My Eclipse

[Madafwo]

Finally got round to finding the balls to cut up my Eclipse.

I fluffed the cutting as I ended up doing it at 4am and it isn't straight, but I have another top coming from Akasa and will probably swap out the rad soon enough.

I didn't get pictures of the work in progress but I did get a shot of it while I was leak testing it/trying to get all the bubbles out.

Leak test (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v301/Madawo/Computer%20Diary/Water%20Cooling/c44de3ec.jpg)

Close Up (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v301/Madawo/Computer%20Diary/Water%20Cooling/3de029e0.jpg)

In these shots the case is actually upside down with the motherboard try wedged in so I could link the PSU up the the motherboard, left it like this for 12 hours and had no leaks.

After getting everything leak tested I mounted the blocks to the CPU and GPU and started the process of waiting until i got home to power up.

Finished Article (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v301/Madawo/Computer%20Diary/Water%20Cooling/723f506d.jpg)

Glad I did wait until i got home from work to power it up as the DFI just wouldn't boot at first, tried clearing the CMOS, moved the RAM around in different slots, moved the graphics card to the lower PCI-E slot then I finally got it working.

All working (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v301/Madawo/Computer%20Diary/Water%20Cooling/6b0c2694.jpg)

Managed to get it to boot into windows and working fine, had MBM5 set up with my Asus A8N-SLI and it was reporting my CPU temps as 70 degrees but I downloaded the set-up files for MBM5 for the DFI board and now my CPU temps are 25 degrees under idle and 33 under load, my GPU is now at 37 idle and 44 under load after an hour of SP2004 on both cores and ATI tool scanning for artifacts.

Really am pleased with the temps, only took me 4 days to complete as I had to work, the pump is a bit noisy but thats because I can't get all the bubbles out of my loop, which no matter how hard I try I can't get them all out. And also the effect of having the HDD activity LED in my TDX (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v301/Madawo/?action=view&current=Waterblock.flv)

I'd like to thank Awoken, RevolutioN and Conan257 as they have all sold me some top quality equipment to get this system to the spec it is now.

I also must apologise for the quality of the photo's as I only had my phone to take the pictures.

[Rig]

I gotta say, i like the window decal :D

[Madafwo]

It was a present from the girlfriend, as its what I say every time something happens to the computer that I don't like.

[Alex Slane]

i have just bought a eclipse as well dude , nice aint they ! got to i like the wc loop , why did you mount the rad on top though.

[Madafwo]

Mounting in the front meant I had no room for the HDD's.

Mounting it in the bottom of the case meant one of the fans would be blocked by the X-Fi.

Mounting it on the side by the motherboard tray would have meant hacking out part of the actual chassis and not just a side panel, this was a concern as I pretty much knew I would fluff it as its the first time I have ever done anything, as it is I have fluffed it but another top panel is on the way and if I ever sell the case it is in perfect condition.

I could have mounted it on the side panel and not gone with a window but that would have made access to the case difficult, and I wanted to keep the window.

The top was easy enough because I could mount the rad externally with the barbs facing in and still have 2 front bays free for the DVD drive and the X-Fi's front bay.

The fans are sucking are in through the top of the case so it gets plenty of fresh air, really really happy that its all working, just need to mount the pump properly as I don't have washers to mount it, this will hopefully quiten it down a bit too.

It's quite weird, when I had my 3700+ Sandy I also had the Evo 33 with a second fan, cooled really well but it just couldn't keep up with the watercooling in the summer.

[Mullet]

Top job bud!

Nice job on the wiring also!

How come you didn't mount inside case top and have barbs at other end so bleed screw would be accessible from the case front? Could have helped you get rid of them bubbles by resting the case on its back (where i/o ports are).

Looks very good!

What UV dye have you used?

[Madafwo]

Mounting it internally would have meant serious kinking of the tubes or cutting the PSU tray which i didn't want to do because it would hurt the resale value if I ever wanted to get rid of the case. I already have a spare top of the case so I can just throw that on and sell the case in perfect condition if I felt that way. Got a DVD drive and the X-Fi front bay in there so it leavs very little room to mount internally, if I only had one bay taken it would have gone internally.

No UV dye in it just a bit of zerex, but too many bubbles, there is no bleed screw in the rad as far as I know, but as I said on either here or hexus probably going to get rid of the res top and go for a res hidden round the back of the HDD tray to aid in gettting rid of the bubbles.

