Project - Shoehorn It In There - All Internal Lian-Li v351 mATX Watercooling - Done
Not many people are around from when I frequented these forums two or three years ago. I got interested in watercooling not so much for the temperatures (it's a bonus), but for the fun of modding a case and the planning involved. I'm a hands on person and like to think things out, which is why it has probably taken me so long to get to this point.
Back when I first got into watercooling, I wanted to put a 120.3 radiator in the roof of my Thermaltake Tsunami, and possibly a 120.2 in the bottom. That never materialized and I got rid of the case. Replacing the Tsunami was the legendary Rocketfish, which could've housed 17 loops for all I know. I was planning to shoehorn a 120.4 in the top (or try to) and a 120.2 in the bottom and make a single, big loop. I don't exactly subscribe to dual loops for temperature sake. :shrug:
Big problems came about with my Rocketfish when I gave it to a friend to powdercoat it. He had showed me samples of stuff he's coated and it looked awesome. $50 for materials and labor, I couldn't go wrong. I handed him my case. He sand blasted it with either nuts and bolts or gravel, and then put a dusting of powdercoating on. It was so thin, that it didn't really cover up the craters he made when media blasting it, or even the metal itself. I told him to re-do it and he said he would because he wanted me to be happy. That never happened, and 3 months later, I got the case back in a cardboard box, untouched, when he nearly filed for bankruptcy. :down: :mad:
I ran it caseless for a while, and then bit the bullet and bought a Lian-Li v351 black on the cheap from newegg - $90 with free shipping, down from $120 plus shipping. :D
Between him messing up my case and the Lian-Li, I upgraded my hardware as well, and to get it into the Lian-Li, I was forced to use the stock cooler. 7,100 rpm, +/-100 from the 70mm HSF wasn't going to last long, so I sold off my old parts which to my surprise, funded my entire watercooling project minus misc screws and nuts.
Enough blabbering.
Hardware:
Processor - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
Motherboard - MSI 890GXM-G65
RAM - Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 CL9
GPU - eVGA GTX260
PSU - Silverstone OP650 (with my half-ass sleeve job)
Case - Lian-Li v351 black
Harddrives - Currently an 80GB WD SATA1 for OS/programs and 2x Hitachi 1TB for storage. Planning on getting an SSD or 7200rpm laptop drive for an OS drive, because I can easily hid a 2.5" drive in a case meant for 2x3.5" only.
Cooling:
CPU - EK Supreme HF (nickel + acetal)
Pump - Laing DDC-3.2 (pump top still to arrive, asking for a refund because it's been 3.5 weeks since I paid for it :mad::down::mad:)
Radiator - HW Labs BI GTX240
Fans - Panaflo FBA12G12M (noise doesn't bother me)
Tubing - Primochill Primoflex Pro LRT, white, 3/8-5/8
Fittings - Bitspower compressions, sparkling silver
Res - Swifty MC-Res
Now for some pictures. I'll post a picture, and then put my comments immediately below it. I've resized them to 1024x768 for those of you still on a 15" monitor. ;) They were taken with my girlfriend's point-and-shoot with no tripod, so you'll have to just make do. I don't care so much about the pictures as I do about the work I've done. ;)
This isn't a full worklog either. I'm going to show you guys everything I've done in the past 2 days. I didn't take any pictures until everything started coming together.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...ater/Order.jpg
Got the radiator mounted in the front of the case. There was no wiggle room whatsoever. The radiator is 277mm tall, and the space I had to fit it in was 279mm. That's why you see the radgrill hanging off the side... the fans were off-center and there was no way I could correct it.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26.../Rear_View.jpg
A back view showing the radiator mounted with 38mm fans.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...er/Mounted.jpg
A more overall view.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...ater/Front.jpg
Frontal shot.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26.../Clearance.jpg
Told you guys it was close. :D;)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26.../Front_Far.jpg
Shot showing how much the rad-grill overhangs the edge. I don't like it, but I will deal with it until I decide on a color scheme for the case and sleeve. I'm going to have a different friend paint it for me, inside and out, so the cut on the radgrill won't be noticeable.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...plate_Hole.jpg
Credit to Crazy V for this idea. She's the first I've seen that put the rubber edge molding around the cut. It makes it look a lot better, I think. I had to cut this because my EK backplate and screws stick out quite a bit from the bottom of the motherboard, and since the standoffs are short, the backplate screws hit the motherboard tray before the motherboard rested on the standoffs.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...er/Overall.jpg
I know, I know, finger prints everywhere.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...Pump_Mount.jpg
Pump mounted on the I/O plate
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26...Water/Pump.jpg
Pump inside. I made sure to leave clearance so I can install the pump and still be able to slide the tray in and out.
The plan:
Reservoir: I'm going to mount the Swifty MC-Res to the last two PCI slot covers.
Pump: The pump is getting screwed to the back plate above the I/O shield.
Tentative loop order is Res > Pump > CPU > Radiator > Res, which makes my tubing the simplest.
