Water Cooled Case Gallery

[Dark Prodigy]

Dude, the other two posters are right, much like the air cooling thread this is becomming a work log / nice picture thread.

And telling someone to get a life while your on a forum for geeks is obsurd.

Totally agree on both points. This IS NOT a worklog thread its a GALLERY and if someone wants to show off their modding hard work and ideas, it belongs in its own thread.

Gallery threads are threads to show off FINISHED work..not 'works in progress'. Moderators need to post some rules for this thread because right now its screwed up with unnecessary and boring pics.

[TheSamurai]

i'm a nerd... not a geek.

[CyberDruid]

Originally Posted by Waterlogged
This is just a question out of curiosity, when did this become a work log thread?

I try to understand where you are coming from...but I don't.

Seriously.

Where is your LC case?

Dude, the other two posters are right, much like the air cooling thread this is becomming a work log / nice picture thread.

And telling someone to get a life while your on a forum for geeks is obsurd.

Point taken on your last comment. I still fail to see how this being a gallery should exclude nice pictures of people's LC work? Is this now your thread? If so please PM a mod and have it cleaned up to meet your criterion.

Totally agree on both points. This IS NOT a worklog thread its a GALLERY and if someone wants to show off their modding hard work and ideas, it belongs in its own thread.

Gallery threads are threads to show off FINISHED work..not 'works in progress'. Moderators need to post some rules for this thread because right now its screwed up with unnecessary and boring pics.

Your opinions as to what constitutes a Gallery or Boring or Unneccessary are just like anyone else's opinion--valid only to the originator of the opinion. And like many of the members of this "elite" forum you present your opinions as if they had some sort of authority behind them--which since they are not facts and cannot be proven--do not.


Since when is any case finished? And please show me the boring pics. Please: I am trying to understand how this thread has been defiled. If it's so bad PM the originator of the thread and get him on the stick to clean this up!!!


It's a gallery. What exactly is the definition that makes one picture acceptable and another not? I see no guideline in the first post of this thread as to what should NOT be posted. This makes me highly suspicios of those that post negative comments and have NO WORK TO SHOW.

THere are always those in the peanut gallery that like to shout and harass those on the stage...and all it really does is detract from the overall experience.

I am dead serious about this. I have no problem running worklog threads--I have dozens of them. But when I see a watercooling gallery thread and want to share some pics of LC efforts I cannot understand how my pics of my rigs are any different than pics of anyone else's rigs?

Please explain your POV as I think it is nit picking and TBH smallminded and mean.

And BTW why don't you post some shots of your work instead of complaining about other people showing their work. It seems to me that the poeple posting pics are in general enthused and supportive of each other...while those that post rude comments and so on never have anything to show? Am I wrong?

Put up or shut up I say.

And if this thread is "On a runaway train" by all means PM a mod and set them to work cleansing the extraneuous posts!

IMO the only posts on this thread should be by builders with work to show and comments about that work by fellow enthusiasts.

Let the cranky and disgruntled yet ORAL minority troll other threads to pontificate upon...

[CyberDruid]

I just made my own thread and deleted some of the unessary pics, im not even comment on these guys. Cyberdruid what do you think of that idea i had to make that bottle i showed you into a fish tank res ? Put some rock a plant and that little glowing crystal lol. I might even add some fake fish in it

I was getting to it. And until I get a PM from a Mod explainging how my pics don't belong here they stay. I've been into PC since 1977...some snot nosed punks with bad attitudes do NOT phase me in the least.

I think your aquarium idea would need a little class to look right TBH. Perhaps a large diameter cylinder or a 6 bay res or something really out of the ordinary. But I would be concerned about any of the "scenery" getting into the pump!

How about a double-wall aquarium with a real aquarium in the center and the LC in the space between the panes?

I dunno--when it come to LC I think the loop needs to be pure and would hesitate about adding anything except maybe a silver coin or something useful like that to the res...

[Dark Prodigy]

Since when is any case finished? And please show me the boring pics. Please: I am trying to understand how this thread has been defiled.

It's a gallery. What exactly is the definition that makes one picture acceptable and another not?

I am dead serious about this. I have no problem running worklog threads--I have dozens of them. But when I see a watercooling gallery thread and want to share some pics of LC efforts I cannot understand how my pics of my rigs are any different than pics of anyone else's rigs?

Please explain your POV as I think it is nit picking and TBH smallminded and mean.

And BTW why don't you post some shots of your work instead of complaining about other people showing their work. It seems to me that the poeple posting pics are in general enthused and supportive of each other...while those that post rude comments and so on never have anything to show? Am I wrong?

A case being 'finished' or not is an individual point of view of the builder. However using common sense within context of this thread, it should mean a full and complete watercooled system. I know when I click on the watercooled gallery, I want to see systems not picture of reserviors and styrofoam cups and cutouts.

