So I finally tidied up the house.  For some reason the wife was unhappy with every available surface being covered with stuff.  This means I can start processing some photos.

So I started off by putting together the workstation upgrade.  My gaming rig can be down, but I still have to work, so that's the first priority.  The workstation consists of two loops:

1. i7-3930K - Mora3 140x9 - Dual PMP450S (D5 Strong)

2. EK R4E full cover block - 2 EK ram blocks - EK 8800GT block - D5 Vario - EK 250 cylinder res

As most of loop 2 was done, I started work on loop 1.  So I started off mounting the fans to the mora3.  Here it is with the CaseLabs "Super Mount".  There are four dedicated mounting points independent of the fans which is nice:



This means you can just mount the fans to the supermount and not the radiator:


 
This is useful for cleaning because you can just undo the four mounting screws between the supermount and the rad.  I.E. You don't have to remove every single fan for cleaning.  FYI the fans are low speed 140mm yates (700rpm).  I chose these because I wanted something cheap and quiet, and yates are both of those when at 700rpm.  
 
Here's the super mount with fans mounted placed on top of the rad:
 

 
Then I attached the rad to the super mount:
 

 
The only downside to this is a tiny gap between the fan and the rad.  However it's small enough that I don't think it will cause a problem:
 

 
Here it is mounted in the top of the case:
 

 
I then attached the quick disconnects to the CPU block for loop 1.  Originally they were going to attach to the case and then have compression fittings on the cpu block.  However there wasn't enough room to make the 90 degree turn, so i think this works better:
 
 

 
In the final setup I'll have some bitspower pass throughs that go to the top chamber.  For now the tubing curves around to the drive bay area where the temporary reservoir and pumps are:
 

 
Again you can see the pink vs red tube.  Primochill have shipped me some replacement tube - so props to them for taking care of it.

Alright so more photos taking the old rig apart - we left off by removing the pci cards and the power supply:



So now let's remove the cpu block and check the tim spread:



Not the best but not awful.  Now time to take the motherboard out:



Out it comes:



Which leaves a sad empty and dusty case!



Now it's time to take apart the rad setup:



Remove the steel bars:



Then the fans:



I noticed one side of the rads now had white stains on them, these were the sides on the top:



Compared side by side to the underside (bottom rad):
 


Anyone know what that is?

killerjas

DUST. LOL But hey Ill take your old case off of your hands, I need another case for my second system.

 
Looks more like some kind of corrosion, here's a close up:
 

 
 

Alright I have a question about sleeving, I'm getting grey, titanium grey, black and red from mdpc and wondering the best pattern to do, what do you think?

Thanks dude - I'll check that.
 
Here's a quick update - time to start drilling!


 
Adding some fill ports:
 

 
2 done:
 

 
All done:
 

 
 
Not as messy now:
 

 
Time to get the workstation up and running so I can get back to work (once I've cleaned up of course).  I'll be using the Koolance dual bay dual D5 reservoir for now.  It's a real pain to use because it doesn't bleed well, however if you add on some tube from the fill ports on the res up to the fill ports on the case you can keep the water level above the reservoir and it really helps.
 

 
Now we've freed up a 360 rad for the workstation gpu/motherboard/ram loop, we can put the loop together:
 

 
I'm using AP15's temporarily until I'm done painting the low speed yates.  Also that one barb is temporary too:
 

 
The wiring is temporary too.  So for loop testing, I disconnected the QDC's pulled the motherboard tray out of the case and the 360 out seperately, then I reconnected and filled the loop and left it to bleed/leak test on the counter for a few hours.
 

 

The shiny covers  come with the reservoir.  You can buy a bitspower shining silver dress top though which will have mcuh the same effect.
 
The pumps are Koolance PMP450s's which are the more powerful version of the regular D5 (when using 24V)

Alright time for another update.  Here's the loop testing for the workstation.  Bear in mind this is not the final loop - it will be tidier with nicer fittings, for now I need to get my workstation up and running, I can pretty it up later.
 

