MM U2-UFO and Horizon: The never ending 2 in 1 worklog (56k warning)

[ranker]

Negative pressure as in more intake fans than exhaust fans right? or vice versa?

After much troubleshooting, the water temp probes will not work with the BigNG. This is a warning to everyone else so that they also won't make the same mistake. The BigNG requires that all temp probes have a resistance of 10kOhm to be compatible.

I went ahead and purchased some different ones instead: http://www.mcubed-store.com/catalog/...roducts_id=149

and will be inserting them into some AC "Plug and Cool" fittings to get water temp readings.

[Waterlogged]

Ranker, the O.D. on the sensor is shown as 10mm, the P&C fitting is shown as 8mm. Did you link the right stuff?


+ pressure = more CFM into case

- pressure = more CFM out of case

Air will always find it's way through cracks to fill a vacuum but it'd rather just swirl around inside the case once it's there.

[ranker]

Ranker, the O.D. on the sensor is shown as 10mm, the P&C fitting is shown as 8mm. Did you link the right stuff?


+ pressure = more CFM into case

- pressure = more CFM out of case

Air will always find it's way through cracks to fill a vacuum but it'd rather just swirl around inside the case once it's there.

Yeah, I ended up buying both at Sharka's today, the 8mm temp probe and the P&C fitting. Theses work just fine as I just tested it. I just stripped down the entire machine back to its bare bones state. Tomorrow I begin the rebuild!

[ranker]

The Horizon has finally been finished. Aside from possibly a few cabling tweaks and some rewiring of my T-Balancer BigNG, the Horizon won't see too much of a change.

During this build, I've learned some valuable lessons, I'd like to share with others who are considering doing some of the things I've done. The most important thing is that I never ever want to do a multiple loop build again...ever. The pain staking process of having to find room and innovative ways to mount/place components resulted in numerous rebuilds when things didn't fit as how I had planned it out. I probably spent over 2 weeks just drawing the loops out with exact measurements. However, once you get around to actually placing the components physically, they never quite fit as planned. At most, I'll do two loop builds in the future, but I'm most likely going to stick with single loop builds. The headaches are just not worth it. As much as I trust the 10 DDC's that I personally own and use in my multiple rigs, the thought of one failing, which would require me to disassemble the entire build, would probably drive me past the point of insanity. As great as the Horizon looks, rerouting tubing, especially with the pumps on the bottom, requires a total rebuild. In the future, I'll probably stick with a single loop with possibly multiple radiators powered by a single RD-30. I hate to say it, but I think this very project burnt me out from the watercooling scene... at least for a while.

Other things I've learned:
1) Hiding cables is a pain in the ass and requires multiple cuts in the motherboard tray that you didn't plan for with your first wave of cuts.

2) UV dye from Jab-tech and Alphacool are utter crap.

3) I never want to use automated hardware to control my fans/pumps again. Not only is the wiring a total messy, pain in the ass, but the hassles of setting it all up just isn't worth it. The first few days are great when you see all the information at your disposal but seriously, how often are you going to look at that stuff. I feel the same way about bay drive LCD's. Anyhow, in the future, I'll most likely be going back to my Sunbeam rheostats to control my fans and leave my pumps at full speed with RPM monitoring through the motherboard/bios/speedfan.

4) EK reservoirs only work right in one configuration. Even with the rev 2, the whirl pool effect still exists and causes bleeding nightmares. Do not ever route your tubing into your reservoir into the top like I did. It will never fully bleed out all of the air. The EK reservoirs are best setup with the intake and outlet on the same plane.

5) Cut out holes in your motherboard tray for all of your mounting posts for your chipset/CPU waterblocks. It will make life much more tolerable in the event you ever need to adjust the mounting hardware. You'll save yourself a few rebuilds when you realize that one waterblock wasn't mounted correctly. Case in point: EK NF4 1.1 Great block, but world's tiest mounting mechanism.

