The Phantom Lord (Thermaltake Armor Modded Water Cool)

[martini161]

from here on out, the rig formerly know as chuck norris shall be know as:

(temp logo until i can whip something up)

[Alathald]

Phantom Lord...is that because your monitor, err, moniker is continually ghosting?

[martini161]

Phantom Lord...is that because your monitor, err, moniker is continually ghosting?

no its cause i had a long car ride yesterday and listened to a lot of metallica
now, back to my rig: i have to rma my swifty NB block ( ) because after i let it soak for a while in white vinager i was trying to put it back together, and because the copper was alerady soft from being soaked in teh vinager, one of threads striped

[martini161]

so, while the rig was working, i started to run memtest on it and after about 7 minutes it started spitting up errors by the thousands
so in the mean time ill post the pics of my mods so far:

thats the victim

and my first weapon

the result, nice clean perfectly round wire management holes

after i had cleaned out my cpu block with vinager, some dryed on the contact surface making it yuky. so i lapped it and decided to lap my cpu at the same time

so after that, i was waiting on an rma of my NB block (striped thread) i decided to cut a whole for my rad this is the first total hack job i did with my jigsaw, i posted it and SOME PEOPLE (you bastards know who you are ) didnt like it and made me feel guilty so i redid it with the dremel

and thats it for tonight. post more pics tomorrow

[martini161]

well managed to find more time tonite so heres some more pics:
as you could see in the last pic i had a few slips with the dremel, so i decided to paint the front and right side panel

hey... whos that ugly mexican with the camera

wider view of the same thing

side panel didn't turn out nearly as well, i mainly did it for practice any way
ok that's really it for tonight!

[stopthekilling77]

bout that... thought you'd hired Bigfoot for your photo work looks like you're well on your way once you get your RMAs

[Sporg]

Looking good! Maybe I missed it, but what are the holes in the motherboard tray for? Cable management? I was thinking about cutting some similar holes into mine, but later changed my mind (for no good reason). Now I'm sorta kicking myself in the butt for that.

[DMB2000uk]

so after that, i was waiting on an rma of my NB block (striped thread) i decided to cut a whole for my rad this is the first total hack job i did with my jigsaw, i posted it and some people (Thank you very much as it now looks a million times better ) didnt like it and made me feel guilty so i redid it with the dremel

Fixed the little typo you had going on there.

Dan

[martini161]

so after that, i was waiting on an rma of my NB block (striped thread) i decided to cut a whole for my rad this is the first total hack job i did with my jigsaw, i posted it and some people (Thank you very much as it now looks a million times better ) didn't like it and made me feel guilty so i redid it with the dremel

Fixed the little typo you had going on there.

Dan

i actually looked back up to see if you really did

Looking good! Maybe I missed it, but what are the holes in the motherboard tray for? Cable management? I was thinking about cutting some similar holes into mine, but later changed my mind (for no good reason). Now I'm sorta kicking myself in the butt for that.

yep, and as you'll see a few pictures down, they help a lot

there's the inside

and of all the sacrifices you make when you paint your case, nothing is worse than glove hands

there's the finished pic now there were a couple of bumps i hit while setting up my LCS
1. almost ran out of tubing, i made the rad->cpu line longer then it needed to be so when i get a gtz i don't have to retube :D but i almost didn't have enough
2. made the mistake of pouring in my distilled water straight out of the fridge thankfully the condensation didn't short anything
3. the hole didn't line up on the rad but it seems content to be held on by only two screws. wont be going to lans so it doesn't really matter
4. oh yeah and i had a leak to but it was only a little one on my rad and thankfully i managed to refit the tubing and clamp with out draining


had to take the big side fan out cause it hit the tubing. looks cooler like this anyway

oh gawd its beautiful (tears of joy )
here's some hardware pics:

that's what my memory looks like, unfortunately they were bad and even though this kit has the sli thing on it, it was one dollar cheaper than the equivalent non sli memory

i *heart* this board even with the bad memory it booted into windows at 3.3ghz at stock volts! that's pretty awesome for a quad. and i noticed something weird on it, the socket protector said foxconn on it



all sinked

here's a before and after just to show how much the wire management has improved, as well as the overall aesthetic (<-saying that makes me feel smart ) appeal

Before

after
post overclocking & benchmarks once i get my rma from Newegg (and a random tip: when you rma something to Newegg, play dumb with their support and say your having trouble making a label, they give you one for free )

[DMB2000uk]

You should be proud of your work

The before and after shots just speak for themselves really.

Black insides just look so much better than bare metal.

Took me a while to realise you were going push-pull on the rad. What sort of temp improvement are you seeing over the old rad?
(Even if you didn't record readings before, you must have an idea of what it was idle/loading at).

Are those screw holes that don't line up fixable? I'm not sure I'd trust the rad to stay in place on just two screws.

Dan

[martini161]

not with out killing my paint job theres not i have yet to see the cpu get above 44 on the hottest core after a few hours of priming at 3.2 &1.3 volts idles at around 28-30 (the old rad used to get above 50 and that was only at 3ghz stock volts ) and i agree, i was really amazed at how much a difference just painting the inside black made

[Sporg]

Wow, looking good!

[DaIceMan]

so after that, i was waiting on an rma of my NB block (striped thread) i decided to cut a whole for my rad this is the first total hack job i did with my jigsaw, i posted it and some people (Thank you very much as it now looks a million times better ) didnt like it and made me feel guilty so i redid it with the dremel

Fixed the little typo you had going on there.

Dan

LMAO! whomever could he have been speaking of?

[martini161]

well i decided id elaborate on my painting process:
first i removed all the paint with 5'' random orbit sander using 50grit
random orbit again this time at 220
dark gray rustoleom automotive primer
wet sanded with 600 grit
lots o' coats of rustoleum profesional black enamel (its semigloss i believe)

[DaIceMan]

Nice work. I'm still debating whether I'm going to powdercoat or paint my Antec 900. I recently saw a 900 painted silver that absolutely blew me away, but I love the black as well. Either way I go, I hope it turns out as nice as yours.

[martini161]

thanks! im actually thinking of putting a matte finish on the parts i painted, cause the bare paint is anoying as everything (including my fingers) stick to it. also match the side i didnt paint better and give the paint good protection. IMO powder coating isnt worth it unless you have the time materials and expertise to do it yourself. i was thinking of powder coating but i realized that no matter how good the paint job looks its still a computer much rather save the money and use it to get my car repainted

[vbironchef]

Your new rig looks better than store bought! Love the wiring job! Not a fan of watercooling, but in your case it looks great. What is your next upgrade, if any?

[martini161]

hardware wise? non for a long time probably cooling wise? cant decide. no matter what it will probably include a MCP655 pump. after that i cant decide. i may get a GTZ or maybe rigging a tline with the 655 and my cpu & 2x120rad and using my old pump&rez and my old 120mm rad to set up a separate cooling loop for gpu/nb only. ahh decisions decisions

[Bio-Hazard]

Nice job on your mod there...............

The difference is like nite and day.

[martini161]

Nice job on your mod there...............

The difference is like nite and day.

thanks! now my only problem is my pump i did some digging and it turns out its a rebranded dtek-DB-1 http://www.petrastechshop.com/ddb12inpu.html
only 6.56 feet of head at 132GP/H im thinking 2 blocks and a 2x120mm rad is too much for it. depending on weather or not Bmaverick has any of those mcp350's left im probably gonna get one and put a petras top on it