New pc/watercooling(earthcooling): Worklog (Completed)

[GargaZol]

This is a old worklog from 2007 i just thought i would share here



This is gona be a worklog of my secendary pc

The parts
2x Corsair XMS2 Dominator 2 x 2 GB for a total of 8GB
2x WD Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500 GB
4x WD Raptor WD740ADFD 74 GB
1x Core 2 Quad Q6600 (G0)
1x Geforce 8800ULTRA
1x ASUS P5K Premium/WiFi-AP
1x Corsair HX620W

I ordered the parts today, and it should all be here sometime next week.

While waiting for the parts, im using the time to make a box for the 6 harddrives to be mountet in, that is gona be places on the top of my pc case, and soldering the cobber parts together for the cooling(pics comming tomorow).

The whole pc is going to be watercooled by all homemade parts, and some already made taken from my old pc.

Overclocking
The cpu and gfx is going to be overlocked. The cpu to about 3.7GHz, and the gfx(when the new arives in ~3 month) is being vold modded to, for even more oc.

The harddrives is gona be set up in 3 raid0 arrays:
2x WD Raptor WD740ADFD 74 GB Raid0 for system drive (dualboot with normal Winxp and Vista Ultimate X64)
2x WD Raptor WD740ADFD 74 GB Raid0 for games and speed hungry stuff
2x WD Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500 GB raid0 for storage

Some prics of the old stuff, and most of it it gona be reused.


The heat exchanger


The hole for it to keep it cold


Me(left) and a friend of mine(right) working on the cooling heads


Some tools used


Cpu cooling block


Gfx cooling block


Chipset cooling block


CPU cooling block cooling down after being soldered, and the other 2 rdy


Water comming into my room from the outside


The old pc thats running now

Alot more to come when i start asempling, soldering and overclocking

Update #1 23 Aug 2007

Startet on soldering the harddisk cooler today.


The plan


The tools used to solder


Forgot my cam in the start, so here is the first pic after half of that side is done


One angel more


And now it just need a 90 degree turn to lead the water to the cooling head on the other side of the drives.


The water comming out of my room and out in the ground to my heat exchanger(mælke junge)

Going to work alot on the cooling for the drives tomorow, and hoping to complete atleast 2 more sides out of 4.

Update #2 24 aug 2007
Didn't get as far as planned, but got 2 done.
The first i made i also used to lern how it should be done, so i made a little error with the cobber plate, so its not high enugh to hold the third drive. Its gona be fixed with a 1cm cobber plate soldered to the existing one, altho its far from perfekt.
I also resived my cpu today, and took a picture of the stepping(got my G0)

I let the pictures talk for them self.














#1 done










#2 done


Now you should be able to see how its gona work

Update #3 25 Aug 2007

Today i made the last 2 hdd coolers, fixed the first i made and startet to asample the box its all gona be in.












#3 done








#4 done


Fixed the problem with the first hdd cooling plate i made, where i have soldered a 1cm plate in the bottom so its now high enugh for all 3 drives.

Tomorow im taking a day off from the project, as its my birthday and ill be busy raiding in wow.

Update #4 27 Aug 2007
It went slow today as it startet raining and there is alot of holes in the roof so i had to stop.

I did get time to asamble the box and shoot some pictures to demonstrate what it is gona look like.


The wood for the box(later found a mis calculation and didn't have more of that kind of wood, so the ends is some random stuff i found in the garage)







Tomorow i will try again and ill drill the holes in the cooling blocks to mount the harddrives.

Update #5 28 Aug 2007

Got drilled holes in 2 now, they just need some grinding.



Its going abit slow as my back is taped from a allergic test and i have a hard time working.
Tomorow im gona try to drill the holes in the last 2.

Update #6 29 Aug 2007

Only got drilled 1 more as my back hurts like hell.



The plan for tomorow (where i also resive the 2 last parts of the pc ) is to get the last one done and clean em up so they are rdy to be used.

Update #7 05 Sep 2007

It have been a while since my last update and the project is taking way longer the expectet.

I have ordered and resived a geforce 8800 Ultra as i couldn't wait for the new to come out and i have heard i need a new motherboard to use the next generation and i don't wana change all that again.

I tryed to make some cooling for the new gfx, but its to complex for me to make safe(and i don't know where to get longe M2 bolts) so i have ordered a cooling head that should arive friday.


