P180 Watercooled Project Log (56k Beware!)

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:34 pm

EDIT (May 10): I've completed a new mod which involved fitting a PA120.3 internally in a P182, if you want to give that one a read too, you can do so here

--------------------

Some of you may know that I'm building a new rig, and I decided that I would go all out and watercool my system.

Specs:
Antec P180, Core2Duo E6600, XFX 7900GS, WD 250GB HDD, 1GB PC6400 DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12, Abit AW9D-MAX, NeoHE 500W

I will be using a swiftech setup with:
- Storm v2 CPU Block
- MCW60 GPU Block
- MCR220-QP Dual Rad
- MCP655 Pump
- Tygon 1/2" ID
- T-line (probably between GPU and pump; see below)

Now fitting a dual rad in a P180 could be quite a challenge! I like challenges, so bring it on! What I plan on doing for the case setup is as follows (sorry for paint awesomeness!):

While I've still got your attention, i.e. before all the pics, what would be the best setup for the radiator/fan combo?
- As I drew above, sucking air out of the system, or blowing air into the case
- Fans below the radiator pushing air out, or pulling air in through the radiator

Stealing and editing ModTheBox's P180 pic, this shows what i have to remove on my case:

To remove the lower DVD tray, and the stupid square metal thing at the bottom stopping a nice fan going there, i had to drill out some rivets, woo! Hardcore! The tray was a little more awkward though, as it has little lugs that kept it in, and not owning a dremel

I had to improvise and tried jigsawing them out, but with little clearance for the blade I ended smashing through the metal with a hammer and screwdriver!

Here is what i did before i had to go to work today, I can now appreciate how much effort it is modding a PC case!

Here is the case mostly stripped down, ready for modding:

Dual Rad Cutout Template:

Template attached:

Lots of drilling, sawing, cut fingers and hours later:

And this is a rather bad shot of my new monitor next to my parents old one (they did have a flatscreen too but it got stolen!), this is running on my parents desktop PC, widescreen gaming is going to be so awesome!

So that's where I'm at now. Supposedly I'm moving out to my uni accommodation sharpish, but I wont have access to any power tools, so looks like I'll be staying till I've finished all my cutting and drilling!

And there is hope for fellow MAX users!

Someone on XS has decided that its possible to do SLi and have a X-fi!

Love to see those temps!

Dan

PS. My power supply will be here on monday, so hopefully my case will be ready to put that in when it gets here!

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:53 pm

I know its a sunday, but no comments at all?

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:50 am

Looking good

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:19 am

Good start...............;)

Post by **dicecca112** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:24 am

I'm a picture whore, more pictures!

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:55 am

Looking good so far!

Has the new PSU arrived yet??

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:00 pm

Hey Guys, I got my PSU on monday morning, but havent had time to complete my build, i only had time on monday to tidy up the cuts on the top and install the mobo and radiator, and ive been busy ever since, hopefully I'll be able to get it finished tommorow, I'll update pics of what it looks like at the minute tommorow morning (as im not back home yet).

Reason I'm so busy is that I'm Co-President of the Christian Union Society at my university so I've been doing loads of flyering/activities as part of freshers week, so im hardly going to have any time free this week, so hopefully it will be done tommorow!

Dan

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:37 am

As Promised:

Current state of rig:

Box of goodies

:

Messy room, my mum cant wait for me to finish either so the back room can be tidy again!:

I Just had a mini-panic because I couldn't find the HDD screws, and no, they weren't in the tool box, there was a box at the bottom of my case that had them in, but I'd lost the little packet in the mess of the room!

Fun fun fun for me now!

Dan

Pengwin · Post by **Pengwin** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:43 am

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:09 am

Nice work, now on your work area LOL might want to pick that up a bit, I would be going nuts looking for stuff in that.

HONkUS · Post by **HONkUS** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:42 am

Very nice! 2 questions though.

1. Are those antec rad fans final or are going to go for something with higher cfm's

2. Is one of the barbs on the radiator going to keep you from using one of your memory slots.

The radiator hole you cut is very clean looking!

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:29 pm

low CFM is fine for water cooling i use 2 very low CFM coolermaster fans and my system never gets over 45c hot but reasonable with out sacraficing performance or noise.

I would recomend turning them around and exausting the hot air out your system, you will see a good temp if you do that

Pengwin · Post by **Pengwin** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:38 pm

Use silverstone FP122's for th RAD fans, 107 cfm!

