My first all out case build worklog (56k warning)....

[Waterlogged]

Wasn't bloody me! Thats for sure.

Don't worry, I wasn't lookin your bloody direction.

[Jedda]

About time all the vinegar references were removed from the stickys, imho.
Doesn't seem to matter how often its use is warned against, the idea of a soak in vinegar hangs around.

[RubberDuck]

About time all the vinegar references were removed from the stickys.

unfortunately it's still in MaxxxRacer Guide To WaterCooling and Leak Testing

Thankfully prepping a radiator for use is a relatively simple procedure. Just follow the steps I have outlined below.

1. Flush the radiator with distilled water. I suggest getting 2-3 2.5gallon jugs and just start pouring about 2.5-3gallons of distilled through the rad.
2. Pour Distilled or De-Ionized water into radiator. - Pour until full, drain and repeat. Shaking the radiator when it is half full of water will help. Repeat this 3-5 times.
3. Following the same procedure as in step 2, repeat with vinegar.
4. Fill the radiator with vinegar, and let it sit for appx. 1 hour.
5.Flush the radiator, following the procedure of step 2. Repeat Step 3 as well.
6.Repeat Step 4.
7.Repeat Step 2.

[Jedda]

Hmm, yes, exactly.

[Patriote]

Everything looks awesome so far! Keep them coming m8!

[pattherat111]

sorry im a noob but whats wrong with the vinegar, does it react with the metal fins in the rad and create something

[MrToad]

Who told you to use vinegar?

Old habits die hard...

Copper exposed to oxygen starts to corrode immediately. This thin layer of corrosion on the surface acts as a protective barrier. Soaking the rad in vinegar you remove this layer, only to have it formed again as soon as the etching substance (acetic acid) disappears. It's sort of a pointless exercise.

And the whitish colour of the water is due to excess flux, which can be easily removed (as Marci has written on numerous occasions) just by flushing the rad with warm distilled water.

[pattherat111]

thanx for that mate i thought it was something like that

[serial099]

Well, in answer to the question here, I was going by the stickey (as quoted above) as far as how to flush. I did see the note right above that quote that says that anything over 1 hour with vinegar results in damage to radiator (hence the 45 minute soak and not longer).

I thought I was doing a good job with that as well. No big deal I suppose I just wasted some time and no damage to the radiator. Leak testing is all right so far before I left the house this morning. No leaks overnight so far.

[pikkashoe]

Quick question, Im at the point where I am about to leak test, but I can get my damm PSU to work unless its connected to the mobo? How do I get the psu to just plug in the wall and provide power to my pump, I noticed a bunch of people have done it like this. I have a OCZ gamestream 600 PSU. Thanks.

I mounted my PA120.3 on the top, once I have my computer up and running I will post pics.

[Waterlogged]

Quick question, Im at the point where I am about to leak test, but I can get my damm PSU to work unless its connected to the mobo? How do I get the psu to just plug in the wall and provide power to my pump, I noticed a bunch of people have done it like this. I have a OCZ gamestream 600 PSU. Thanks.

I mounted my PA120.3 on the top, once I have my computer up and running I will post pics.

You need to use a wire or paperclip to short between the green and one of the black wires on the main ATX connector. Make sure nothing else is plugged in when you do this. There will be some that say I'm wrong and that there should be some kind of load but I've got a Coolmax Fanless 480W PSU I do a lot of testing with and have accidentally left it plugged in and turned on with zero load for days at a time (once for almost 2 weeks) and all the rails check the same as the day I got it.

[pikkashoe]

Thank you waterlogged! I will try this tonight.

[serial099]

Yeah, that's all I do to leak test. I have an old 300 watt psu that I have saved for just such a purpose. In a modern system it probably wouldn't do much good, but more leak testing it's more than adequate.

BTW, do have a few more pics to post, and probably be able to post some more pics here tomorrow. It's on my other computer on home, so don't have it right now. Just got the new Phenom BE processor today, the final piece of the puzzle so to speak.

The lack of updates has been due to a crazy schedule and also to my wife's re-build that I'm trying to get up and running. The way it's faulting out and kicking my butt has left me a bit pre-occupied with that.

[serial099]

Hey everyone,

Got a few pics of my video card all prepped up here. I finally got the last part of this beast the other day. Finally received my Phenom BE. I hope it isn't a disappointment like some people over on the AMD portion of these forums
have said....

Anyway, on to the pics.



Here's the 3850 video card w/o the heatsink on it....



with the waterblock perched up next to it....soon you will be as one...



waterblock/ramsinks installed....



and another one of those

[serial099]

A few more pics of the radiators



a picture of the thermochill pa120 with the 3x sharkloon golfball 2000's mounted on it.



a pic of both of them on the case



A close-up of the connection. If you look towards the bottom, had to add some extra spacers to make this fit good.



Figured I'd show a different view of this.

That's all for the moment, but am slowly but surely putting this together.

[pikkashoe]

Wow those fans are nice! I went with plain old Yate's.

[serial099]

Yeah, I like 'em...not only to they look nice, but they are also pretty quiet. Yates would've been a LOT cheaper though, but *shrug* whatcha gonna do, right?

[w!ldkat]

Lovin' those fan guards serial! Krull anyone? Some serious cooling there..

[septim]

kool, yeah serious cooling power indeed...

[serial099]

All right, so I just one one PITA thing done...had to drill out the case to make room for a drain plug...here's some pics of that.



On this one just holding up the fillport that will go in there. I know the brass doesn't go very well with the black, but it's on the bottom, so I doubt too many (except for you guys of course will really see it/notice it)



here is a shot of the bottom of the case if you look closely where I drilled....



you'll notice it's a little scraped up on the sides (uh-oh)



After the fillport is in however, can't even see anything though (yay)



Here is the inside of the case and showing where the pump /fill port is going to be. Before anyone asks, no, not going to use electrical tape to mount the elbow to the end of the pump, just only have two hands and needed to hold the tee. Just imagine tubing in the empty spots. Where my fingers are is where I'm going to attach some tubing and that is what going to go back out to the system.

Well, hopefully I'll have some more pics later today or tomorrow. See you later.

[serial099]

Hey everyone,

Well, have a few more pictures to post, but don't have anyway to get them on the computer right now because our laptop died (which is how I was reading the memory card for the camera. Hopefully that will be fixed soon enough though.

Anyway, got quite a bit more work done to the new build (pics will follow shortly after technical issues are retified of course). Got the motherboard, cpu, ram, video card, one of the hard drives, the uv lights, both dvd-r drives, the fan controller, and the rest of the water cooling system hooked up. Right now I'm leak testing it in the machine (no power on except to the pump). So far, so good on that front. The only thing I have left to do is hook everything up (don't have any of the cables installed to any of the drives yet), clean up the wires, and put on the side panels. Looking pretty good.

A little past the first of the year, but should be done pretty soon.
Thanks for checking out my work log so far everyone. More pics soon.

[disruptfam]

where the bloody hell are ya?

[serial099]

Well, yesterday when I posted that I was on duty (I'm in the Navy) so I was stuck on my boat. Today, I just got home a few minutes ago (super long day).

[stormshadow]

thing's a brute.

keep it up

[serial099]

heh, my wife said it looked like a small engine instead of like a computer (yeah, she's not the computer person in the house at all if you couldn't tell).