- Jan 31, 2015
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So i decided last year to make a water cooling set up in my sig rig after the disappointment of a Corsair H80 which wasn't any better than my Coolermaster hyper 212 and just made more noise. Below is how the PC looked before any modding:
I trawled through guides on the forums etc and eventually came up with a shopping list of parts including the following
XSPC Raystorm CPU block - This was to be modded with red LEDS to replace the blues standard ones
Alphacool UT60 240mm Reservoir
EK ddc 140 CSQ Reservoir and Laing DDC PWM 3.2 pump combo
Primochill Advanced Clear Tubing
Monsoon "Mod My Toys" Compression Fittings
Blood Red Coolant
The biggest hurdle i had first was figuring a way to fit the rad into the Antec 902, its a decent sized case but that rad is pretty big. I was looking over the internet for ideas and was working stuff out when I seen some ideas on a similar Mod, i decided to use some of those ideas for my own mod.
I liked the blue fan on black look of the standard 902 so I opted initially for some Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm fans to replace all the Antec case fans, 2 of which would eventually become my Rad Fans. I also like the red glow i get from the Soundblaster Z so I figured i would go for a red and blue theme inside the case.
So as I stated the first thing was to fit the radiator, so as soon as I got it I flushed it with boiling distilled water to get all the debris out of it, I was fairly surprised how clean it was but I did get some out. I also decided at this point I wanted to sort the cables out, no point having all the mess visible, so I cut a circular hole next to the psu allowing all the psu cables go around the otherside of the case (burnt my drill slightly doing this :embarrase) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures at this stage, I didn't think of a build log until people mentioned I should take some pictures, by this time the rad was already fitted.
So the next thing was to get myself a Dremel and cut some ****! This was harder than I expected, i'm a trained sheet metalist and I thought the Dremel would make light work of the metal, unfortunately the side panel cut wasn't as clean as I would have liked so I would sort this later which involve taking the perspex panel off again and tidying the cut up:
Once the panel was cut out and the Perspex panel applied I needed to cut the section out where the HDD cages used to be. The HDD was relocated to the side when the Rad was fitted and the SSD was located to the floor (initially) in front of the PSU.
After the clean up, I refitted everything and waited on the Reservoir to arrive. I had also found a replacement modular wiring kit for Corsair HX series psu's with pre-braided wires so I grabbed one of those aswell. Unfortunately when it arrived all the modular fittings were incorrect for my PSU, so this is something else I needed to look at changing cause those PCI-E connectors look horrible. Luckily the 24 pin motherboard kit still worked and that is a massive improvement over the multicoloured **** that's attached. Once that was here I could get an idea of hose sizing and the best location for the res, I figured its quite nice, and I wanted the blood red to stand out so I decided to mount it right in front of the window:
Once this was fitted I noticed the outlet hose to the block was going to be tight over the PSU so on my next order for the Block, 60cm strip of white LEDs and red leds for the Block, I also added 2x 45 degree rotating fittings. That all arrived a few days later and I got to work:
First things I needed to get the block and hoses on and do some leak checks, btw I totally didn't leave the plastic on the block and not need to remove the block again .....
After a few hours leak testing, not a drop (plastic still fitted :embarrase) I decided id throw the other pieces in and keep an eye on things for a while making sure there's still no leaks and carry on bleeding it:
After a while I was happy there was no leaks and got it all wrapped up, the last problem I had was light scratching in my perspex which showed up with the white LEDs 😡
Standard Clocks at this time
Idle 27C
Load 33.5C but that's only gaming
I trawled through guides on the forums etc and eventually came up with a shopping list of parts including the following
XSPC Raystorm CPU block - This was to be modded with red LEDS to replace the blues standard ones
Alphacool UT60 240mm Reservoir
EK ddc 140 CSQ Reservoir and Laing DDC PWM 3.2 pump combo
Primochill Advanced Clear Tubing
Monsoon "Mod My Toys" Compression Fittings
Blood Red Coolant
The biggest hurdle i had first was figuring a way to fit the rad into the Antec 902, its a decent sized case but that rad is pretty big. I was looking over the internet for ideas and was working stuff out when I seen some ideas on a similar Mod, i decided to use some of those ideas for my own mod.
I liked the blue fan on black look of the standard 902 so I opted initially for some Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm fans to replace all the Antec case fans, 2 of which would eventually become my Rad Fans. I also like the red glow i get from the Soundblaster Z so I figured i would go for a red and blue theme inside the case.
So as I stated the first thing was to fit the radiator, so as soon as I got it I flushed it with boiling distilled water to get all the debris out of it, I was fairly surprised how clean it was but I did get some out. I also decided at this point I wanted to sort the cables out, no point having all the mess visible, so I cut a circular hole next to the psu allowing all the psu cables go around the otherside of the case (burnt my drill slightly doing this :embarrase) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures at this stage, I didn't think of a build log until people mentioned I should take some pictures, by this time the rad was already fitted.
So the next thing was to get myself a Dremel and cut some ****! This was harder than I expected, i'm a trained sheet metalist and I thought the Dremel would make light work of the metal, unfortunately the side panel cut wasn't as clean as I would have liked so I would sort this later which involve taking the perspex panel off again and tidying the cut up:
Once the panel was cut out and the Perspex panel applied I needed to cut the section out where the HDD cages used to be. The HDD was relocated to the side when the Rad was fitted and the SSD was located to the floor (initially) in front of the PSU.
After the clean up, I refitted everything and waited on the Reservoir to arrive. I had also found a replacement modular wiring kit for Corsair HX series psu's with pre-braided wires so I grabbed one of those aswell. Unfortunately when it arrived all the modular fittings were incorrect for my PSU, so this is something else I needed to look at changing cause those PCI-E connectors look horrible. Luckily the 24 pin motherboard kit still worked and that is a massive improvement over the multicoloured **** that's attached. Once that was here I could get an idea of hose sizing and the best location for the res, I figured its quite nice, and I wanted the blood red to stand out so I decided to mount it right in front of the window:
Once this was fitted I noticed the outlet hose to the block was going to be tight over the PSU so on my next order for the Block, 60cm strip of white LEDs and red leds for the Block, I also added 2x 45 degree rotating fittings. That all arrived a few days later and I got to work:
First things I needed to get the block and hoses on and do some leak checks, btw I totally didn't leave the plastic on the block and not need to remove the block again .....
After a few hours leak testing, not a drop (plastic still fitted :embarrase) I decided id throw the other pieces in and keep an eye on things for a while making sure there's still no leaks and carry on bleeding it:
After a while I was happy there was no leaks and got it all wrapped up, the last problem I had was light scratching in my perspex which showed up with the white LEDs 😡
Standard Clocks at this time
Idle 27C
Load 33.5C but that's only gaming
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