The front plate rdy to be cut to make place for 2 temp sensors to read the water in/out temp


Done


The hdd box with holes for the sata/power cables and water in/out


The isolation/vibration absorbtion material rdy to be cut(an old madras)


Busy pasting the hdd's with thermal paste to make contact with the cooling heads


The drives assambled with cables and antistatic bags


Nice fit into the box



I have done some more stuff, but not all something i can take pictures off and i forgot the cam with the pictures i did take.

CPU sanded down so its completely flat.
Made a box for the pump.
Cut/drilled holes in the top of the case for cables/water from the hdd box.
Disambled all the old watercooling system and starting to lay new water routings that looks alot better then what i had before.

Tomorow i am planning to lay out the last of the water routings and if i have time, start putting the stuff inside of the case

Update #8 06 Sep 2007

The day startet with me running out of glue, so that took a while
I then layd out some more of the water routing, but still not done as i need to let the glue harden before putting on the next part.

While waiting for the glue to drye, i sat down and though the project through, and suddently it hit me, im trying to get the pc as silent as posbile, so why am i putting in a psu with a fan.

So the rest of the day went with finding the best way to watercool my new psu with the few materials i have left.


Had to take disable the hdd box again to glue all the connections as i found out that garden hose don't make a nice seal.


The pump box and its isualtion


My room looks like a mess while working on all this


The water tank and some connections waiting to drye


The pump box, also with connections waiting to drye


The hdd box all glued up


The cooling head for the PSU(its being made the easy way, so hope its good enugh)

Monday will be the next day i have time to work on the project again, and then i hope i finally get something done without finding more to do

Update #9 14 Sep 2007

I have made a big progres now, and im almost ready to try if it will start


The psu with thermal paste, ready to get the cooling head on


The psu cooling head


The psu and cooling head put together(made a error, so the water connections is outside the case, where it was intentet to be inside, but with no more cobber, ill just have to use it the way it is)




The 8800ULTRA going under the soldering iron for a vmod of the memory(damn its small!).


The 8800ULTRA going under the soldering iron for a vmod of the gpu(damn its small!).


Starting to put in the good stuff


The plan.


Mountet the stock cooling of the nb/sb/mosfets with new thermal paste, and some of the hoses for the rest.


All mountet and leak testing(that pic is taken after about 16 hours of leak testing and a replaced 90 degree angel)
At first, i found a leak after 2 min at the 90 degree angel at the gfx card, and when i drained the system for water to replace it, i made a fatal error. To get the water to run around, i had places the reservoir about ½ meter over the ground, so when i took the hose of a connection in the pc, i expectet about 2 dl water (i had a cofee cup rdy) it gave me 2-3 liter instead, and there came water everywhere, in the pc, on the gfx and all over my floor. its now standing with a fan on it to dry while leak testing, and i hope that its dry enugh after 24 hours to get used.

Today im hoping to get it all up and running, altho i still have some stuff to do on the vmod of the gfx(i don't have the right variable resistors in stock)

Update #10 19 Sep 2007

It is now up and running, and with a nice contact between my custom cooling head and the cpu


CPU temp after a couple of min in bios


The running pc(what a mess with cables all over the place)

Tomorow im gona post some benchmarks and OC results (without the vmod working on gfx yet)

Update #11 19 Sep 2007

After some trubble with the mobo bugging the pci-e at 1x (fixed by setting it to 110MHz) i reached a final speed on the cpu of 2400@3600(9*400) with 1.475 vcore (can run 3.7 or more, but don't think its worth it with the big increase in vcore there is needed)

The gfx i could clock to 1080@1200 memory and 612@720 core (both WITHOUT vmod working yet)

Benchmark results

3D Mark 01
cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1200 PCI-E 110MHz (Max stable)
65649

3D Mark 03
cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1200 PCI-E 110MHz (Max stable)
50158

3D Mark 05
cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1220 PCI-E 110MHz (Max stable)
21652

3D Mark 06
std
12274

cpu 3600MHz
13996

cpu 3600MHz gfx 700/1200
15482

cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1200
15741

cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1200 PCI-E 110MHz
15803

cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1220 PCI-E 110MHz (Max stable)
15839

PCMark 05
cpu 3600MHz gfx 720/1200 PCI-E 110MHz (Max stable)
11499

HD Tach


System disks


Game disks

Storage disks bench is comming tomorow(just got them to work)

Temperatures(water temp = 22 degrees)


Cpu idle


Cpu load(i know it is short cpu burn, but they max after just 30 sec)

The cpu temp pictures got a bit blury with the reziseing, but i hope you can read it.

Gfx:
Idle: 34
Load: 39