P180 Watercooled Project Log (56k Beware!)

[Skippman]

Awesome. Simply awesome.


Damnit. Now I have to go and spend money again to water cool ASAP. Now, if only I can get Bio-Hazard or Nate to help me out. lol

[DMB2000uk]

Minor update, now have 2GB or RAM. yey! No more running out of free RAM for me anymore.

Dan

[awwc]

I'm most likely going to be doing the same exact rad placement in a 180, how long did it take to fill your loop? Anything you wish you had done differently?

thanks!

[DMB2000uk]

Filling and bleeding takes a while, and its a pain to get all the bubbles out. But I still think T-lines are better. It was exciting (first water build) so time seemed to fly by). Tilt the case towards your pump to get the most water in it and try not to leave it on so long that

I would make sure that you leak test for 24 hours before using the PC. I couldn't wait and as a result had a v.small small leak, fortunately I was lucky and nothing got broke.

Use a Dremel for nuking the drive bays, I didn't have one so spent a lot longer making a bodge of it.

Fans set to blowing air out of the case first time round. May use slightly warmer air on the radiator, but it stops it getting clogged with dust from fans on intake.

Think thats about it, the fun of modding is that you'll find out things you could have done better when you have just done it!

Dan

[awwc]

right on. thanks! yeah I've spent about 2 months researching all my parts for my new c2d build. and now the last couple nights I've been scouring the forums for rad placements in the 180.

I've already dremel'd out all of the metal fan grilles (sans the tabs for the filters) and I think this AM I'll make my cuts for the cable runs.

thanks again)

[id86]

nice modded there...great casing too.its very suitable for modding

[Prizy]

UR RIG IS SO DAMN HOT! is it single?? lol
hopefully one day ill 2 have water cooling but not atm ill need more info on it.
cya man nice job with the pc.

[martini161]

nice job, im planning a similar mod on my new case, also a p180, but i was planning on meshing it up and putting a window. two things i noticed though, even though you are (hopefully) wareing an anti static bracelet, i would not recomend working on a pc on a carpet with socks on also, did you not use a radiator because of space constraints? or do you just perfer to use a t line? one last thing; whered you get your fan grill and that template?

[DMB2000uk]

I guess I should kind of update this.

I swapped out my powersupply for a better one (still 500W, but much tighter voltage regulation (within 1% on most rails) and slightly more amps on 2 of the 12v rails), so my rig now looks like this:



If you have a keen eye, you will notice that my pipes are routed slightly different. This is because I have swapped round the radiator so that the barbs are at the front of the case now.


See no barbs here!



I did this so that I had better clearance between the pipes and the memory modules. I'm getting some CL3 800Mhz OCZ Reapers, and they have a heatpipe thing going on at top of the modules. With the pipes routed right on top of the memory before, they wouldn't have fit in the system. So I decided to swap round the radiator and the barbs on it.



I had to use 90 degree barbs, wasn't too keen on doing that due to restrictions, but in the cramped case there wasn't really anything else I could do. Note that due to how I had cut the radiator hole at the top, I had to remove the front drive blanks to accommodate the side of the radiator with the barbs in.



Yes, those tubes have been hacked at. But I can't see any of this as the P180 has a pretty case door that hides all that away. Interestingly, I think that allowing air to enter the case here has reduced the temperature in the water loop by a degree or two. The downside to the intake here will be dust buildup as there is no air filter there. I guess I could make one, but I doubt I can be bothered to

Dan

[DMB2000uk]

And thanks for all the comments guys ^_^

nice job, im planning a similar mod on my new case, also a p180, but i was planning on meshing it up and putting a window. two things i noticed though, even though you are (hopefully) wareing an anti static bracelet, i would not recomend working on a pc on a carpet with socks on also, did you not use a radiator because of space constraints? or do you just perfer to use a t line? one last thing; whered you get your fan grill and that template?

I don't use antistatic bracelets. Grounding yourself on the case metal once in a while when you are working on it is more than adequate. PC components are more resilient than you might think, and static buildup/discharge because of carpet is not that common (But feel free to be safe rather than sorry, but I like living on the edge )

I chose not to use a reservoir as it was one less component that I had to try and cram into my system, and T-lines give you slightly better performance over res's.

The fan grill (and included template) is made by AC Ryan, you can find all sorts of awesome modding bits and bobs there. (The fan grillz range is here on their site).

Dan

[SASA]

Awesome. Simply awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DMB2000uk]

Erm, thanks for sharing your rig SASA.


I decided that I need to update the pics on this thread...
(It might have something to do with methious' swamp thing thread being posed to about to overtake this thread for page views)

So here is the current state of my sexy rig.


(click to enlarge!)

