Here you go, my little work log I suppose you can call it. Some people want to see it, so i'll post it up. Yes it's probably all pointless and money could have been better spent, but to put it simply I wanted to do it for bloody ages and so I have started to do it now that things are looking good personally.
Just a warning, there is an absolute crap load of pics here, if on dialup, don't bother :p If any other admin/mod want's to kill me for pics being too big, fine.. but I have warned people.. they will be 1024 wide, no less. Sorry to anyone using low resolutions.
Since I believe it was Xaine, Rainwulf and Crusher who first tried water many years ago now it sort of caught my eye, not so much for the wank factor but rather a hobby, something different to play around with and of course hopefully some greater overclocking potential. One of the biggest problems with going water back then was cost. Or more to the point lack of available hardware, not so much of a problem if you can make it yourself. Today things are much easier with water slowly becoming more of a mainstream idea.
Anyone who knows me knows I love Lian Li cases (except for their new piece of shit :p) I bought a PC60 hmm must be about 3.5 years ago now? While some people don't give a crap about their case, I am the sort of person to like things looking good and neat, while performing good of course ;) Aluminuim is sexy, plain and simple, nothing ricey about it which is perfect. So fast forward to mid 2005 and we have something looking like this!
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0024.jpg]
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0018.jpg]
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0041.jpg]
Sorry about my room, I actually sleep in a gaming room lol hence the cork flooring, moving house soon (~4th Nov).
Let's see, we have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe running a AMD0 3500+, 1Gb Corsair RAM, Gigabyte 6600GT and a 160Gb Seagate Hard drive, in the third picture I have the hard drive rack removed. There is another 120 and 40Gb IDE drives in that. Last but not least a 430watt Enermax powersupply (thanks Craig/Crazy C for that, lasted me very well :)). Stock cooling all around, except the rear two fans, which was also modded as the PC60 only comes with one 80mm fan on the back. Should be a post in this forum a few years ago about that, i'll see if I can find it..
Well, a lot of people have had trouble getting a full decent water cooling setup into a PC60, the case is somewhat small but there are a few thing you can sacrifice to make things fit. The most simple water cooling setup will consist of a radiator, pump and a cpu block. Some may have a resevoir also, plus your tubing. Radiators come in all sorts of sizes from ~80x80mm to bigger then ~120x360mm+. Simply put the bigger the radiator the more heat it can dissipate and hence cooler water. The difference between different size can be almost next to nothing, so generally go with what you can fit into your case (or outside). I don't want anything on the outisde of my case, cos personally it looks shit and would get in the way.
Next to my powersupply, above my burner I have quite a lot of room, given I don't need the top two drive bays I can use that space! Here is where I am putting my radiator. Will be mounted to the top panel of the case. The radiator i'm using is a Blackice Xtreme II. It measures in at 273x133mm overall which is fairly big considering it's going to fit in a space literally only about 140x290mm. But it does fit! ;)
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0103.jpg]
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0104.jpg]
I faced a couple of problems here, and one big one that delayed me about a month :(
Problem 1: On the top panel there is a pre cut grill. I wanted to get rid of this completely to give the case a neat professional look, rather then some half asses job like a lot of people would do. Problem is, when you mount two 120mm fans onto the radiator, cut two holes into the top of the case, mount it and put two simple grills onto it, it doesn't quite cut the precut grill out..
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0033.jpg]
Problem 2: The distance between the power supply and the radiator to enable me to cut the precut grill out is next to nothing, almost impossible in fact, due to the fact that cables DO come out of the back of the power supply :p
Solution? Go cutom ;) While I didn't really want to do it, due to cost, I thought it'd be the most sensible way to do things. After countless hours searching google and hundreds of websites, mainly German and UK for ideas I came across a grill looking like this;
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/grill.jpg]
It was perfect, it'd let me cut a rectangle rather then two circles, which will then also cut out the precut grill along with enabling me to move the rad to the front of the case more away from the power supply!
Problem 3 & 4!!! By now i'm getting a little frustrated (mostly impatient, considering I have everything to watercool by now xD) Can you buy these in Australia? Nope.. In the US, sort of, in Europe? Yup! But.. another problem. Bloody Europeans have different radiators which have difference spacing between the two 120mm fans, why is this a problem? Well if you screw two fans into the raditor on mine they are side by side, the grills I could find over there have a small spacing between them, so when mounting the radiator to case to grill the mounting holes would not line up correctly. Boo..
Solution was to get one cut to how I wanted it, so it'd line up correctly, and enable me to cut the precut grill. Back to google and here for a laser cutting place, I ended up finding one http://www.acutelaser.com.au/ They did a good deal for me considering I was only after the one cut.
I tried my luck in some CAD work and designed my own grill with the dimensions I had from other various type of grills and a blue print of the radiator I got from the manufacturer, which gave the the correct measurements for the mounting holes, yes I literally went through this much trouble :O Sad isn't it :p
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/Grill_Render.JPG]
Rendered shot of the grill, sent it off to the dude who cut it and a week later I got this in the mail..
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0190.jpg]
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0192.jpg]
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/old/IMG_0196.jpg]
2mm thick 304 #4 Brushed Stainless Steel, perfectly laser cut, and omg! my CAD drawing was perfect to the half mm.. So there was my grill! and I was set to get everything into the case. Onto some cutting!
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/27-9/IMG_0207.jpg]
Taped off and drawn to scale. Notice the stupid precut grill, luckily the grill I have now covers it :)
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/27-9/IMG_0215.jpg]
No turning back now.. cutting this case is scary :(
I got an idea!
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/27-9/IMG_0213.jpg]
That's all the cutting done. Time to get everything put in.
You can probably see my idea here, run the power cables behind, next picture shows why..
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0217.jpg]
Talk about no room to move.. out the back they go, much nicer :) Yummy new power supply, Enermax 600watt Noisetaker, should do nicely for a while, dual sli connectors and even has the new 8pin EPS12V connector + adapter, hello new DFI motherboards!
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0223.jpg]
Up close shot, camera makes it seem darker then it actually is. But it is shiney ;) Bolted in by M5 SS bolts, can find them at most automotive places, held in by a teflon? nut, it's not going anywhere :p 2x 120mm Sunon fans, pulling an insane 108cfm of air each, loud? yeah a bit, but that's fine for now.
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0226.jpg]
Two new high speed Sunon fans, ~50cfm each. The stock fans that came with the case are pretty useless.. and probably half dead by now anyway..
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0310.jpg]
Mm hit another big problem.. Ended up snapping one of the barbs on the CPU block off, they are plastic ones, for some reason.. but I overtightened and it gave way.. waited about 3 weeks to get a replacement sent over from Swiftech in LA. But they finally arrived and woohoo I could finish it off!
Swiftech Storm G4 (Designed by an Aussie too :D)
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0319.jpg]
GPU blocks, Danger Den Maze4 Low Profile blocks.
[Image: http://www.users.on.net/~mcranage/system/final/IMG_0078.jpg]
No res on my setup, going with a T line, which I can simply bleed the air through, it looks neater imo and saves using more space for a res. Tubing is using high quality Tygon 7/16" ID, with all other gear using 1/2" OD barbs, nice tight fit and not as bulky as 1/2" ID tubing.