Water-cooling Build Log: Project Red-Chalk

[manofchalk]

Welcome to the ongoing build-log for my system, the Red-Chalk. It details from when I first started water-cooling and covers pretty much all the goings on with my rig since then. All my long winded thoughts, idea's and explanations are here, so a light read this is not :lol:.
Big thanks to Moto, Scopey, Rubix , Big-Cyco and amuffin for helping me out when I first inquired about water-cooling, and many others who I have learnt from since.

-- --- --

The XSPC Raystorm 750 RS360 water-cooling kit.
PrimoChill PrimoFlex Pro LRT tubing red, 7/16ID 5/8OD. 2m of it.
And a Killcoil.

Well, I took the plunge and got all that water-cooling stuff yesterday, and now it is assembled, leak tested and probably not fully air bled yet if the pump noise means anything :lol:.
As promised, here is my build log and hopefully all the pictures you could want.

This is before I started pulling everything apart, my dual fan Hyper 212 Evo doesn't even know what happening yet.

Stripped out all the unnecessary stuff, the HAF-X is starting to look empty.

My 3570K tries to hide itself under a layer of thermal paste (which is fairly well applied, I wasnt expecting that good an application considering it was the first time I had done it. Little bit of spillage though)

Remove the Thermal paste with some White Spirits cleaning fluid, and its revealed.

Took the opportunity to clean my PSU. Full modularity is so useful.

Time to get down to business. First the radiator had its stock XSPC push fans screwed to it and then was mounted in the case.
Protip: When water-cooling in a HAF-X with a triple rad, you will need the top 5.25" bay clear if you want to fit a radiator+fan in there, even for slim radiators. I was lucky my fan controller doesn't take up the whole bay, but if you had in optical there and every other bay was full, you'd be in trouble.

Mounting the pull fans, two Coolermaster Silent red LED fans and one mystery red LED fan I found in an old PC one day.

The Raystorm CPU block did go on with some trouble. The LGA1155 backplate was somewhat difficult to place on the back of the mobo, and that caused havoc when you try to screw in the block and the plate has moved. Got it in eventually though.

One uneventful (and undocumented unfortunately) pump/res mounting later, I got down to putting in tubing.
ProTip: Measure everything! Once that tube is around the barb, it aint coming off without a fight. Stuffed up the connection between the radiator and pump/res, spent the next 20min pulling the tubing off each end. Makes me wonder why we even need clamps.

 

[davschall]

Sick build! Way to experiment and learn from your mistakes. I loved that design for the "desktop pc" lol....that was pretty bad wasnt it? Ah well...Awesome! Ill keep my eye on this one. As to issues with comp turning on after a rebuild lol I know that one, first time i put my comp together would turn on for like 20 minutes, I was freaking out then I looked at the power cables plugged into the mobo..I had plugged the power button into the hdd light, "oh those tiny insignificant(seeming) little cables actually do something" *facepalm*

 

[GMPoisoN]

Which model of the 7970 are you water cooling?

 

[bigcyco1]

@GMPoisoN look further up this page he tells all that and includes pics.

 

[manofchalk]

The HIS H797F3G2M

Which amazingly isn't extremely overpriced as is usual for reference 7970 models on Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161399

 

[GMPoisoN]

@GMPoisoN look further up this page he tells all that and includes pics.

The HIS H797F3G2M

Which amazingly isn't extremely overpriced as is usual for reference 7970 models on Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161399

Starting to regret purchasing my 7970. Bought the Sapphire Vapor X, and even though its cooling solution is nice, a water block on it would make my CPU loop flow much nicer in my case. On top of that, I bought it 3 weeks ago, before when it came with 3 games and not 4, and it was 420 and not 400

I would try returning it to trade for a reference, but I already cut a hole out of the box and mailed the rebate. Also, I hear the process is hell

 

[manofchalk]

Theres always the option of Universal blocks.

Check out the Deals forum, no doubt someone is selling off their Never Settle and Nvidia promo games. I got Tomb Raider, Metro: Last Light and Hitman Absolution for a combined $45, which is pretty good.

 

[GMPoisoN]

Theres always the option of Universal blocks.

Check out the Deals forum, no doubt someone is selling off their Never Settle and Nvidia promo games. I got Tomb Raider, Metro: Last Light and Hitman Absolution for a combined $45, which is pretty good.

Universal block? Sorry, novice to gpu water cooling. I was under the impression that you cannot water cool a non reference design, such as the one I have from Sapphire, but I guess that's what universal means, haha. Could you refer me to someone who has a water cooled Sapphire 7970 Vapor X? I haven't been able to find anyone, just a bunch of forums saying how you cannot water cool it w/o heavy modification. I take it the XSPC block wouldn't work.