6) Ambient temps in the Horizon really suck ass due to the motherboard tray keeping all of the components near the top where all the warm air congregates. I wouldn't recommend getting any other top other than the original top that has mounts for 2 120mm fans. You really need to keep the air moving in this case. My U2 posts ambient temps that are on average 5-7C better than my Horizon and it has 2 less 120mm fans. Now a few C's may be due to the 8800GTX's and other components in the Horizon, but for the most part, I believe the aesthetics of the Horizon come at a cost.

7) When you're planning an over the top build, expect to run about $300-400 over budget and about 2 months over your planned timetable. Simple builds = less chance of running over budget and quicker up time. I probably have over $600 worth of components and accessories that were meant for this build that remain unused only because I wanted it to be a badass rig. Of course, new things always get released and somethings don't fit right and basically at the end of the day, you have an RD-30, PSU, a few waterblocks, a bunch of heat sinks, a PA160, etc sitting in a box.


Original Top - a must have for all Horizon owners imho


Horizon motherboard tray with cut outs for wire management


Motherboard with analogue and digital thermal sensors attached



3 x DDC-2's with Alphacool's top all attached to Mountain Mods HD brackets for mounting on Thermochill PA radiators


Custom cut/made acrylic reservoir holder for 3 x EK Reservoirs



3 x EK reservoirs with w/ Rev 2 bottom and original multioption tops



3 x DDC-2's w/ Alphacool's top attached to PA radiators



Horizon front with new Black Delrin Vandal Bulgin switches (blue on left, white on the right) and bottom 5.25" bay replaced with custom acrylic cutout to support a PA120.1 and 120mm fan


Top and side views of the Horizon with all of the components on the bottom compartment installed



All waterblocks installed onto their respective components



Front


Left side


Front and top sides

Top side


Right side


Internal view w/ completed wire management





BigNG in the bottom right hand corner


2 x MiniNG's and Sensorbus attached to underside of horizontal motherboard brace with velcro

[Grinch]

holy crap....got some BIG $$$$ going on there...nice!

[ranker]

Finished with the pics. Hopefully I'll get some nighttime shots in tonight.

[stormshadow]

this build scares me.

"H2O Cooled" applique .... talk about understatement

[ranker]

this build scares me.

"H2O Cooled" applique .... talk about understatement

LOL. Should I have gotten one that said "H20 submerged" instead?

[RockfordFosgate]

Woaowwww

[DarthBeavis]

Ranker you should consider trying watercooling dude

[Grinch]

this build looks like a total piece of $hit...you should be ashamed of your modding skills and thought process...you need to send this to me immediately for a better evaluation.....*-)

[alexey]

i agree with Grinch...u should just give your rig away for free cause it's no god,but not to him,to ME
Astonishing man.Good JOb

[leo_bsb]

wow!
I was looking the pics and thinking... it won't fit. I'm sure it won't fit everything and he will just part the system with some noobs, just like me
Amazing work!

[ranker]

Ranker you should consider trying watercooling dude

I think I might get my feet wet one of these days.

this build looks like a total piece of $hit...you should be ashamed of your modding skills and thought process...you need to send this to me immediately for a better evaluation.....*-)

i agree with Grinch...u should just give your rig away for free cause it's no god,but not to him,to ME
Astonishing man.Good JOb

Thanks guys. I'll keep you in mind if I ever get fed up with the rig.

wow!
I was looking the pics and thinking... it won't fit. I'm sure it won't fit everything and he will just part the system with some noobs, just like me
Amazing work!

Trust me. I thought it wouldn't fit for ages as well until I finally managed to use a crowbar to cram it all inside.

[shazza]

Wow !!!! I'm just preparing for my first water cooling build ... DarthBeavis turned me on to Mountain Mods, so I'm going with the U2-UFO Opti-1230 case. I'm thinking maybe Ranker could just send me his new rig and I could forego all the uncertainty I am about to face

[ranker]

No offense intended. It is not my intention to be rude.

