Project Sentinel (aka Master Mold) ...

[davidm71]

This is my project that I started about 5 months ago and finally finished. Had some ups and downs including a radiator leak, cracks in the tubing, and other first time water cooling noob mistakes. But here is my work log for your viewing pleasure. First the parts:

[davidm71]

The EVGA Classified 759:



Leak Testing the Loop:



Dumb mistake. Perforated my XSPC 360 Rad with using the wrong sized screw. A local radiator repair shop fixed it for $30. Back in business.



40mm x 10mm LED fans from Performance-PCS for cooling the NB heatsink on the Classified. Cheap fans only push 5cfm max at about 26db. Few months later one of them died and stopped spinning.

[davidm71]

This is the almost finished build with red cold cathode lighting installed.



This shot shows the inside of the case with the Dtek Fuzion V2 installed. At the time that block had some pretty good reviews on dual and quad core non-i7 processors. Didn't do enough research on it's i7 performance which wasn't so great.



This shot shows how I designed my drainage plan. Really blundered here. This was a bad idea I wish I stopped myself from cutting a hole in the lower fan grill and setting up a T with those ugly ass hose clamps. Was a pain to drain.

[davidm71]

Got myself a Heatkiller and an Apogee XT:



The Apogee XT came missing a screw from the factory so I went with the
Heatkiller:



Heatkiller installed:

[Antioch]

Damn, seems like these Apogee XTs are plagued with problems. Very disappointing.

[davidm71]

Finally done. Replaced the Fuzion with a Heatkiller. Redid the loop with fresh tubing. Turns out the Fesser one coolant stains the inside of the Tygon tubing pretty easily. Got rid of that restricted 'T' and just added a tail to the bottom of my res which I tucked away somewhere.



Replaced the Thermaltake stock case fans with Enermax Magma fans that are rated to push out 69 cfm at 19 db on the rear of the case and on the radiator. The old Thermaltake fans were rated at 18db at around 40 something cfm. I only replaced four fans due to cost and that you can only see the first four fans anyhow...






Replaced the three LED fans with three Delta 9.6 cfm fans at 30db which I can barely notice. I mounted them facing down or else I wouldn't have room for my X-Fi card. NB temp today according to bios was around 47 degrees.



Finished at Last !!!

[davidm71]

Just a few final words. When mounting the Heatkiller backplate I lined it with self adhesive felt to prevent accidental shorts. Wish I took a picture of that cause I cut away the corners and still was able to plug in the red spacers.

The Thermaltake Spedo also allows you to install a fan on the backside of the motherboard tray where the cpu and backplate are installed. Not sure if it helps but they say it reduces temps a little.


Picture from Overclock3d.


Also had a problem getting the fan screws to line up and screw down when either installing the fans on the radiator or installing the fans inside the top of the case. The Thermaltake Spedo has a 230mm fan on the top which I removed to allow the installation of the rad. I had to use superglue, after mounting the fans on the rad with screws, to hold them in place while fastening them into the top of the Spedo. Also those Enermax Magma fans seems 1-2 mm too wide and were difficult to line up onto the rad or even rear of the case.


As far as which waterblock to install 'RGE' on OCForums.com did some intensive testing and found a 0.8 degree favor towards the Heatkiller over the Apogee XT.
Check out his numbers: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=621729


All in all I found that replacing the Dtek Fuzion v2 with the Heatkiller all copper block only netted me a 3 degree temp reduction which is right on with what others have found. Though seems like as my ambient drops the performance increases more than before. Check out this link: http://www.overclock.net/water-cooli...blocks-i7.html

[quattro_]

is that the correct orientation for the HK 3.0 ??

[davidm71]

is that the correct orientation for the HK 3.0 ??

Probably not the correct orientation, but I read it barely matters and doesn't make much of a difference. I wanted it 90 degrees the other way but there was a kink in my tubes so it went that way. I'm not sweating it...

Thanks.