 

[manofchalk]

Universal blocks, they fit onto various GPU's rather than PCB designs. They cool the GPU only, so you still need some kind of active air cooling on the VRAM and VRM's, which is usually done via heatsinks stuck to them and a fan blowing at the card.
Dont know of anyone that has water-cooled a 7970 Vapor-X, there was one guy who was interested in doing two on these forums but I think he has left and I forget the username.

The mounting holes around the GPU itself are always the same, regardles of whether the rest of the PCB has been changed. There should be plenty of 7970 compatible Universal blocks on the market.

 

[GMPoisoN]

Universal blocks, they fit onto various GPU's rather than PCB designs. They cool the GPU only, so you still need some kind of active air cooling on the VRAM and VRM's, which is usually done via heatsinks stuck to them and a fan blowing at the card.
Dont know of anyone that has water-cooled a 7970 Vapor-X, there was one guy who was interested in doing two on these forums but I think he has left and I forget the username.

The mounting holes around the GPU itself are always the same, regardles of whether the rest of the PCB has been changed. There should be plenty of 7970 compatible Universal blocks on the market.

Thanks. I'll prob just stick to the air cooling solution that's on it, since that's a lot of what you pay for in those cards, Im alright with just watercooling my CPU for now.

 

[manofchalk]

Hmm...
I have run into an issue.

Just now I have started getting memory artifacts in games, despite not having touched my overclock settings in ages. I bumped the memory down 25Mhz and upped the voltage a bit to no success. So I decided to go the whole way and just put the card back to stock and then just work up to a new overclock. I'm getting memory artifacts at stock settings, with a voltage that used to sustain it when overclocked.
The card runs fine after the computer reboots, but then starts failing subsequent 3D Mark 11 runs. Temperature isn't the problem, with it hitting a max of 31°C under Furmark (which doesn't artifact, as usual).

I have a sinking feeling that something has gone wrong with the VRAM, and that I will have to RMA the card (which is going to be a long process, and will involve pulling apart my water loop and re-mounting the stock heatsink). Lets just hope that the issue has cleared up by tomorrow morning, and I can just peg it down to my machine throwing a bit of a fit since I haven't messed with it recently.

 

[4Ryan6]

Hmm...
I have run into an issue.

Just now I have started getting memory artifacts in games, despite not having touched my overclock settings in ages. I bumped the memory down 25Mhz and upped the voltage a bit to no success. So I decided to go the whole way and just put the card back to stock and then just work up to a new overclock. I'm getting memory artifacts at stock settings, with a voltage that used to sustain it when overclocked.
The card runs fine after the computer reboots, but then starts failing subsequent 3D Mark 11 runs. Temperature isn't the problem, with it hitting a max of 31°C under Furmark (which doesn't artifact, as usual).

I have a sinking feeling that something has gone wrong with the VRAM, and that I will have to RMA the card (which is going to be a long process, and will involve pulling apart my water loop and re-mounting the stock heatsink). Lets just hope that the issue has cleared up by tomorrow morning, and I can just peg it down to my machine throwing a bit of a fit since I haven't messed with it recently.

I had that happen with my 580s in SLI and it turned out my water pump was failing and then it finally quit altogether.

You mounted the water block yourself so you know you have excellent coverage of the memory chips and VRs, but is the water block itself hotter than usual, it could be pump related, could be trash in the water block too.

Check your flow rate?

 

[toolmaker_03]

thought could you take a new picture of the video card straight on from the side I would like to see if the card is warping.
Well at 67C for load temps under water, that is pretty high, and if you are sustaining that for long periods of time the high voltage may have damaged the card.
With water cooling on your hardware it is more likely to break from high voltages on the components, than from thermal meltdown.

 

[manofchalk]

@4Ryan6

I hope its not the pump, the things only 3 months old and so is the GPU and block.
I don't have any way to check flow rates on my loop, and even if I were to run out and buy a flow meter I would have nothing too compare too.

@Toolmaker

A quick look through my case window, it doesn't seem to be flexing that much if at all. Though I will give it a better look later on.

Don't know where your getting 67°C from, even under the stock cooling it was at 64°C. Worst case scenario (Prime95 and Furmark running) it reaches a max of 38°C.
Since I last posted I have managed to get back to a stable overclock of 1175/1450 at 1.2v. Which I don't think is anything too excessive in terms of voltage. Before that I would have been running at 1.175 or 1.2v, not too sure.

