Build Log: The Green Dragon

[jappe66]

Welcome to my very first Build Log! I'm not very good at blurbs or anything like that so I'll just get right on it.

Last week I finally ordered the parts for my build. Today one package arrived but I'm still waiting for a second package from different shop. I should have just ordered all parts from the same website so I could have started to work on the build today already 😛

I don't have much for you yet, but I will show you what is my starting point and some teasers!

So my case is a white BitFenix Shinobi XL. I've heard a lot of people complain about it being plastic and crappy but I just don't see what there is to complain about? The finish on those parts is absolutely amazing and it feels very nice to my hands. The side panels are metal as well as the back and bottom. The front and top have BitFenix SofTouch finish.

The case cost me about 150€ about 6 months ago and I wouldn't change it to anything! Now there's so much room and I started to enjoy watching water cooling build logs so I fell in love with this new hobby.

It turned out to be quite big thing on the money side but I decided, what the heck. "I want it so I'm gonna do it!"

My main colors will be white and green. White coming straight from the case itself mostly and the tubing and liquid will be green. Also green LED fans.

Here's my first plan that I made a couple weeks ago:

At first I was planning to mount the reservoir outside the case like mentioned in the picture but then I found one that would fit perfectly on the inside. To the same location. And when I start building this there will probably be more changes to the plans. Or so I've heard from people who have done this before 😀

Now here's some teasers for you to enjoy:

So there you go! I named my project The Turtle because I couldn't come up with anything better. Actually I could go further with this idea and get some turtle figures standing on the case when it's finished or something. See how crazy this watercooling makes me? 😀

You will have to wait until early next week for some build pics but I'm hoping to get the other package by Friday.

Not much to show yet but you gotta start somewhere!

 

[toolmaker_03]

to answer your question yes about 3 table spoons every 6 months or less. stress on not more than this!!
if your system has been running for more than 6 months and is still losing a lot of water than there is a slow leak some ware.

 

[jappe66]

Looking good Jappe!
You'l have a bit of evaporation initially, but not all the time. Your res is large enough for it not to be an issue anyway.

If you keep the system closed then there is no place for it to evaporate to, but as I said over time the radiator will give up all the air and become fully saturated also any other place that will trap an air bubble.

to answer your question yes about 3 table spoons every 6 months or less. stress on not more than this!!
if your system has been running for more than 6 months and is still losing a lot of water than there is a slow leak some ware.

Thanks everyone! I was planning to change the water every 6 months or so anyway so evaporation should not be an issue.

And yes the case will be shut, that's why the windowed panel 😉

Unhortunately I had to put the rad to the front so the LED fans are not visible so much from there.

On the other hand now I could buy 3 high-performance fans to attach to the radiator and put the 3x Green LED fans to the top of the case pushing air out and giving some green light.

Are the Corsair Air Series fans good for the radiator in pull configuration? Either the Performance or Quiet editions.

http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/Corsair-Air-Series-120-x-120-x-25mm-PWM-SP120-High-Performance-Edition-Case-Fan--CO-9050013-WW-pid-17727.html

http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/Corsair-Air-Series-120-x-120-x-25mm-PWM-SP120-Quiet-Edition-Case-Fan--CO-9050011-WW-pid-17726.html

Looks like the Performance edition has 3.1mm static pressure so it should work well.

EDIT: Now I'm having problems mounting the SSDs :/ Can't really find a place to put them...

 

[jappe66]

All parts installed and computer is up and running. Successfully booted to Windows 8 and Core Temp shows temperature from 26C to 28C with stock speeds. Only little problem is that the computer is beeping 😀

Two beeps, I'm not sure if they are considered as long or short ones but I think they are long. It's weird that there's no red lights showing up anywhere in the motherboard but it's still beeping. And it also booted normally...

The Boot_device_LED was on at first because the sata cables apparently didn't go to the same ports as they were before so I just forced the boot from Crucial m4 and it worked.

Well now when I was writing this the computer decided to give only one beep now... Strange.

 

[manofchalk]

The Quiet editions are actually better for rad usage. Think at lower speeds they provide better static pressure than the Performance ones, that static pressure rating is probably based on it running full ball.
That and their quiet, which is half the point of water-cooling.

Double sided tape is what you need for the SSD's, stick em to the back of the motherboard tray. Though they are SSD's, plug em in and throw it anywhere and they'l be fine.

Beeping...
Dunno, usually beep codes indicate that something has gone wrong thats preventing POST, but your in the OS...
Might be a CPU Fan error, since it cant detect any fans on the CPU header, my solution is to unplug the mobo speaker 😛.
Might want to check the manual though.

