Project P182 Watercooled V2!

[DeMoB]

I can't believe that my system was running with acceptable temperatures in that state, I played all the way through bioshock with my loop/block apparently in this condition!

I've bought a raystorm to replace it already though, and I'm selling this one on to a friend so took the time to clean it as I wanted to give it them in an reasonable condition.

 

[Mysterae]

As you can no doubt tell from some of my recent WC photos, plasticiser has leached out of all my pipes and into my loop. Being lazy and knowing I was due to replace the tubing later as part of this project, I didn't do anything about it until now.

Here's the state of my CPU block:

That's the worst state of a cpu block I've seen in a while! Considering how bad it was you did a good job cleaning it up!

 

[DeMoB]

Case Stripped Down, Once Again

While I had my case partially stripped down to remove the PSU, I decided now was as good a time as any to make a couple more case adjustments I had wanted to for a while. So out came everything else...

I've always used a T-Line to fill my WC loops in the past, mostly because I didn't have the space for a full sized reservoir and I felt T-Lines gave me a cleaner looking system, but I did sorely miss the quick-bleed ability of reservoirs.

Due to this I've been keeping my eye out for a suitable small res for a while now, but I had not found any that would fit that wasn't a bay res (something I didn't want to go for as it'd make my WC run use more piping and runs than I wanted).

However I recently found this, and decided it was perfect for my build:

It's a FrozenQ FlexTank and is both really nice looking and small enough for use in my system.

I don't know if I'd got one from a bad batch, but the mounting hardware was crap, and not even finished off properly (there should have been screw holes where there were none and the acrylic clips snapped the first time I tried to use them!). But that didn't matter as I wasn't planning on using them anyway.

I was going to just stash the FlexTank just under this bit in my case (where a FDD would have gone a long time ago) but realised that I liked the look of it too much to hide it like that, and I really could do with being able to see it to know when I need to top up the coolant.

So I had the epiphany of keeping the res stashed away there, but cutting out a hole in the case surround to see the top of the res.

So out came the trusty dremel (and safety goggles, don't forget those!) to cut up my case ...

I made the cable routing hole bigger round the back of the motherboard tray at the same time, as I wasn't going to have enough room after sleeving all my cables to fit them through the existing slot.

And once I'd put that part of the case back together again...

With a couple of LED screw-in caps to the un-used fillports, this is going to look very nice indeed.

 

[alpenwasser]

With a couple of LED screw-in caps to the un-used fillports, this is going to look very nice indeed.

Yes, yes it is.

 

[wassupdoc]

I love it!!!

 

[DeMoB]

Blood Red Tubing

I've had an idea in the back of my mind with what I wanted to do about the tubing in my rig, having been unable to find any deep blood red available to buy outright.

But I've not had chance to check if it was going to work until now, and now that I know it is going to work, I can't decide if it's more of a tease for you or me to see a taste of what is to come!

 

[DeMoB]

Motherboard Nip & Tuck

Even though my case layout has always been pretty clean, I've never felt the look of my mod kept up with other newer builds, and I realised it was because of all the different coloured plastic components on my motherboard:

So they had to go:

Yeah that's paint

Now I have to wait until I've reassembled everything to see if my motherboard still works!

 

[DeMoB]

Lighting Teaser

I'm so close now, but there's still loads to do.

I soldered/wired up 2/3 of the LEDs last night....

Man this thing's going to look pretty.

 

[The Orange One]

It Looks soo pretty with the lighting!! Nice work!

 

[tonschk]

Painstakingly hand painted with chaos black model paint that I stole off of my brother

(I don't think I dare paint the blades in case it unbalances it and sends the fan wobbly).

Dan

I don't understand how noctua can sell fans with such awful/horrible beige/brown colors

 

[DeMoB]

I don't understand how noctua can sell fans with such awful/horrible beige/brown colors

I know! I'm so much happier with my Gentle Typhoons now. I dare say they're even a little quieter.

 

[sheroo]

Have been keeping an eye on this one for what seems like ages. I still have my original P180 in a box somewhere. It was one of the first ATX full towers that I bought, so am quite nostalgic about the chassis.

Love what you are doing with it, keep the updates coming...

 

[DeMoB]

Have been keeping an eye on this one for what seems like ages. I still have my original P180 in a box somewhere. It was one of the first ATX full towers that I bought, so am quite nostalgic about the chassis.

Love what you are doing with it, keep the updates coming...

Thanks man, it's nice to know people actually follow along what I'm doing with my rig, even if I've got to be approaching some sort of record for longest mod in progress.

Don't think I could ditch the P182 for a new case even though it is so old now!

