Well hello again XS. I havent really been active on the forum since 2010. I started my "Zerg" project back then but that kind of got forgotten and abandoned like many projects I suppose. What happened in the end was that I managed to get the PC up and running, however I had to put it together in a bit of a rush because one game league was starting and I needed to have a PC to play it on. However once I had everything set up and running I realized that I cant get the right side panel to fit. All the wiring simply took too much space behind the motherboard tray. Or rather the Lian Li A71F case I was using had too little room behind there in my opinion. However I got lazy and never actually fixed it. It would had atleast rewiring everything and maybe even taking the top radiator off. And that on the other hand was a pain because of how tighty it was fit.. Soooo I just got lazy and left it like that.. For almost 3 years it's been like that
Either way I never really liked the case anyway after I got it. When I ordered it in the first place I had only few times noticed Silverstone TJ07 and just noticed how popular it is. So I wanted to be atleast a bit different because at least then majority of the water cooling builds seemed to be TJ07's. So once I started working with the Lian Li, I shortly started thinking that I should had gotten the TJ07 after all and realized why it's so popular. Especially I liked the idea of having the rads on the bottom section. So at one point I decided that I'll eventually get the TJ07 and only then I will take down this current system. I never really noticed having so much extra money that I could had just grabbed the TJ07 randomly, however last month my old parts finally started acting up. First I thought I bricked the HD5870 I've been using because I flashed the bios on it trying to fix an annoying flashing problem. So I bought a MSI GeForce GTX 670 Twin Frozr. Nope didnt fix the problem. Or rather the problem was that after flashing the bios, I couldnt boot up windows anymore. Safe mode worked fine but it looked like windows couldnt recognize the GPU. In the end after I reinstalled windows, both GPU's worked just fine (lol...). However then I started getting bluescreens on CPU-intensive tasks. The error code I got was apparently usually because of HW failure. So I guessed that it's probably either my motherboard or my i7 920 and decided that I'll finally switch to something a bit newer. And at the same time I'll change the case to TJ07.
I dont know if TJ07 is manufactured anymore. I guess there might be even better cases these days, I havent really looked but still I decided that it has to be a TJ07 this time
Then the next issue I had was whether to buy a LGA2011 or LGA1155 CPU and motherboard. I didnt really have the finance to get a 6-core LGA2011 CPU now so it was either i7 3820 or i7 3770k. I did check that 3770k would had been a bit better atleast when it comes to gaming, but also noticed that LGA1150 is going to replace LGA1155 next year, while there still might be a chance for new generation of CPU's to LGA2011. So I ended up taking the i7 3820 thinking that at least that way I can still update next year to a more powerful CPU if I feel like doing so, whether it is the current 6-cores or if something new will come.
But so, below are all the specs to the build
Hardware
CPU: Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD45 (8D) (LGA2011)
GPU: MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX670 OC (Twin Frozr)
Ram:16GB Kingston HyperX Predator 1866MHz
PSU: Corsair AX850W
Harddrives: Samsung 830 256GB SSD and Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
Case: Silverstone TJ07
Watercooling
Pump: Swiftech D5/MCP655 + EKWB top
Radiators: Thermochill PA120.3 and Thermochill PA120.2
Reservoir: EK-Bay Spin
GPU Block: EKWB VGA Supremacy
CPU Block: EKWB Supreme HF
Fittings: Mostly Bitspower, some alphacool as well. And Koolance's quick-disconnects.
Controller Aqua-computer Aquaero 4.0
Tubing: Primochill Primoflex Pro
Additives: Killcoil and Mayhem's Deep Blue color.
Fans: Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-14 for radiators. For the case fans (2x92mm and 2x120mm) I have ordered Enermax T.B.Silence fans.
Click the pictures to see a bigger image.
So this is how the workstations has literally looked for these past 3 years.. Awful. You can also look that the tubing doesnt look that clear anymore. There's a lot of
all around the parts. I'm not really sure is this plasticizer leach or flux from the Thermochills. Maybe someone has a guess which one it is? Or maybe both...