 
Some of the tube is the pink tube that I had mentioned before, that will be replaced.  Bleeding of the annoying koolance reservoir was made easier by the dedicated fill ports and by the QDC's.  The D5's struggle to push that much air out of the system, so it was much easier to bleed the cpu section and the radiator seperately and then connect them up as a whole:
 

 
Now that it had passed leak testing it was time to take it to the office:
 

 
It was now heavy (and bulky) and I didn't trust the BP crystal links not to loosen up if I didn't take it down the step smoothly, so I found a piece of plywood in the shed to help:
 

 
First boot! Yay!  It wasn't just the kitchen that was covered in parts, so was the office, it's a real mess as I still had my old workstation running while I tweaked the clocks on this one.  
 

 
I temporarily put the power supply in the top chamber while I did the overclocking tweaking:
 

 
Did a quick bench to see the limit of the chip, I couldn't get past 5.22GHz on water.  I tried up to 1.66V, but nothing past 1.56 really helped.  5.22 means it's a pretty average 3930K, certainly no golden chip :(  I tried to settle for a 24/7 clock of 4.95, but I didn't like the volts, so settled down for 4.9 instead, I'll see if I can tweak the memory faster than 2133 CL9 later, here's a SS of the 5.22:
 

 
Next I installed the power supplies properly, here you can see the optional PSU support bracket for long power supplies.  It's probably not necessary, but why not?  It comes with some rubber tape to damp any vibrations:
 

 
Here's the first PSU installed:
 

Looking good stren, looking good indeed. So close to completion too. How is the noise with all the fans running?

Delirious

Holy cow that's big. I just ordered the case labs sth10 magnum. I'm worried it's going to be too big now. I guess you do have that lower area attached, so it's taller than usual

Nice cases they make. Soooo many options.

 
Grats - I love the STH10, I really think it's the best case they make.  Don't worry it is a good bit smaller than mine, even once you get rid of the pedestal :)
 

killerjas

Nice.

 
Thanks again :)
 

Chrome-M-Dragon

Looking good stren, looking good indeed. So close to completion too. How is the noise with all the fans running?

 
For the workstation it's not bad, I was hoping for silent, but you can definitely still here the 700rpm fans.  However I had to turn down the D5 strongs, running at 24V makes them dominate the noise.  At 12V they fade back into the background.  I expect the gaming rig will make some noise, but that's ok cause I wear headphones then :)

stren

Took a break to put together an ivy rig for a co-worker:

A board!



blah blah blah marketing - where's the window that the extreme boards have?



Now there's a board



I liked the door hanger - unfortunately this is for an overclocked workstation so not too useful here:



A large box for some memory (32giggles):



Matching:



Oh and a cpu:



Best put that in the socket then:



We should remove that plastic cover too:



Putting in that H100:



Yeah I know no custom water loop, but this is going to someone who can't be trusted with such things ;) miniThief is getting there:




miniThief- now with 100% more PSU:



Don't forget a GPU (9800GT ftw!)



Close up:



ISO:

 
Can you send that my WAY? 

is there any particular reason you use older gpu's for workstations? Do you just need them to drive monitors?

In there day 8800's were the bomb

So as it's the weekend you get bonus updates :)
 
This is how I initially wanted the PSU's to give maximum air intake:
 

 
However the left PSU once it had cables would conflict with the 360 rad mounted in front of it, so I decided to move it:
 

 
Done, you can see there's still a good amount of space in between:
 

 
Now to mount them - they're going in the second to bottom compartment:
 

 
and mounted:
 

 
Now time to mount all the hard drives - here are the gaming rig drives:
 

 
Now let's add in the workstation drives:
 

 
old skool x25e:
 

 
All done:
 

 
Now to cable it - I hate how asus only give you sata cables with right angles at one end and straights at the other.  For this build I really need straight to straights, so I had to order some more from the egg, this is the temporary rats nest:
 

 
Yikes!

Nice Can you send me some of your old stuff like that case? I am in real need of some stuff.