 

[4Ryan6]

All parts installed and computer is up and running. Successfully booted to Windows 8 and Core Temp shows temperature from 26C to 28C with stock speeds. Only little problem is that the computer is beeping 😀

Two beeps, I'm not sure if they are considered as long or short ones but I think they are long. It's weird that there's no red lights showing up anywhere in the motherboard but it's still beeping. And it also booted normally...

The Boot_device_LED was on at first because the sata cables apparently didn't go to the same ports as they were before so I just forced the boot from Crucial m4 and it worked.

Well now when I was writing this the computer decided to give only one beep now... Strange.

Do you have a fan connected to the CPU fan header?

If not disable the notification in the BIOS.

Additionally when you water cool and remove the stock CPU air cooler you also removed, the voltage regulator cooling around the CPU socket that was being cooled by the stock air cooler.

You need to make sure there is adequate airflow over those voltage regulator heat sinks if you have to add a fan blowing down on them, you have to replace the airflow you removed or risk seriously shortening the life of the motherboard.

 

[jappe66]

The Quiet editions are actually better for rad usage. Think at lower speeds they provide better static pressure than the Performance ones, that static pressure rating is probably based on it running full ball.
That and their quiet, which is half the point of water-cooling.

Double sided tape is what you need for the SSD's, stick em to the back of the motherboard tray. Though they are SSD's, plug em in and throw it anywhere and they'l be fine.

Beeping...
Dunno, usually beep codes indicate that something has gone wrong thats preventing POST, but your in the OS...
Might be a CPU Fan error, since it cant detect any fans on the CPU header, my solution is to unplug the mobo speaker 😛.
Might want to check the manual though.

Might get 6 of those Quiet fans then There's room for doing push&pull as well.
I will be modifying the build later this month when I get some new cool stuff ordered.

I screwed the SSDs to the top of the case 😀 I could get some 2-sided tape to help install them to a little better place. Though I don't know if the current place is bad at all.

All parts installed and computer is up and running. Successfully booted to Windows 8 and Core Temp shows temperature from 26C to 28C with stock speeds. Only little problem is that the computer is beeping 😀

Two beeps, I'm not sure if they are considered as long or short ones but I think they are long. It's weird that there's no red lights showing up anywhere in the motherboard but it's still beeping. And it also booted normally...

The Boot_device_LED was on at first because the sata cables apparently didn't go to the same ports as they were before so I just forced the boot from Crucial m4 and it worked.

Well now when I was writing this the computer decided to give only one beep now... Strange.

Do you have a fan connected to the CPU fan header?

If not disable the notification in the BIOS.

Additionally when you water cool and remove the stock CPU air cooler you also removed, the voltage regulator cooling around the CPU socket that was being cooled by the stock air cooler.

You need to make sure there is adequate airflow over those voltage regulator heat sinks if you have to add a fan blowing down on them, you have to replace the airflow you removed or risk seriously shortening the life of the motherboard.

I actually figured out the beeping. It was the fan controller 😀 I have no clue why it wanted to beep to me but when I went to see how it looked and I started changing the RPM's of the fans I heard the same beep sound. So I just muted the fan controller and beeping was gone.

 

[4Ryan6]

Don't overlook this;

Additionally when you water cool and remove the stock CPU air cooler you also removed, the voltage regulator cooling around the CPU socket that was being cooled by the stock air cooler.

You need to make sure there is adequate airflow over those voltage regulator heat sinks if you have to add a fan blowing down on them, you have to replace the airflow you removed or risk seriously shortening the life of the motherboard.

 

[jappe66]

Some pictures for you.

Adding the color to the loop one drop at a time. After first drop the effect was so cool that I had to take a picture.

Ran the loop a couple rounds after adding more color to get it settled.

SSDs installed. Maybe not the best spot but at least they are not just hanging by the cable.

My awesome cable management.

This isn't actually so bad looking as the picture makes it 😀

I'd like to meet the guy who designed the sata cables to have a 90 degree angle on the other end... Must be a genius.

One from behind the motherboard.

Front and top panels installed. Computer is up and running.

Reminder to self: Don't stick your hand in to a running 230mm fan.

Some overview pictures from inside of the case while it's running.

And one when the side panel is installed. I actually couldn't screw it in because the bolts that come out from the back of the case (the ones that are holding the reservoir) are blocking some of the metal from the side panel. So I need to make a little modification to the side panel but that's not today's case.

The case looks very dark through the window. That's why I'm installing some LED stripes up in the case to get some more lighting. Or moving those three LED fans up there when I get the Corsair fans for radiator.