Since you have no problem with worklogs threads and claim to know what it means, it should be a simple matter of understanding what the difference between a gallery and a worklog thread is.

If you want to share pics of watercooling ideas, that's what the ENTIRE watercooling forum is for...not a gallery for completed systems. Start a new thread and share.

Its very asinine to conclude that "I'm complaining about other people showing their work" and even more sad you don't seem to understand what a gallery is. I've posted my system, but with all the unnecessary and unrelated pictures in this thread, mine and other people's work gets lost with obtuse and excessive non-system posting.

Commenting on other people's systems in a gallery is fine to me, people want to read feedback on their completed work and be proud of it. People want to see systems in a gallery not unnecessary pics of what went on while it was being built..that's what worklogs are for.

[CyberDruid]

Hmm never thought about that a double wall aquarium huh, the outside could be the reserviour and the inside the fancy stuff. Once i remove the 2 hdd bays, i could fit a 8 by 6 cylinder inside. I dunno how i would come up with a double walla aquarium tho, id have to go do some shopping then. What does LC mean btw ? What do you mean by a 6 bay res ? Something the size of 6 HDD bays in size ? Well the container i have now i guess looks small on the camera but it spans about 4. I would need to find something the size of that white res i have but it needs to be clear

Liquid Cooling LC lol

A double sided cylinder is easy--two different sizes of tube.

At Dark Prodigy. I am not trying to be argumentative. But there is a general snobby attitude here that irks me. I am not pointing a finger at you or anyone in particular...but there seems to be a mentality here that bashing and trying to rank people into a pecking order is acceptable. To me it is not.

I showed a number of pictures of my completed rigs. I did not post a sequence of shots detailing point A to Point B. I did show some salient details from several angles. Like anyone that posts here I would like to think my posts are appreciated.

I know the value of my work--I get paid highly to do it.

[CyberDruid]

Ghetto 1337 LC cooling FTW

[tiro_uspsss]

i have only *EVER* seen TWO water-cooled PCs my *ENTIRE* life... CyberDruid... post away i say the more pics i see of *anything* WC'ing the better

[CyberDruid]

A friend of mine just finished milling his own waterblock and it is very nice. But for some reason I got even more excited by the barbs he milled...they are really nice.

I am totally nuts about LC/WC whatever you call it. I spend a great deal ofo my time either building or researching builds or dealing with questions about it...

[C'DaleRider]

Well, suppose I'll be a very Jonny-come-lately to this whole thing and post my very mild case mod. It's based on a CoolerMaster Mystique 631. It originally was silver but I started out the mod simply because I wanted it to be a shiny, reflective black....not that hair-lined anodizing CM seems obsessed with.

So, off to the races I went. Now understand, I'm 53 and outside of adding case fans to a case, this is my very first mod of any sort.....so please be gentle with your critique.


This is how it looked at the beginning:



I painted the entire case with a highly metallic Chrysler auto paint.....sanded the case a bit, then used filling primer (instead of etching primer as I wasn't all the way down to bare metal....and etching primer doesn't work too well sprayed over anodizing), and then several coats of paint. After drying for a week or so, I began wet/dry sanding, beginning with 800 grit and progressing up to 2000 grit. I then finished it by buffing with 3M polishing compound, followed by swirl remover, then with glaze. I finished by waxing it all.

This is the result of the work.....unfortunately, it is hard taking pics of it straight on as it's so reflective, it really only shows the metallic part and very little of the shine if a flash is used. But here goes:






That was the exterior. The interior got hand polished....as the entire case is aluminum.....and almost all of the interior surfaces polished quite well....but two panels, the rear and the bottom, were anodized, so I just painted them to match the exterior. The rest of the surfaces, though, were hand polished with Mother's Billet Polish....worked very well.

I started with the HD cage...........came out pretty well.




A bit more of the polishing:




I put some engine-turned vinyl around the case's motherboard tray that would be exposed when the mb was in place......and painted the bottom of the case:





By now I've decided to do a little more than just paint, so I needed a name for the case, as I removed the Mystique name from the case's front. I had an Eagle from the front grille of a 1963 Chrysler Imperial, so decided to play around with it....and eventually mounted it on the case's front and backlit it.








Well, got all the parts assembled......used a Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard, Xeon X3210 cpu, 1 x 2GB Buffalo DDR2-800 RAM, Radeon X1950 Pro video card, etc., etc. Watercooling was provided by a Swiftech Apogee GTX, Swiftech MCR-320, Swiftech MCW30, Swiftech MicroRes, a Laing DDC2 pump, and 3/8" Tygon R-3603 tubing.