[Never mind.. edited out the comments]

If you got critiques, by all means lay it on me. I'm a grown boy Iany. =)

Congratulations on your system!

Wow !!!! I'm just preparing for my first water cooling build ... DarthBeavis turned me on to Mountain Mods, so I'm going with the U2-UFO Opti-1230 case. I'm thinking maybe Ranker could just send me his new rig and I could forego all the uncertainty I am about to face

I thoroughly enjoy all of my MM builds. The only piece of advice I have is to NOT get carried away in thinking you'll have all the room in the world. Upon my first U2, I thought "wow so much room, I'll buy more stuff to fill it up"....

It doesn't work that way. It'll house the standard watercooling setup easily. However, don't go overboard as the thing fills up quickly when you realize there's not much wall/floor space to work with.

[shabranigdo]

WOW just WOW. Damn impressive. I'm convinced I want a MM Horizon case. Though I may see about getting 2 sets of 3 120mm holes in the front panel. I have a question about your pump mounts. First looks real tight how you mounted them in the drive bays like that, How are those mounts for vibration and noise? It looks like maybe rubber spacers between the pumps and rails? And the third connection to your pumps are those temperature sensors, or some kind of flow sensor?

Also How do you like the 8800's with the full blocks? I am thinking of getting the BGF 8800's with the water blocks attached. This will be my first attempt at a water cooled system so still gathering ideas and information. I want a relatively quiet system, with the option available to me to OC it at the expense of noise.

[disruptfam]

Wow Looks great.



Looks very cramped in there when packed out but stll looks amazing

Oh oh and what hd block is that?How restrictive is it? I might get a couple and do a third loop sb,hd x 2, could a single rad cool all that well?Also does 1 hd block take 1 drive bay?

cheers

[Snyxxx]

ranker,

I have the bigNG, sensorbus and those exact temp probes from PPCs and have not had any problems.

From the tone of your message, they worked for a while and then stopped?

Not sure what to tell you. How many of these have you tried? Did you try to put it on your BigNG directly or only on the sensorbus?

Could always try this:

http://www.mcubed-tech.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=85

[ranker]

Things that I think must go: BigNG, all EK reservoirs, the EK NF4 1.1. You can't/won't get rid of the Horizon, so I won't get into that. Maybe after you pass the bar, perhaps you may want to remove the fan grilles.

Are you saying this due to your water cooling ideology or is there objective reasoning behind the suggestions??

There's really no performance difference between an EK reservoir nor a Swiftech one. Microres' bleed faster than all other reservoirs, but other than that, why the no-no on the EK's?

Why get rid of the EK NF4 1.1? I get better temps with the EK NF4 1.1. Remember that before I purchased the complete EK set, I had MCW30's on each. Restriction is a moot point because the difference between the two are miniscule and they're both isolated on a meaningless 3rd loop.

The Horizon has its pros and cons. However, you might as well tell people to not use BTX cases altogether.

Why remove the fan grills? It's either that or the traditional wire frame grills.

[ranker]

More pics:

WOW just WOW. Damn impressive. I'm convinced I want a MM Horizon case. Though I may see about getting 2 sets of 3 120mm holes in the front panel. I have a question about your pump mounts. First looks real tight how you mounted them in the drive bays like that, How are those mounts for vibration and noise? It looks like maybe rubber spacers between the pumps and rails? And the third connection to your pumps are those temperature sensors, or some kind of flow sensor?

Also How do you like the 8800's with the full blocks? I am thinking of getting the BGF 8800's with the water blocks attached. This will be my first attempt at a water cooled system so still gathering ideas and information. I want a relatively quiet system, with the option available to me to OC it at the expense of noise.

The pumps are mounted to the 3.5" MM bay brackets utilizing rubber vibrational dampeners.

It's a water temp probe in the 3rd opening on the Alphacool top. It lets me monitor water temps without having to introduce a completely stiff brass T into the loop, making tube routing much harder.