And here's the TJ07 that I will be using. The only thing I didnt like is that the insides are aluminum colored while the case is black from the outside. Sooo I decided to paint it. I knew it was a risky idea to do with cheap spray paints but I just didnt had the money to take it for a professional powdercoating so I decided to do it anyway. The end result wasnt so nice. Most of the surfaces are okay but a few ones I messed up because I forgot to shake the primer spray (stupid stupid mistake).. And even though I tried sanding them a few times and repainting, it just always came out badly. While the parts that where I didnt mess up the primer were pretty okay actually. Well it's not perfect but atleast it's black now. If this would had been a sponsored case or something then I would had obviously not spray painted it under any circumstances but luckily the case will just lay around at my apartment
Here are some of the parts painted. Each part has been painted with primer > paint > varnish. The bad parts I mentioned above cant really be seen generally like this but only when you look at the parts a bit closer
Here you can see how the flux/plasticizer looks inside of parts.. Pretty much every part has been covered by it so I've been cleaning up the fittings by hand and the radiator and some other parts with vinegar/water mix. Luckily vinegar seems to clean it up pretty easily.
Then I started sleeving the 24pin atx cable. Here's what the cable looked before.
And this is how far I got before I broke the sleeving tool. The freaking pins are so tight. The PSU end of the cable isnt really so nicely done but luckily it will be hidden in the case. I might just put some big sleeve or heatshrink to that end.
Then here's the GPU. I decided to get a Universal block this time because on the HD5870 I had a full cover, and now that I switched the GPU I was really running low on money and wished that I would have had an universal block to use.. So I decided to get one this time and hope that it will work okay. Now I bought copper heatsinks to the VRM and memory but then realized that the VRM's are too small so the heatsinks dont fit. So I had to use the stock coolers "panel" there to cool VRM and memory. I didnt however read about someone just putting the heatsinks on top of the panel and figured that might as well try it. After all the panel is just one flat surface. And it seems to do something atleast because the heatsinks do warm up a bit. Not the perfect solution but better than nothing I guess. Although I did order now some 7mm heatsinks so maybe those will fit to the small VRM's. And I'll probably atleast switch those copper heatsinks to black aluminum heatsinks. They probably will cool a bit worse of course but will look better.
So I'm not sure how well it perform with a closed case since my case has been open now, but then if some problems arise... I'll just get a full cover block.
I wanted to close the holes of the midplate somehow. I didnt have enough aluminum plate or the tools for handling metal to make a new plate/cover. So I just made one from acrylic. It's slightly too short so it doesnt look as good it could. But once the side panel is also in place, I think it should atleast make it a bit cleaner. I didnt think of buying a TJ07 midplate from chilledpc that doesnt have any holes.. But looks like they are out of stock atm so I might just stick to this.
Also my original idea was just to drill holes there and pull the tubing through it. But I did order bulkhead fittings now there to make it look a bit better. The tubing also will be clear unlike the blue one in the picture.
Here's the reservoir. I had a EK multioption in use before but this time I wanted a bay reservoir so I got this. I reaaaally didnt like the new designs of EK but luckily there was still one of these old better looking models in stock at one Finnish shop so I bought that one. Also ordered a blue propeller to it.
Here's one of the quick-disconnect sets. This isnt however where I will place them. I will probably put the other one in front of pumps inlet and other one between radiators and GPU. So that was I can deattach GPU/CPU/reservoir from the radiators and easily bleed them.
Aquaero. I really want to get the 5.0 versio but dont really feel like putting the money to it right now. Only problem that I have with this is the the device's language is in German and I can switch it to English. I read somewhere that I should be able to change it by updating firmware to english version. However it has the latest firmware version in German already and wont let me update it to the same version in English... Maybe I should try contacting aqua-computer to see if they can help. Luckily I really only need the software.
And then the lovely Thermochills. I wish they would stop spitting out the flux. Maybe this time now that I did flush them with vinegar.
TJ07 cable sleeved \o/
Just realized this... I cant really use the radiator stands like I had planned. I will probably get a pair of a bit simpler stands (just on piece on both ends of the radiator). Otherwise I need to cut some of the "feets" on this.
After soaking the radiators in Vinegar. I cleaned them up with some help from the pump. And of course before installing the loop, I will flush them once with distilled water.
D5 with EKWB top.
CPU Block. I originally had the oval top version but bought the new top to it because apparently the oval version doesnt fit LGA2011. I think the blue looks nice but clear could had been cooled considering the liquid will be blue, however these are sold separately only as colored.
And finally here are my fittings all nicely in one picture. It looks like there is so little stuff in the end there and yet all these have cost something around 300? O_O... Luckily for my wallet I did get almost all of these 3 years ago.
Project is probably going to be on a small pause now because I've had to order more stuff and still have to order more stuff on Friday. And then there is christmas and so on... But this time I will make 100% sure to finish the whole thing to the end and of course update this thread whenever there is something worth updating.
Nice to be back at XS
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