HONkUS · Post by **HONkUS** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:50 pm

wow never heard of those silverstone fans those sound nice.

Also id have to disagree with making your rad fans exhaust fans, it seems like pulling warm air through the radiator wouldnt do much to dissapate heat.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:42 pm

Well, Ive just about done with my case, lots of pics to come, but my desktop with the card reader in is broken (corrupted windows install

). so I'll get that fixed and post you all the goodness, it is really awesome having watercooling

@infinate: I'm going to have to go with Honkus on the Rad fan placement, mostly because they are installed now and I can't be bothered to change them back round

@Honkus: Yes the Antec fans are final (they're blue LED ones too

), the radiator is a Swiftech MCR220, so doesnt need High CFM fans as the copper fins are fairly wide spaced so that low CFM will do, i think the fans max CFM is like 70-80, but im going to have that turned down to 7V most of the time probs.

You'll notice that I've had to offsett the rad and the hole in the top towards the left, this was to avoid clearance issues with the motherboard, it all fits now, but its tight with the 8-pin power connector at the top of the board. And no the barbs dont interfere with any connections

@bubba: pfft, im a student, students are supposed to be messy, maybe I'll tidy it up tomorrow

Dan

Post by **dicecca112** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:06 pm

pfft men are suppose to be messy, student is just an excuse you use with your mother

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 5:00 am

DMB2000uk wrote: @bubba: pfft, im a student, students are supposed to be messy, maybe I'll tidy it up tomorrow

LOL, I'm not the best at housekeeping, but I'm rather anal about work space for assembly type stuff. everything nice and organised. LOL guess thats why my desk is the cleanest place in the house.

Razorbacx · Post by **Razorbacx** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:25 am

Very nice work! As far as cost goes, how much do you have in it so far?

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:37 pm

Sorry to take so long to update guys (and gals) this one is long overdue!

ooh, so pretty:

Cleaned up ready for waterblock assembly (is it wrong that I used washing up liguid to remove the standard thermal grease?

):

Waterblocks on, how ugly is the provided IDE round cable though!:

Argh!!! I kinda pulled off the SATA port on the motherboard :S
I forgot that these Abit cables have a quick lock thing on them!

Fortunately I was able to wedge it back on!

Prepped for leak testing:

Lovely antifreeze, shame it wasnt so blue in the loop:

T-line 'secured' for 'easy' filling.

Fortunately I didnt have to un-wire my PSU as I had a spare one that I used to bleed the system, I had one of the fans on it and it made a pretty glow every time you turned the PSU on:

So far so good

Disaster! A leak!

You probably can't see it but the paper towel is wet!

Turns out that I hadn't screwed in on of the barbs on the storm block nearly far enough! But with the tubes clamped in when I tried to turn the barb the pipe turned too and ended up kinking :S

So I had to drain the system, it was nearly full dammit! Unclip the clamps and take off the pipes (That is damn hard my friends, and my fingers hurt afterwards!) I then screwed the storm barb in properly

More to come in a bit, I'm hungry!

Dan

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:29 pm

Bleeding the system took ages, but I got there in the end, and now I cant believe how quiet the pump runs, if it wasn't for the fact that I have 6 120mm fans in my case at the moment, i suspect that my rig would be really quiet!

She lives!! (sorry for shaky-cam!)

It was at this time that I found out that my parents desktop had died unexpectedly

When windows should have loaded it said this:

and safe mode was no better, that came up with an "unknown hard error", lol, i don't think any errors are easy

I think it was because my sister had accidentally turned off the wall socket when she thought it had shut down but realised too late that it hadn't finished properly (must have been windows updates installing)

But anyway, [bold]my[/bold] PC looks the awesomeness (or as we on LR say, Ubar

):

I'm upset that when I put the case back together I wont have a window to look at it all (maybe another mod sometime?), at least I'll get to see some glow:

And at night

:

So part of the reason I haven't been able to post lately is having to fix my parents PC, and part uni stuff, and part work stuff, so a very busy week for me!

But I've finally finished backing up files to my PC, wiping parents PC, restoring files to parents PC, to do that it kinda looks like I'm 'jump starting' it:

So that's where I'm at now, my parents PC is ready to be reattached and my PC is ready to take to Sheffield with me tomorrow, my parents get their dinging room back and i get a kick ass PC, every one's happy, oh I almost forgot, benchmarks

:

(click for enlargement)

Thanks for your feedback so far, and I'd like lots more please

Dan