My Silverstone SG01 Micro ATX build!

[Justler]

I made one of these on another forum and wanted to make one here, too =).

I have a Silverstone SG01 silver micro atx case and wanted to watercool it for a fun project.

If you have any suggestions or things I could add, lemme know. This has been a lot of fun and i've stretched it across a few days to enjoy it. Tomorrow I will clean the radiator and plug it in then start the loop and let it run to make sure there's no leaks.

Also, suggestions on a window would be nice. It'd be neat to see all this stuff =). I was thinking of just getting a sheet of acrylic from home depot and gluing it in there instead of using rivets.

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-G33-S2
4gigs G.Skill PC2 8000
Q6600 B3
eVGA 8800GT SSC
Corsair 620HX Powersupply

Water cooling stuff:
PA120.3 Radiator
MCP655-V pump
EK Microres
D-Tek Fuzion CPU Block
Switch MCW60 GPU Block
Tygon 3/8" tubing
Yate Loon 120mm low speed fans
Sunbeam fan controller

I decided for now, that I just want to do a CPU/GPU loop. After working with the case and getting most of the stuff in, it will be really tight if I add the Northbridge in as well.

First I cleaned up my case wiring and disconnected the firewire connector from the front (I've never ever use firewire)

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC280015.jpg

Memories (color matches the board nice!):

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC280016.jpg

Posts and block w/ ceramique installed getting ready for tightening pain!

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC280021.jpg

Reservoir mounted on the back side for easy access. I tried mounting it inside, but couldn't find a spot that worked very well. I think I like it on the back better. I'll have to trim the case lip so the top goes on ok.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC290022.jpg

CPU side of the loop. I had to use 90degree elbows since the power supply sits right above the CPU. Hopefully the MCP655 will survive ok.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310023.jpg


Tubes coming out the back where they will hook into the radiator. The output of the pump will go to the radiator, then the other side of the radiator goes to the in of the CPU block. From there, it goes to the GPU block, to the res, then back to the in side of the pump.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310024.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310026.jpg

Far away pic, and my messy kitchen table =). My brother and sister love it when I do project like this! *wink wink* Kitchen table is my work space =).

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310027.jpg

Video card side of the loop. Thinking I should put more coily stuff here for decoration. It looks neat.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310028.jpg

Modified the original MCP655 bracket and drilled a hole in the center support of the case:

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310029.jpg

HD Tray that i'm working on. Going to dremel w/ the cut-off wheel on that bent side so I can mount my HDs backwards close to the SATA ports so I don't have cables running everywhere! Also going to put a support on the top of it for the pump, so it doesn't shake loose from just one screw holding it up!

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310034.jpg

View from above:

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/PC310031.jpg

[Lurid]

Nice job so far, personally I would have went with a MCP355, placed where the 3.5" drive bay is now (Removed it first). Where are going to mount the radiator?

[Justler]

Not sure how I will have enough space. The square opening in the back is where the power supply goes... It's not installed in any of the pictures, but when I put it in, the elbows barely miss the bottom of the PS.

I'll have to figure out something with the pump as far as how to rotate it. The cover goes directly ontop of the pump, so that will be a bit of a challenge. I'd like to not have to feed tubing through the case top as it is all one piece and would make it a pain when I have to remove it =(.

Radiator will be mounted above where the power supply goes, with the nozzles facing downwards (Two tubes out the back connect to radiator).

[Lurid]

Buy a 5.25" to 3.5" converter, mount the HDD in the cage there and mount the pump where the (removed) 3.5" cage once was?

[Justler]

Buy a 5.25" to 3.5" converter, mount the HDD in the cage there and mount the pump where the (removed) 3.5" cage once was?

The sunbeam rheobus takes up one 5.25" bay, and I need a dvd/cd-rom drive =). I also have 2 HDDs =)

The joys of working w/ a micro atx case! =). I think I can rotate the pump so the outlet is facing up, but I can bend the tubing over the video card. That may just work... i'll have to fiddle with it when I get home.

[Waterlogged]

There's nothing wrong with how your pump is mounted. "Someone" needs to read that warning again, and this time understand it correctly.

Looking good so far :up: 3 of my 5 current builds are in certified mATX/SFF cases and the other 2 are a 12" Lubic's cube and a FrozenCPU Hypercube. I know the headaches your going through right now but your doing good. Keep up the good work.

Any chance you can mount the Sunbeam in the case cover on the top somewhere?

[Waterlogged]

Huh? The motor is lower in the pics. A little tilting to the side and front and all is good. I just don't see the need to force a pump move when

1. Space is at a premium, it only makes the build harder
2. Nothing was wrong with how it was mounted in the first place

[Justler]

Thanks Waterlogged. The case was a little bit of a pain to work with, but overall, it's been a fun challenge. I still need to support the circular end of the pump a little better. I even tilted it down, so the input portion of the pump is higher than the circular side that has the adjuster on it. Hopefully that is good enough, i'll run it in a few hours and find out.

I may take the sunbeam out of its mounting hardware and find a way to mount it vertically on the side of the case, but as far as putting it on the top, I think it would expose more than i'm like. I'll fiddle with it and see =).

I'm a fairly creative person and like making funky little solutions. MicroATX watercooling setup has been a blast. I can only imagine the larger cases being so much easier. It'll be neat for people to come over and see at the lan party we host at the house.

Will post some more pics later =).

[Justler]

I'm going to keep the elbows I think and mount the power supply in its normal spot. I've seen a few setups like this, and I don't think i'll be sacrificing much in the way of temperature. I've read in a few places that adding an elbow is like adding 4 ft of tubing. Which is around a .1c temp jump. That's fine for me.