The cabling is a bit of the mess at the moment, after chaning motherboards I realised I needed to have two extra power connectors to the board so I need to route those, and also the HDD activity wire needs to be sleeved along with the power switch leads and the USB header cables round the bottom, if I can be bothered and find the heatshrink I will probably do the X-Fi cable as well. Got an extension cable on the way for the cathodes as well so i can mount one along the bottom and one on the left hand side of the case as you look at it and hide the inverter at the same time. Hopefully. I really think cable tidying is the final step in making a PC look that extra bit special.

[Mullet]

Looks like a PA120.2??

If it is it will have a bleed screw located at the opposite end of the radiator..should help you get rid of the bubbles.

[ghost]

Any system specs, also what pump and res are you using :)

[Madafwo]

I wish it were a PA120.2, its an Alphacool NexXxos Extreme Dual.

At the moment the spec is

Akasa Eclipse 62
DFI SLI-D
Athlon X2 4200+
2GB G.Skill HZ PC4000
Gigabyte 7900GT.
X-Fi Gameboy version
250GB Maxtor HDD
Tagan 530W Modular PSU

The cooling is handled by the Alphacool rad with a couple of Papst 4412F's (some of the quietest fans I have not heard), Laing DDC-1 Plus with plexi and res tops, DD TDX for the CPU, DD Maze 4 GPU for the graphics card all linked together with some rather funky Masterkleer 7/16" ID tubing with a feck off huge kink in it that is annoying as hell. Probably going to re tube it though, better routing and shorter tube from the CPU to GPU blocks.

[Mullet]

How you finding that ram?

Good for the overclock?

[ghost]

Madafwo you need some of this in your res i had the same problem and this was a tip from Paul and it works a dream as it cleared the bubbles in my DDC res instantly, now i have to check the pump is working when i switch on as it is that quiet.
http://coolercasesuk.co.uk/showpost.php?p=24047&postcount=7

[coolmiester]

Good call ghost - it really does the trick

[Madafwo]

No overclock as of yet, found out the RAM wasn't compatible with my old motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI) and haven't got bored of the system, want to get the watercooling sorted before I do anything with that although with my old RAM I had the chip up to 2.6 right off the bat, hoping I might push it as far as 2.8 with this combo.

Where can I get some of that foam from? looks like it'd be fantastic at helping with my problem.

[coolmiester]

Again its hats off to ghost for the link (searches PM's for link) as he did the leg work on this one...

>>link to foam<< (http://www.zooplus.co.uk/petshop/fish/technic_and_accessories/filters_and_pumps/filter_media/33722/19728)

I did contact them and Eheim direct to try and get my hands on some as they are perfect size but they never got back and Eheim wanted more than double that price :S

[Madafwo]

Paul and ghost, thanks a lot, got a jubilee clip round the kink at the moment and thats increased the flow and reduced the straing on the pump. Will order some of that foam and when it arrives I will pull the system apart and try to reduce the bubbles in the system.

Edit: Only problem being is they want a minimum order of £5 without shipping, means if I order just these I will have 8 in total, so if anybody wants these in the future just give me a shout.

[ghost]

yep i bought four from Zooplus and you actually get two small ones in each box which are perfect for the DDC res i actually got free shipping from them as well so the order came to just over a fiver but well worth it plus i have some spares.
:)

[Madafwo]

Yeah, the £3 off for first time customers is brillliant as it does work out to be free shipping, got 4 packs of 2 so will probably replace it everytime I do the fluid change.

[ghost]

Should'nt be any need really just give them a good rinse and they should be fine.

[Madafwo]

True, but I want to feel like I have got my moneys worth. Got 8 of them on the way and I will never use them :D

[pie_uk]

want to sell some?

i cant be bothered to order them, cant find the register bit

[jcuk]

very nice mate, good temps, looks like a good setup. you should try to design an enclosure for that rad or try and get yourself a low profile from BI

[ManyStylez]

what can i say but ROFL!

gd transformation

[Madafwo]

Dumping the dual rad, thinking of getting the TJ07 and a Black Ice GT360 from work and putting all the stuff in there now, just need to get a replacement top panel for the eclipse so I can sell it on or give it to the GF