Spoiler:
I can't find my original build log; it seems to be long gone in an old version of the forum or something. Also, I realized that my mods rigs was WAY out of date and that I don't even have a P67 any more.
Here's a quick little system update. I finally got rid of the old kinky spirals of silver-colored flexible hose and upgraded to rigid tubing instead. I never thought I would buy dyed coolant again, but here I am with dyed coolant. Weird.
The radiator stack is in the bottom of the computer case. I remove and install it all as one big blob every time I want to clean the fins or make a modification to the radiator stack. I plumbed it all with rigid tubing without any concern for how much harder it will be to drain and maintain in the future.
In the future, I will probably change the one rigid tube in the photo below over to flexible hose with a quick disconnect to make draining the whole loop above it much easier.
I have never played with this rigid PETG tubing before. My bends aren't perfect but the bends are much better than the kinky hose which this tubing replaced. Everything is straight and proper where it can be seen or where it matters. The following are some random images during the slow tedious upgrade process while I sniveled through my runny nose.
Spacing the fittings up above the GPU waterblocks to clear the GPU PCBs was a bit tricky and it took me about an hour of trial-and-error until I found a stackup of shims and o-rings which would seal properly and provide necessary clearance.
The tubes to the CPU have a little joggle in them. For some reason, in this picture, the two tubes don't appear symmetrical. But, looking at my computer next to me, the tubes appear to be symmetrical. Hmm. It must be a weird reflection.
Usually, I run everything in the cooling system in series. I decided to parallel all the blocks this time in order to reduce the quantities and lengths of tubes needed. The cooling performance has remained virtually the same after I placed a larger (more high flow) jet plate in the CPU block and turned the pump RPM up a bit.
The fans and pump speed are controlled indirectly based on CPU temperature which creates a PWM output profile out from the motherboard which is then fed into a DigiSpark Arduino circuit board which is screwed to the back of my motherboard tray. The Arduino board controls the fan minimum speed and ramp speed better than my motherboard BIOS is able, and makes the pump run at one of two different precise speeds (while idling or under load) instead of letting the pump ramp and settle in annoying audio harmonic frequency ranges. The Arduino board has one 5v power input, one ground, one PWM input from the motherboard, and two PWM outputs (one to the pump and one to the fans). The PWM ouput to the fans is split tapped off so that each fan gets a PWM signal. Then, only one of the fans feeds its tachometer signal back to the motherboard where the motherboard creates the initial fan speed ramp profile based on current CPU temperature. It is all a little bit convoluted, but it works very well and I love the automation without needing any additional software.
When I changed to a parallel loop instead of a series loop, I pretty much just experimented with a couple CPU block jet plates and plugged a USB cable into the Arduino board and flashed it with faster idle pump speeds until I found a speed which wasn't in an annoying audio harmonic range and provided acceptable idle/low load CPU temperatures.
I would like to take better pictures of the finished product in better lighting after I clean off all the smudges and dust. (and after my health returns)
post edited by ty_ger07 - 2016/07/20 13:08:49