 

[Meoricin]

Please manage those cables! The build was looking awesome until you got to that, and by the looks of the case, you've got plenty of space to hide them.

 

[jappe66]

Please manage those cables! The build was looking awesome until you got to that, and by the looks of the case, you've got plenty of space to hide them.

I would but the only problem is that the case is very big and the cables that came with the poer supply are very short. Only the sata and molex cables are long enough to get behind the motherboard.

You can see from the pictures that the motherboard 24-pin wire is not long enough to hide anywhere. I could get the 8-pin cpu power cable behind the gpu like inzone suggested before but one of my plans is to get green cable extensions to work them out:

http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/premium-modding/alchemy-cables/

It's just that the batch of those cable extensions costs about 100€ so I can't afford that right now. But in a few weeks I will do that

I agree the cables make it look a lot worse. I hope they would come up with a wireless way to power up the motherboard and devices! 😀

 

[manofchalk]

I will be modifying the build later this month when I get some new cool stuff ordered.

I am intrigued, cables?
Oh yes, you might be able to save a fair bit of money on those by doing it yourself (assuming your time is worth nothing though). Custom sleeving allows you to extend cables, and get a personalized aesthetic. MDPC (Top tier sleeving supplier) is based in Germany and from what I hear the owner Nils is a pretty awesome guy.
http://www.mdpc-x.com/

Yup, gotta manage those cables.
Youv got no excuse now with a full side panel window, make it look purdy. Otherwise all that green lighting will do is highlight the horrible Cable Management.
Would cut a hole in the 5.25" bay with the fan controller so you can route those fan cables a bit neater.

Hint: The 90° end go's in your drives 😛.

Nice location for the SSD's, thats actually pretty cool. Wouldn't have thought of using a fan grill to mount drives.

What Ryan's saying about the mobo VRM's and needing to have airflow over them, personally I'm skeptical about it but I'l admit he knows more than me on this. I just grabbed an old AMD stock cooler fan and zip tied to the rear fan grill and some tubing, blows air at the CPU socket.

Wirelessly powering a motherboard... Lasers, I bet thats how its going to be done :lol:.
The technology is already being experimented with when it comes to getting rockets into space, why not motherboards? 😀

 

[4Ryan6]

Wirelessly powering a motherboard... Lasers, I bet thats how its going to be done :lol:.
The technology is already being experimented with when it comes to getting rockets into space, why not motherboards? 😀

You have a unique imagination manofchalk!

The dreamed ideas of today are tomorrows reality and beyond, devices can already be charged by laying on a charging surface, not even plugged in, who knows what the future holds in technological advancements.

 

[manofchalk]

Using ground based lasers to transfer energy into a receptacle of water, super-heated steam creates thrust and the rocket goes up. Completely bypasses an inherent problem with current rockets, you need fuel to lift your fuel.

Iv recently had my mind blown with OLED technology, has the potential to make flexible displays that you could manufacture from a consumer grade printer.
And 3D printers, nuff said.

 

[jappe66]

I will be modifying the build later this month when I get some new cool stuff ordered.

I am intrigued, cables?
Oh yes, you might be able to save a fair bit of money on those by doing it yourself (assuming your time is worth nothing though). Custom sleeving allows you to extend cables, and get a personalized aesthetic. MDPC (Top tier sleeving supplier) is based in Germany and from what I hear the owner Nils is a pretty awesome guy.
http://www.mdpc-x.com/

Yup, gotta manage those cables.
Youv got no excuse now with a full side panel window, make it look purdy. Otherwise all that green lighting will do is highlight the horrible Cable Management.
Would cut a hole in the 5.25" bay with the fan controller so you can route those fan cables a bit neater.

Hint: The 90° end go's in your drives 😛.

Nice location for the SSD's, thats actually pretty cool. Wouldn't have thought of using a fan grill to mount drives.

What Ryan's saying about the mobo VRM's and needing to have airflow over them, personally I'm skeptical about it but I'l admit he knows more than me on this. I just grabbed an old AMD stock cooler fan and zip tied to the rear fan grill and some tubing, blows air at the CPU socket.

Wirelessly powering a motherboard... Lasers, I bet thats how its going to be done :lol:.
The technology is already being experimented with when it comes to getting rockets into space, why not motherboards? 😀

I haven't really looked into cable sleeving much yet. It seems to be a little too time consuming for my mind 😀 with a modular power supply I actually thought that I could buy green sleeved cables made by BitFenix but they appeared to be only cable extensions (male-female)...