The EK FC's are the best FC blocks I've owned. Mind you I haven't picked up the Swiftech Stealth rev 2's yet. However, I refuse to use any alu in my loops and won't use their blocks out of principle. I'd stay away from the build in blocks on the BFG's as they're made by DD. DD's 8800 blocks have piss poor quality when compared to others. I've purchased the blocks in the past and ebayed them after I got my MCW60's/D-Tek GFX's/EK FC's. My friend Spersky, who's build you can find on these boards, toasted one of his ultra cards due to a microfracture leak from the block. Luckily, newegg was kind enough to RMA the card.

Wow Looks great.

What runs off what? cpu loop gpu loop hd loop?

Looks very cramped in there when packed out but stll looks amazing

Oh oh and what hd block is that?How restrictive is it? I might get a couple and do a third loop sb,hd x 2, could a single rad cool all that well?Also does 1 hd block take 1 drive bay?

cheers

Oh it's definitely packed. I spent as much time as I could cleaning up the cables and wires but realized there's no place for them anywhere. However, I did bring this upon myself by intentionally seeing how much I could fit into one MM case.

You can find the type of HD blocks I have in my sig or the logs. Both were purchased from PPC's. I'm not sure how restrictive the acrylic single HD blocks are as it has a zig-zag water pattern. However, the dual bay HD Silencer/waterblock is almost an exact copy of the DD bay. In essence it's just 2 90 elbow's. I can't imagine that block to be too restrictive. If you're throwing all of that stuff on a loop of its own, then to hell with restriction. =)

ranker,

I have the bigNG, sensorbus and those exact temp probes from PPCs and have not had any problems.

From the tone of your message, they worked for a while and then stopped?

Not sure what to tell you. How many of these have you tried? Did you try to put it on your BigNG directly or only on the sensorbus?

Could always try this:

http://www.mcubed-tech.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=85

The probes never worked for my BigNG nor my Sensorbus. I had utilized them in the past with standalone LCD read outs and they worked fine. However, they refuse to work with my BigNG when I connected them.

[shabranigdo]

The EK FC's are the best FC blocks I've owned. Mind you I haven't picked up the Swiftech Stealth rev 2's yet. However, I refuse to use any alu in my loops and won't use their blocks out of principle. I'd stay away from the build in blocks on the BFG's as they're made by DD. DD's 8800 blocks have piss poor quality when compared to others. I've purchased the blocks in the past and ebayed them after I got my MCW60's/D-Tek GFX's/EK FC's. My friend Spersky, who's build you can find on these boards, toasted one of his ultra cards due to a microfracture leak from the block. Luckily, newegg was kind enough to RMA the card.

Thanks something to think about. I had figured why by a air cooled card if I was just going to rip the fans off anyway. I will look for more info on those DD blocks, where did you find single width 8800 cards, all the ones I have seen had the double back plane from the cooler, is that something I can just get aftermarket or does evga sell a fanless single width card?

[ranker]

Thanks something to think about. I had figured why by a air cooled card if I was just going to rip the fans off anyway. I will look for more info on those DD blocks, where did you find single width 8800 cards, all the ones I have seen had the double back plane from the cooler, is that something I can just get aftermarket or does evga sell a fanless single width card?

It's an aftermarket mod that you perform on the card. You can purchase the single slot plates at either Danger Den or from performance-pcs.com.

You've got a good eye. Didn't think most people would catch the small mods I've done.

[Patriote]

That is sick ranker! Only thing missing in some UV reactive dyes in your loops

Nice Job!

[ranker]

very nice Ranker,

A lot of trick mods there, and very impressive build. HArd to believe you fit all that in one case, but you did it well.

Again, very nice, well done and congrats.

andyc

Thanks Andy. Like I said, your build was the inspiration towards making that jump toward the Horizon.

That is sick ranker! Only thing missing in some UV reactive dyes in your loops

Nice Job!

I've begun to start adding the dye. I usually add one drop in the reservoir per day in order to let it cycle through the loop a bit more evenly.