in me pulling one of them off the soder points... whoopsie... good thing I have another lying around

I hope I'll get to start doing the loop late this week. But so far all work as been done when I could sneak a couple of hours work in late nights... or 5 mins to do a new coats of paint here and there Family life doesn't always leave room for hours on end pc building.

But holy balls.. I'm head over heals about those Black sparkle / Shiny black fittings from Bitspower... they look really really nice... and they are heavy as s*** to a point where I actually worry putting to many on one run of tubing may cause it to sack and causing leaks... Luckily the EKWB acrylic tubing and the BP fittings fit snugly together and was pretty impressed with the force I had to use to pull out a tube when first assembled. I feel pretty confident the leakage will be minimal... Even if I had a bad dream about it the other night...

 

[NoobCase]

And very small update.

Made my drainport. The extender and smaller fitting is a couple of mm too long so I'm gonna be using a piece of acrylic tubing instead. Like the look of the extender though.

Backplate and replacement fittings arrived yesterday hence I'll be starting on the loop as soon as I get some time... and cleaned up the office.. I have everything all over the place.. again.

 

[NoobCase]

Finally got the time to start on the loop. All parts has arrived except the PSU cables from Icemodz, but those are in the mail and should be here at the end of the week.

The tubing begins!

Drain port done:

Inlet for the pump run: (I may have to redo the horizontal piece as it seems to be 1-2 mm too short - will be easier to see when the loop is full)

Outlet from CPU to 360 Rad - the longest of the tubes in the build - comes in at around 27 cms:

To night I should hopefully get time to make some progress on the rest of the bends... I may take the easy way out with the run from the top 240 rad to the GPU as I don't think that run will be able to take the weight of 2 90 degree fittings and I need to bend that piece in order for it to even fit. Thinking it wil be a straight run directly from the rad, a 90 degree bend into to fitting on the GPU bridge.

 

[NoobCase]

Finally got the loop completed. There was a couple of bends I couldn't get as tights as I wanted. Rad to GPU I actually ended up having to do in a straight line and it doesn't align completely, so very anxious to see if it will leak.

Also re-installed the PSU and started hooking up all the PSU cables, fan connectors etc.

After seeing the loop complete I must admit that it leaves the ram area quite visible.. so I've ordered 32 GB Corsair Dominator Platinium 2400 ram.. Should fit very nicely in the color scheme.

I may do the GPU to CPU run as a straight line - was also a bend that is almost too narrow to do. You guys let me know if you think it will look better

FIlling and leak testing should happen tonight as well as installing the single Noctua NF-S12B 1200-PWM in the back that will act as an additional intake.

 

[NoobCase]

Didn't get around to filling, leak testing nor bleeding the system - as I can't put the loop fully together before I install the new ram. which is going to be 2133 MHz instead as the 2400 sudden took a rather big price jump from one day to another.

I did however manage to get everything else installed. Still waiting on the last PCIe Dual cabel for the top GPU. Icemodz made a mistake on it, but great customer service so no problem - just have to wait a couple of days for that cable.

Had a 12 cm LED from BitFenix left from my old build, that I thought of putting on the back to light up the motherboard IO, but that would include drilling another hole in a spot I wasn't quite comfortable with, so I decided to mount it on the bottom - hopefully it will give the case a floating effect.

Cable management isn't all done yet, but getting there. Not the cleanest on the backside, but theres a plate with the case, that will cover most of it.

Also put in 2 white Darksidemods rigid LED strips - top and bottom, that isn't shown on the pictures.

Picture time:

 

[NoobCase]

New ram arrived!!

1 installed

2 installed

3 installed

4!! installed

And thus it was time to put together the loop again. Decided that the tube from CPU to GPU is going to be straight with no bends so I will be remaking that run soon hopefully.

Warning lotsa pics inc!

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the cables coming out of the PSU look good/better? My initial thoughts is simply to bundle it all together in 1 big bundle with a couple of velcro zip ties that came with the PSU.

 

[NoobCase]

Update time!

The loop is finally complete!

Flushing the loop... and testing drain port... not working as well as I expected... I basically have to tilt and turn the case around to fill up the bottom rad several times to drain it... Majorly disappointed in that, but only got my self to blame i guess

and finally bleeding and leak testing the loop. Started late last night and 5 hours late when I got up still no leaks. Left it on and hope it is still dry when I get home.

Adn please forgive the cable management - it is not done yet and I will most like have the GPU PCI-e cable go above the card instead to make the 24-pin more visible.

But now it's getting there... all that is left is receiving the last dual PCIe GPU cable, cable management, putting the last parts of the case together and installing windows 8.1 and update to 10.

 

[NoobCase]

Small Update

Done bleeding and leak testing of the loop. No leaks after some 32+ hours. I'd say that classifies as passed.

And had to see how the light at the bottom will look.

Still no second gpu power cable, but system is ready for OS installation nevertheless. So the next updates should include a couple of benchmarks at stock speeds.