I will take a look at MDPC-X when I have some time

I also thought the 90 degree end would fit perfectly to the SSDs end but the problem is the mounting holes in the SSD are in the bottom so the sata-port transforms 180 degrees around so it would be impossible to put a 90 degree head there 🙁 The straight head of the cable fit in just perfectly.

About cooling the VRMs, there is that 230mm fan on top which is pulling air from down to up so it gives there a little air flow. Also the radiator fans are pushing the air towards the motherboard so there should be some air going on.

Unfortunately I can't install a 120mm fan anymore to the back since the reservoir is blocking the spot 🙁

 

[davschall]

Just wanted to say this build looks real nice. The main reason I wanted to post is cause I sleeved and extend my own cables by 8 inches with about 10 dollars worth of paracord, 10 dollars for 2 ft of 3:1 heat shrink a 5 dollar tool pin extractor tool(dont skimp on this or it will take you 10x as long, I kid you not) and some nzxt extensions I was previously using (these are supper cheap). You could use the same gauged wire for and crimp it in (although twisting the wires and electrical tape worked for me with no adverse effects). I bought all this on ebay. Once you get a good rhythm going it doesnt take that long to do, although I only did the motherboard 24 pin and the 6 pins (reason being you cant see any other cables in my case). The one thing that was hard to get over, was how hard you had to pull the cables to get some of the pins out lol. All in all I like the paracord because of the much softer look. Just look up a tutorial for doing it, it can be super fun and save you a good amount of money while looking, imho, better than actual sleeving.

Edit: Oh yeah and enjoy your water cooling I was skeptical at first but when I finally got my 4 ghz oc on my 965 be without breaking 40 degrees for a 24 hour occt and prime 95 run. I was forever sold on it, cant wait to put my 7950 under water.

 

[jappe66]

Just wanted to say this build looks real nice. The main reason I wanted to post is cause I sleeved and extend my own cables by 8 inches with about 10 dollars worth of paracord, 10 dollars for 2 ft of 3:1 heat shrink a 5 dollar tool pin extractor tool(dont skimp on this or it will take you 10x as long, I kid you not) and some nzxt extensions I was previously using (these are supper cheap). You could use the same gauged wire for and crimp it in (although twisting the wires and electrical tape worked for me with no adverse effects). I bought all this on ebay. Once you get a good rhythm going it doesnt take that long to do, although I only did the motherboard 24 pin and the 6 pins (reason being you cant see any other cables in my case). The one thing that was hard to get over, was how hard you had to pull the cables to get some of the pins out lol. All in all I like the paracord because of the much softer look. Just look up a tutorial for doing it, it can be super fun and save you a good amount of money while looking, imho, better than actual sleeving.

Edit: Oh yeah and enjoy your water cooling I was skeptical at first but when I finally got my 4 ghz oc on my 965 be without breaking 40 degrees for a 24 hour occt and prime 95 run. I was forever sold on it, cant wait to put my 7950 under water.

Thanks! I'll have to look into cable sleeving and see what's the best thing to do here.

I'm also planning upgrading the motherboard soon. It's time to go Intel. Sorry AMD 🙁 you've served well for the past years but it's time to move on.

I've been looking at LGA1155 motherboards and I've only come across one that has a green theme and would be perfect for the build.

Gigabyte's G1 Sniper. It's mATX board and it has 4 memory slots with 2 pci-e slots (for possible SLI in the future). The price isn't too much either, about 150€.

Do you think it would be a reasonable upgrade? For processor I'm going with i5 for now.

The fascinating world of water cooling got me also interested in adding my gpu to the loop.

Just a matter of funding now 😀

 

[inzone]

Yes you've been bitten by the water cooling bug and the infection is spreading, you must get medical help soon or it will consume your wallet.
In the end without help you will be seen standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign saying " will work for water cooling parts ". :lol:

 

[jappe66]

I kinda feel that way, yeah 😀 my account balance is at 9€ currently and I'm planning on buying parts to my computer that are worth hundreds of euros 😀

Well I'm getting paycheck tomorrow so I think I got next month covered!

 

[manofchalk]

Yep, this ones in a critical condition... 😛

If your gonna do a platform upgrade, wait a few weeks to build up cash and get a Haswell system. Don't think there will be any green mobo's at launch, but black works with everything. With green lighting through the case it wont make a difference (look up the NZXT Hue).

 

[jappe66]

Yep, this ones in a critical condition... 😛

If your gonna do a platform upgrade, wait a few weeks to build up cash and get a Haswell system. Don't think there will be any green mobo's at launch, but black works with everything. With green lighting through the case it wont make a difference (look up the NZXT Hue).