 

[alpenwasser]

Even though my case layout has always been pretty clean, I've never felt the look of my mod kept up with other newer builds, and I realised it was because of all the different coloured plastic components on my motherboard:

[...img...]

So they had to go:

[...img...]

Yeah that's paint

Now I have to wait until I've reassembled everything to see if my motherboard still works!

Man, the glorious X58. :rock:
It's rather astonishing that nicely coloured motherboards weren't really a thing until
quite recently.

Personally I'm quite glad Intel hasn't really made revolutionary leaps in performance
in the last few years. Makes a 1366 still quite competitive for most real world scenarios
(which is a big relief for somebody just starting a 1366 Xeon build :lol: ).

Thanks man, it's nice to know people actually follow along what I'm doing with my rig, even if I've got to be approaching some sort of record for longest mod in progress.

Don't think I could ditch the P182 for a new case even though it is so old now!

Steam power is old. Your build is just no longer the absolute most recent. That's
perfectly OK (I'm swimming in similar waters, as mentioned ). Way too big of a fuss
is made about upgrading all the time imho. I don't need the absolute fastest thing
available at any given time, so I've stopped to get stressed out about keeping up to
date for the most part. If I see something I like and can afford it, I'll buy it, whether
it's current gen technology or something previous.

Not to mention that buying into a technology towards the end of its life cycle usually
gives you quite a mature platform which has had its kinks and bugs ironed out, or
at least well documented.

Anyway, </ramble> :lol:

 

[sheroo]

The other thing, is that if like me, you have lots of PC's in the house, it kinda makes sense for them to all be compatable with each other - in case you need to swap processors out. These latest processors may be epic, but so have the few gens as well.

 

[alpenwasser]

Oh yes, definitely a very valid point. The server I'm currently putting together and my dad's
work rig are both 1155, so if there's a CPU or M/B failure with the server I can just swap
the part with one from my dad's rig and he'll have to switch to working on his laptop until
a replacement gets here (which shouldn't be too much of a problem since his data will
be on the server).

On the other hand, if something goes wrong with HELIOS I will be utterly and completely
screwed...

 

[DeMoB]

Steam power is old. Your build is just no longer the absolute most recent. That's perfectly OK (I'm swimming in similar waters, as mentioned )....

I'm actually alright with my current hardware (well maybe apart from the fact I'm finding I can't run every game at 1920x1200 maxed out anymore), and was more joking at how slow I'm being in putting the finishing touches on my case mod.

Having said that though, do you ever really 'finish' a project, or just get it to a point where you are happy to stop working on it for a while?

 

[alpenwasser]

I'm actually alright with my current hardware (well maybe apart from the fact I'm finding I can't run every game at 1920x1200 maxed out anymore), and was more joking at how slow I'm being in putting the finishing touches on my case mod.

That makes sense. And indeed, you're still doing quite well with that platform (which
I think is awesome). Good thing there hasn't really been a huge leap since X58 when
it comes to raw performance (well, maybe with the GK110 on the graphics side, but I
have one of those ).

Having said that though, do you ever really 'finish' a project, or just get it to a point where you are happy to stop working on it for a while?

Hm, very interesting question. I'd say it depends a bit on the project. For both ZEUS
and HELIOS I've set myself some clear objectives of what I want to achieve and when
I get there I would say I'm actually finished. Provided nothing breaks in the foreseeable
future the only thing I'll probably be upgrading is getting a dedicated soundcard for
HELIOS and increasing storage space for both rigs (that might actually be the case
quite soon).

On the other hand, my previous rig wasn't really one rig but more of a continuing
evolution over several years.

 

[DeMoB]

Sleeving Woes

So I don't think I mentioned yet that when I got my Seasonic PSU back from RMA, they had replaced it with a newer version of the X-Series lineup, which has completely different modular connectors for all the cables.

Which meant all my sleeving done so far was useless with this PSU.

I've been able to re-sleeve the 8pin and PCIe cables again, so am back to where I was before my PSU setback, but now need to order a bunch more paracord, and my supplier is out of stock of the silver colour (for another 4 weeks).

In a tiny bit of positive news, I'm really proud of this custom FDD modular power cable I made:

I was able to use my new toy's hot-knife attachment to melt the insides of the connectors out a bit, allowing me to tuck the heatshrink into the connector for a no-wires-visible finish.

But I'm dreading working on this nightmare:

I've already re-wired the cables so they don't cross over each other to the PSU-split connector (as much as I can), but there are 4 two-wires-on-one-pin connectors on the motherboard side which I'm going to have to find a way of hiding or cleanly sleeving, and yes, that is a wire pair twisted together for some inexplicable reason.

 

[sheroo]

You've gotta love Maplin. I could spend hours in their shop...