Maybe at some point i'll put in a flow meter to see how much flow i'm getting, but I don't think two elbows is going to kill this massive pump. If I can keep around 1.25gpm that will be just fine I think.

I'm mounting the radiator laying on top of the case so its widest part is facing down and the nozzles on it are facing down. You can see two grommet holes in the back of the case, they will go up to the radiator. I will start out with 3 fans on top in a pulling configuration, i'll see how it does then decide if I want to add an additional 3 pushing air through on the bottom. 6 fans seems like it will be a lot of noise, but I bought 6 yate loons just incase I wanted to use em all. I may make a fiberglass support of some kind for the pump but that is yet to be figured out.

[Justler]

Well, after a goof up w/ my radiator (screws too long), I popped a hole in one of the water channels. Luckily I had some JB Weld left over from my HID retrofit. Drained, let dry, pinched hole closed a little and mixed up a small batch of JB Weld. It seems to be holding strong (I placed it over the heat vent so it would cure fast), i've let it sit 24 hours and just reintroduced it to my loop. Gonna stay up a few more hours to monitor it.


I also soldered my fan wiring together so I can control the top and bottom fan together on one rheobus channel. Looks like below. Just need to solder the 3 pin connectors on and shrink tube them.

1 2 3
radiator
1 2 3


Going to get some G11 from the VW dealer tomorrow as well. I'll eventually be getting UV cold cathodes, some uv reactive tube coils (instead of the blue) and UV reactive power supply connectors (all in good time).

I love these kinds of little projects =).

Pray my radiator doesn't spring a leak!

[Eddie3dfx]

Looks good, except for the elbows on the fuzion.
It looks like it should bend right into the fuzion without an elbow..

[Fujimitsu]

Ditch the elbows.

Other than that, I'm waiting to see how this turns out.

Did a build in that exact case about 2 months ago... it was a nightmare with Air so I am very interested to see how this ends up looking.

Good work so far!

[Justler]

Ditch the elbows.

Other than that, I'm waiting to see how this turns out.

Did a build in that exact case about 2 months ago... it was a nightmare with Air so I am very interested to see how this ends up looking.

Good work so far!

Unforunately it doesn't seem like there's any way to eliminate the elbows. I tried straight tubing but even 3/8" kinks no matter how I run it.

Case on and top mounted. I didn't get a chance to really do all the cabling the way I wanted because we have a lan party tomorrow at my house so I just wanted to get it running.

so far, 19-20c idle. I loaded one core in orthos for 20 mins and it maxed out at 29c. I tried loading multiple prime95 instances but they wouldn't load.

I have to install the nvidia stuff to see the temp on my 8800GT still. Going to try and OC it a bit more. Once I tidy up the wiring i'll take pics, otherwise I just crammed the stuff in and zip tied it for now. My Sunbeam Rheobus works nice, too. The LEDs are too bright so I put electrical tape over em.

I also shrink tubed the fan wiring going into the case. I think everyone will be impressed tomorrow. Doing this small form-factor case makes bigger cases look like childs play =).

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/P1040003.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/P1040004.jpg

[Chewbenator]

It looks like that rad is taking advantage of that case if you know what I mean... Cool build but doesn't it defeat the purpose if you have that huge unwieldy radiator on top?

[WhitenameseKid]

It was looking really great until you put that gigantic radiator on top lol

[joecop120]

that thing won't tip over cuz of the rad, will it?
Looks good though. Where do you eat if the kitchen table is occupied?!?

[evil-98]

wow that rad looks huge compare to the actually machine. looks great, but things look kinda of rushed. take your time. but its a great build sofar!

[Justler]

There's absolutely no place to stick a radiator inside the case, even a small .1. I've had the case for awhile and got it because it was smaller than a medium sized case. It's still lighter than my old antec sonata. The rad does look huge, but it was either put it there, or hook it to the side to keep it all as one unit.

We don't eat too often at the dinner table, especially when I do projects like this. Ask my sister how much she hated my fiberglass HID retrofit for my Jetta... that was way worse. Table was taken up for 2 1/2 weeks or more with even more crap everywhere. It's just my sister, brother and I living here and we're all in our 20s.

There's no way it will tip over.. Even if I lean it to one side, it still wants to sit flat. The MCP655 is on the opposite side of the radiator, and the hard drives are almost dead center. I'm running @ 3.32ghz on a Q6600 idle of 22-23c, fully loaded at 39c. gfx card sits at 37c idle, not sure on load yet, haven't really played much, just been prepping for the party.

I did rush to put it together at the end... here's a couple shots of how it is now on my desk for the lan party we're having today (reason I had to rush).

I am going to go back eventually and shorten the 24v atx connectors and trim the power and sata stuff to length and tie it up all neat.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/P1050002.jpg

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u171/justler_2007/Water%20Cooling/P1050001.jpg

[disruptfam]

:(

i dont like that huge things ontop on your small case... looks off...

just my honest opinion

Temps look good though :)

[Justler]

:(

i dont like that huge things ontop on your small case... looks off...

just my honest opinion

Temps look good though :)

That's ok, everyone has their opinion. About the only way you can really mount it, besides putting it on the floor or mounting to the side of the case =). I'm happy with it, that's for sure =). No way a Thermochill 120.3 would fit in this little guy.

This was also good research for our home theater pc. which will be watercooled only with a small internal radiator.

I don't see many micro atx builds very often, unfortunately.

[Eddie3dfx]

Temps are very good. I like the case a lot.
Is the psu not in the case? or is it in there?
I can't tell from your previous pictures

[Justler]

Temps are very good. I like the case a lot.
Is the psu not in the case? or is it in there?
I can't tell from your previous pictures

It's in there, just didn't get a pic of it before I closed everything up. It's a Corsair 620 HX.