Finished, it looked like this:




I know the slits in the door look rather light, but that's because I kept the front faceplate silver, like this:




I used white LED fans on the side and in the rear with red LEDs under the motherboard.....and used an OCZ memory cooler with its blue LEDs:

(Pic with case side off....used flash)






(Pic with case side off.....no flash used)







(Pic with case side on......flash used again)






In case you're wondering what the pic below is of, first another view of it:




That started life as a desk clock, purchased at Summit Racing in Atlanta. I gutted it and fit the working part of a tachometer from a 1976 Fiat Spyder 2000 into the body. Amazingly, the hour markings for the clock almost exactly matched the tach's calibration on the faceplate from the Fiat, so it was just a matter of setting "0", making sure 4K was in the correct place, and marking the numbers in the "correct" positions. The DDC2 has its RPMs just over 4200, and the tach accurately displays it.




Well, I thought it was neat.



Anyway, that's my Imperial case mod......rather simple, I know, but I don't think it's too bad considering it's my first attempt at it.

Thanks for looking!

[ceemic]

That's nice!

[disruptfam]

hey cdale rider awesome rig..

How many hour's of polishing did it take to get a mirror finish like your's? did u sand first of just polish?

cheers

[CyberDruid]

I am knocked out. That is true class. I love the RPM mod. Truly fun. Did you simply use the sensor lead from the pump? I had no idea it was that easy to convert an auto tach...

I love the simple elegance of your work . Very inspiriing.

Thanks!

[DarthBeavis]

A friend of mine just finished milling his own waterblock and it is very nice. But for some reason I got even more excited by the barbs he milled...they are really nice.

I am totally nuts about LC/WC whatever you call it. I spend a great deal ofo my time either building or researching builds or dealing with questions about it...

This modding and non-air but ambient or above cooling sounds fun . . .think I will go buy a book on it. maybe take a class or two at the local community college.

[C'DaleRider]

I am knocked out. That is true class. I love the RPM mod. Truly fun. Did you simply use the sensor lead from the pump? I had no idea it was that easy to convert an auto tach...

I love the simple elegance of your work . Very inspiriing.

Thanks!

For the tach, I took the rpm sensor lead from the pump, attached it to one side of a 3-pin Y adapter, attached the tach lead to the other side of the Y adapter, and plugged the single side to the motherboard for BIOS monitoring of the rpm signal.....and so Everest would have a signal to read.

For the tach, I am admittedly a boneyard junkie and pick up all sorts of stuff whenever I visit one......even if I don't really need it then. The tach from the Fiat was one such item....scavanged the tach, water gauge and oil pressure gauge.....and took them because they were NOT electronic gauges but were instead the old mechanical-type gauges. After I played around with the wiring and figured out what was what wire (all the words were in Italian...so it was plug this in, now plug that in) it has been working great!

[disruptfam]

kool

[Fujimitsu]

I love that tach, amazing idea.

[rafwlkp]

C'DaleRider what tubes u use ? I see bend on CPU-NB tube....

[iadstudio]

Very nice. Good attention to detail!

I have a single device and 2 device silver round cables I'm not using if you're interested. I think it would look better in place of that blue ribbon cable.

If you're interested, PM me, I'll send one to you no charge.

[The_Beast]

nice system C'DaleRider

[iadstudio]

Here's mine. I'm not quite done yet, but the inside is close.

[ceemic]

iadstudio, what NB cooling are you using?

[C'DaleRider]

C'DaleRider what tubes u use ? I see bend on CPU-NB tube....

The tubing is Tygon 3603 in 3/8" ID-1/2" OD. No matter how I tried to lengthen or shorten the tubing, it always developed a kink, so I put a ziptie where it kinks....about 99% is gone now and really doesn't seem to be hurting my temps.

I'm getting high 50's at load (a Xeon X3210 OC'd to 3.4GHz) and mid-to-upper 30's at idle. I'll take those temps.

I guess the solution is to run the tubing from the upper barb on the cpu block to the NB block, but hate to drain it right now. Probably will get to it eventually, though.

[Origin_Unknown]

iadstudio, what NB cooling are you using?

thermalright hr-05-ifx

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

My VERY ugly p180b Build:




Sorry for the poor quality. I only have a camera phone at the moment.

This is my first build and it was completed over a period of months. I had to keep buying parts b/c I basically forgot what I need for a build, lol. I haven't build a computer since 05 and I had most of the parts on hand and most of it was recycled.

I know its VERY ugly inside. It was originally a very clean build, but as I kept adding stuff, I figured I'd just let the inside go to hell b/c I didn't feel like making it look pretty, especially considering the side of the case stays on 24/7. Its a nice case, but cramped for water cooling, especially w/ a large pump. The only positive about having such a large rad and high performance pump is that I can run prime 95 24/7 w/o turning the fans up and the CPU never reaches a critical temp limit. My house is around 72*F usually, although my room is between 72 and 74*F.

BTW, I do have 3 fans on the radiator. I was waiting for another 2 in the mail at that point.