Since the last updates, I've installed the 2GB OCZ Reaper Kit (3-4-4-15 @ 800Mhz @ 2.4v(!)), and have gotten a PC Power & Cooling 610W Silencer.

As far as tweaking goes I managed to get the timings of the RAM down to 3-4-4-11 @ 840Mhz @ 2.2v. Which doesn't sound much unless you know how hard the AW9D-MAX boards push the RAM subtimings. I'm hopeful if I take this kit over to another board I will be able to get faster Mhz out of the kit.

Here are some benchmarks at the different maximum points of my memory (i.e. fastest overclock with loose timings [green], default [blue], and fastest overclock at tightest timings [purple])





As for the PSU, with everything I can throw at it, and I mean everything, the voltages were read as follows:

Rail_|_Idle__|_ Load
5v _|_ 4.94 _|_4.92
12v |_12.04_|_12.02
3.3v| _3.34_|_ 3.34
(check out that for an ascii table ^_^)

A couple of good reviewing sites found it on par with the legendary Corsair 620HX so I'm happy with it. It being not modular means I have to hide a lot of cables, but I can live with that.


I was messing about with the case pics when I cut out the background, and I decided it looks strangely cool in negative.



Lastly, I was running with the reapers with the CPU at 3GHz 24/7 (I decided that 3.33Ghz needed just slightly too much voltage with my chip, even under water). But with my recent photoshop escapade, I put the machine back to stock and put 2x512 RAMs in to give me 3GB. So I might try to see if I can get 3Ghz with this 3GB that is in now, or just take out the 2x512 and go back to my sweetspot for the overclock. One thing is for sure, the 1GB Ballistix Kit that is additional to the reapers won't do the 3-4-4-11 I had the reapers at.

Peace Out.

Dan

[stopthekilling77]

very neatly done! my P180 is giving me the glare of "you gonna let him get away with that? WHAT ABOUT MEEE??"

[Alathald]

Looks great! I'm really starting to like that case, might up a p182 in the future...

[DMB2000uk]

very neatly done! my P180 is giving me the glare of "you gonna let him get away with that? WHAT ABOUT MEEE??"

Give it the TLC it deserves

It takes ages to try and properly wire the PSU in as neat as possible (I think my case is messy! but I'm near enough OCD) but it's worth it.

Looks great! I'm really starting to like that case, might up a p182 in the future...

You won't be disappointed, they are very nice cases. I've toyed with the idea of getting a P182 for a while (pretty much a waste of money considering I already have a P180) but I would love to have it's better cable management system. Routing cables under the mobo would help make my case look so much cleaner. The only downside is, the newer P180/P182's have all four 5.25" drive bay cages as one piece, where as the original P180's (i.e. mine) had the bottom drive cage as separate to the rest of the top cages. So I wouldn't be able to mod the bottom drive bay off as clean to make room for my pump.

Dan

[martini161]

how the hell did you get that fan mounted over the ram?

[DMB2000uk]

The rig is so magic so it floats.

People who don't believe in magic think that it is balancing on the back of the GPU suspended between the WC tubes and some wires.

But they're wrong.

Dan

[Alathald]

how the hell did you get that fan mounted over the ram?

There's a little smurf in there holding it up, why do you think he went with the blue LEDs?

BTW Dan, you REALLY need to get yourself a dremel, you could make all that stuff look so much cleaner, though I must say you've done OK with cable management as it is...anyway, I think I will upgrade to a P182, should of spend the money on a good case from the start, but first I'll probably buy a AMD6400+ to top off my first build nicely.

[DMB2000uk]

An opportunity has arose to modify my P180 some more.

I've finally decided to strip down my watercooling to replace my dodgy pump. Plus I am swapping out all the case fans (minus rad fans) to some Noctua NF-P12's. I want as close to silence (ok, ambient noise) as I can get; My Antecs are starting to feel too loud on their lowest settings. More airflow at the same noise level, or less noise same airflow are my options with the noctua's. I hope I won't be disappointed.

So while I've got the case stripped down (which I had to do as I routed some fan wires under the mobo), I figure its the best time to buy/borrow/steal a dremel and go crazy

However, things are going to be a bit hectic for at least the next week, so I don't know when I'll actually get round to doing this. Fingers crossed I'll be able to hold out before I get fed up of not having my PC in the sexy case it should be in and put it back in unmodded

Dan

PS. Forgot to add that I've swapped out the thermal tape stuff that was under the NB, mofsets, SB etc for some Tuniq TX-2 (better than AS5 peeps!) and now the heatsinks get really really hot. Just goes to show how inefficient the thermal tape stuff really is.

[Methious]

Thermal tape is really inefficient, I swapped out thermal tape on the NB for Artic Ceramique and the heat sink heated up instantly after the switch. So much so I felt like I had to increase air flow.

Looking good.