 

[toolmaker_03]

well I have stressed out systems to the breaking point on more than one occasion, but Ry has a good point about the pump, do you have a way of placing a temp sensor on the video card block its self, than stressing the system to see if the block becomes unusually hot, if it does this is a clear indication of a flow issue, or the pump failing.

 

[manofchalk]

The block is warm to the touch, but doesn't change significantly if Furmark is running.
In regards to an actual temp sensor, again I don't have any.

Gah, why cant card manufacturers put temp sensors on the VRAM, would make this a lot easier.
Think my next upgrade will be some monitoring tools for my loop.

 

[4Ryan6]

Gah, why cant card manufacturers put temp sensors on the VRAM, would make this a lot easier.
Think my next upgrade will be some monitoring tools for my loop.

VRAM is the easiest way to seriously cripple a graphics card since the chips are not monitored, there are so many of them it would be extremely difficult and a cost manufacturing nightmare for them to have individual temperature monitoring, so we'll probably never see it, but it would be very convenient for us, if we did.

When my pump was in pre-failure mode the GPU water block was hot to the touch, the pump was just not pumping enough water through it.

You can run a quick comparison heat test by allowing the system to completely cool then run the same test that causes the artifacting with the block cold to see when the artifacting begins instantly or after the system builds heat?

Unfortunately there's no guarantee with pump life you can get a lemon in anything, graphics cards included.

 

[Andrew Rohlfs]

Yup, brim that res, air helps noise travel so a full res helps keep pump noise down
Nope muffin, the V2 of the 750l is pretty much silent, you've heard mine
Nice looking build Chalk, pat yourself on the back there and welcome to W/c
Moto

Vibrations move faster in water than air

 

[bigcyco1]

Hey manofchalk congrats on becoming a mod.

 

[manofchalk]

Thanks man

 

[Andrew Rohlfs]

So, the tube that runs from the waterblock to the radiator: is there a reason why it curves over the GPU, or could that be shortened using a 45-degree adapter? (as far as flow/performance goes)

 

[manofchalk]

Are you referring to the run between the external rad and the CPU?
The reason its curved is because.. Thats how it is. To make that turn it has too curve, and it wasn't enough of a problem for me to justify getting a 45° adapter to make the run smoother.

In terms of flow and performance, having a curved tubing run is better than using a 90/45° fitting, however the performance impact is so small to not matter IMO.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2011/01/30/fittings-and-elbow-impacts/

 

[Leadbelly78]

I don't have the amount of that you OC do..at least not yet so I congrat everybody on this forum.
Congrats again.

 

[envy14tpe]

Wow. Way to revive a long ago post.

@manofchalk. Any update to that build since Aug 2013?

 

[manofchalk]

@manofchalk. Any update to that build since Aug 2013?

On the whole no. My Vertex SSD died and got replaced by an 840 EVO, thats been about it in terms of the hardware. I gutted the drive cage from the case to properly make room to put the pump in, as the way it is mounted in the pics above was sketchy and producing a fair bit of noise.

My desk/battlestation has gone through a decent upgrade though. I bought a Korean 1440p monitor (Xstar DP2710, PLS version) and have been using that in conjunction with two other 1080ps (Asus PB238Q and a BenQ G2420HD (amazed its lasted this long)). However sticking a 27" screen between two 24" means it takes up a lot more room, so I DIY'd a monitor stand following this as a guide.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1195618/diy-triple-monitor-mount

Cost me about $100 all up, not including tools, its not perfect by any stretch (so Eyefinity is out of the question) and was a pain to put together. But it was worth it, as a triple monitor stand that can potentially support 27"'s would have cost far more. Could do with a bit more work as their not completely straight, using some old/dead HDD's right now as props to keep it straight. :lol:

http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o537/Manofchalk/IMG_20150103_204424359_zps46e37c62.jpg
http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o537/Manofchalk/IMG_20150103_203859541_zps9c4102c0.jpg
http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o537/Manofchalk/IMG_20150103_204358457_zps582cf0d2.jpg

The whole setup is actually so heavy its torquing the desk and putting it on an angle.

 

[envy14tpe]

How do you feel about the 27" 1440p monitor? Would you rather have that one or 3x1080p? I'm thinking about dropping down 700 bones on a Asus ROC 1440p monitor (which requires 980 too), but I'm waiting for the new 1440p monitors to come out with FreeSync so hopefully due to price competition a fast 1440p one will be affordable.

That stand seems to work decently. