looks good so far, those x-flow radiators work and look great in the corsair case, saves you from having to run a hose all the way across the case

Nice work. I just ordered that same EK block for the mobo, nice to see what it looks like on the board.

Case Mod Day #2

I finished the case mod this morning. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be & overall turned out looking pretty good. I'll let you be the judges of that . I also found the way i modded the case to turn out better overall than the link I provided above as it allows much more airflow into the case.

I started by finding the center of my case and temp mounted 2 120mm fans to the bottom to give me my outline. I cut just inside the lines to allow a pretty precise fit, but I was not worried about being perfect as I plan to line the bottom of the radiator with weather stripping to provide an air tight seal.



After I made my cuts I took a quick snap shot of the metal piece I will be removing. The metal at this point is still rough and needs a good sanding. As you can see the cutting made a bit of a mess hence why I lined the case with plastic trash bags so I wouldn't have to do to much cleaning after the cutting. The overall cutting took 3 Dremel cutting wheels, I had purchased 5 just in case.



I than used the sanding tools that came with my Dremel tool to sand down the sharp edges. I than touched up the rough metal with black paint. (Still wet int his image) I had also drilled the 6 holes i would need to mount the radiator to the bottom of the case.



It is hard to understand what I am actually doing here without the radiator to show you what is going on. So I went ahead and jerry-rigged a few 120MM fans to just show you what area the radiator will cover. In the actual build the fans will sit on top of the radiator sucking in the air.



I might try a Push/Pull setup in the lower area, but I think it will constrict the overall airflow and the space will than be completely filled up.

To address the issue of dust and other crap getting sucked in I purchased 2 DEMCiflex 140mm Magnetic Fan Dust Filters which do not restrict airflow and catch the smallest of particles.

I have to say I have never been this tired in my life. Okay maybe not in my life, but man assembling fittings and getting things mounted takes a lot out of a person.

Today was a huge day as I received all the items needed to complete the CPU loop, and most of the items for the GPU loop. In general I will start today's update with what I remembered to take pictures of.

I started the day off by Dying all the misc cables that will be seen with vinyl black. Vinyl black absorbs into the cabling allowing a nice sleek black color to stay. This stuff leaves the cable flexible and the color non-flakable. The overall look to me is better than basic cable covers and it applies like normal paint.



Here you can see where I taped off the cables to paint only what would be seen in the case. I left the hidden stuff alone.



After that I installed the 360 radiator along with the 3 fans that will keep it cool. I mounted the fans with weather stripping on the inside of the fans which you can't really see in images and also a nice tight seal on top of the radiator which you can see a little bit.

In this image the gray looking stuff in the weather stripping. It is actually black, but with the flash it turned gray.


In this next image you can see the socket head screws I used along with the rubber spacers to make sure the screws didn't go to far into the radiator and of course to leave the top of the case unscratched.



I than got myself to the fun stuff. I mounted the radiator with its proper fitting and started to measure out the tubing. Overall this process went fast as I had preplanned how I wanted everything routed in the case.

I than moved my focus to getting the water block on the CPU & Chipset. This process again was easy as I had already prepped the motherboard for this.



Once that was complete it was time to mount the motherboard in the case so I can get ready to test all the connections in the system & prime her up for leak testing. You should always do this with just the loop powered only. I have no power connected to the motherboard or other components outside of the pump, fans & fan controller. I am using a PSU tester to allow me to turn on the PSU without it being hooked up to the motherboard.



I have yet to add liquid to the system but it is the next step i will be taking tonight. So hopefully by the end of the night I will have a full loop primed and ready to go.

So I was able to install the GPU loops reservoir along with pump & tubing that is over-sized for now. The CPU/Chipset loop is now running at a nice 4.0Ghz without any issues and shall be getting pushed to 4.2GHz sooner than later.

I know the tubing doesn't look so pretty just yet. I have a ton of excess currently to make sure I didn't cut any length to short. I am also a bit bummed as the pump location for the GPU loop is not in a desirable place. But their isn't much I can do about that. I wanted to make sure I had a hefty pump along with 1/2" ID tubing so that the GPU's have a chance to stay cool. Especially with the desire to go Fermi. I wanted to make sure the loop was ready for a hot, hot, hot, card.

But in general I just want to get the GTX 295 going so I can start benching this build.

Got her going at 4.22GHz & memory clocking at 1694MHz.. With temps in Prime95 sitting around 62c under full load.

nateman_doo

Welcome to the forums!!

Non-conductive fluid will still kill a motherboard.  I watched a youtube video where they put an old motherboard in a bucket, then slowly poured "non-conductive" fluid on the board and it shorted out.  ajr hit the nail on the head.  Plain distilled water, with a silver coil.   if you do not feel comfortable with watercooling, then perhaps a little extra insurance in the form of teflon tape would help ease your fears?

Your set-up should be able to do 4GHz without breaking too much of a sweat.  Keep the updates coming!

Not sure how much teflon tape would help. The threads are so stubby on fittings it would be hard to get it on the right way in the first place. I really like the idea of sealing things with an O-Ring.

I would use Teflon tape first (just a few wraps) then slide the same O ring back on to the fitting if your still concerned.
Now that I can actually see the pics, it looks quite sexy. 

81°C on watercool seems like air temps.  are you sure the block is making good contact with the GPU, or are you overclocking the GPU? (can't see pics-at work)

can't see the pics at work.  either you could give me a sneak peek by telling me them, or I have to wait until I get home from work

Under 83% load core 1 is running at 44c & under 86% load core 2 is running at 43c... in general almost a 40c improvement

Here is a question...

Can voltages on a CPU overclock make the difference in how it scores in Vantage? Just noticing I have a higher OC than normal but the scores are the same... I am using a lower Vcore voltage

I got some better images :)





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Looks good man.. smart parts!

Looks Great!!! like the blue

Well you may still need the parts I listed above as I used barbs on the GPU instead of compression fittings. The compression fittings would not fit on my GPU block. if your block will fit the fittings than the list above is what you will want. I ended up using the compression fittings/ 45 degree piece on the radiator below. as Barbs would have been a huge pain to work with in that tight space..

I also ended up creating my own 45 degree parts on the GPU loop by using a 45 degree part and bought the compression fitting to hook to it. The ones I linked are the 2 parts welded together. You can do either or, just will depend if companies have stock on them. I didn't want to wait for stock.