I thought black would work as well maybe I'll sit and wait for Haswells to come out so I can jump straight in to the latest.

That NZXT Hue would have some awesome capabilities but unfortunately my radiator is taking up the rest of the 5.25" slots 🙁

 

[jappe66]

Hmm... Can't decide what would I do with the cables. I definitely need longer 24-pin and 8-pin cables at least. I watched a cable sleeving tutorial but I don't feel very confident on doing it myself. I'd have the time though.

I searched for someone who does cable sleeving for customers but the prices are really expensive imo...

$60 for the 24-pin cable and $18 for all of the others each. I need

24-pin cable
8-pin cable
2x 6-pin PCI-E cable
2x sata power cable
1x molex cable

That would equal 6x$18 + $60 = $168 plus shipping. And they are extensions, not cables :/

It would be even cheaper to buy those BitFenix's Alchemy cable extensions. For comparison I checked that the Alchemy cables would be $88 including shipping. That would be more reasonable choice.

Only thing I don't get is why no-one is selling CABLES that are pre-sleeved? Everything I can find is only EXTENSIONS. Meaning that I either need to buy 2 pieces of each cable or I need to leave the power supplys end as it is. Which is ugly.

I thought that buying a modular PSU gives me the option to buy pre-sleeved cables in addition to having only the cables what I need in there.

What should I do now :/

 

[manofchalk]

There is no standard for modular connections, one set of modular cables wont fit into just any modular PSU. Hence why theres no-one selling sleeved cable sets, rather than just plain extensions. Occasionally the PSU manufacturers themselves will offer a sleeved cable set for their units.
Silverstone do for their Strider series, and from the reviews I'v seen they are quite good.
Though of course you have to buy each cable individually, and no doubt they cost a fair bit each.
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=354&area=en
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=357&area=en
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=359&area=en

I reckon go with the custom sleeving, start with something simple like the front I/O cables before you start with the more complicated 24pin and 6/8pin connectors.

 

[jappe66]

Oh, so that explains the extensions... I thought the connections were universal.

How would extending the cables work out if I would do the sleeving myself?

 

[manofchalk]

Dunno, I'v looked into sleeving before but not in all that depth. I imagine it would be as simple as splicing two wires of the same gauge (buy cheapo extensions for wire, they'l have the correct gauge wire for each cable) to extend it. If you have any skill with a soldering iron that may be handy.

Though you will want to look up on it, or wait until Davschall comes back and gives a bit of advice on the matter since it seems he has done it.

 

[jappe66]

After reading a little about it and then reading Davschall's post again I understood a little more on this matter again 😛

Just wanted to say this build looks real nice. The main reason I wanted to post is cause I sleeved and extend my own cables by 8 inches with about 10 dollars worth of paracord, 10 dollars for 2 ft of 3:1 heat shrink a 5 dollar tool pin extractor tool(dont skimp on this or it will take you 10x as long, I kid you not) and some nzxt extensions I was previously using (these are supper cheap). You could use the same gauged wire for and crimp it in (although twisting the wires and electrical tape worked for me with no adverse effects). I bought all this on ebay. Once you get a good rhythm going it doesnt take that long to do, although I only did the motherboard 24 pin and the 6 pins (reason being you cant see any other cables in my case). The one thing that was hard to get over, was how hard you had to pull the cables to get some of the pins out lol. All in all I like the paracord because of the much softer look. Just look up a tutorial for doing it, it can be super fun and save you a good amount of money while looking, imho, better than actual sleeving.

Edit: Oh yeah and enjoy your water cooling I was skeptical at first but when I finally got my 4 ghz oc on my 965 be without breaking 40 degrees for a 24 hour occt and prime 95 run. I was forever sold on it, cant wait to put my 7950 under water.

I would be more comfortable with twisting the wires and using electrical tape to keep them together rather than soldering.

What would be the best way to heat up the heat shrinks? After watching this video I'd be more comfortable using a tool like this rather than a lighter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeCs98TSsYQ

I don't have tools myself but I know I can borrow some from my dad and he has plenty so he might have one of those hot air blowers or whatever they are called 😛

I guess the best way would be to take away the head of the cable (the connector) using a pin extractor tool (MDPC-X has one for sale) and then connecting the wires with the extension (after removing the head of the other cable as well) by twisting them and using electrical tape to make them stay together.

The sleeving should cover that joint part of the wires, yes?

I'm just a little nervous about doing this. What if the cable doesn't work properly after doing it? Then I have broken cables in my hands and wasted money on the tools and sleeves 🙁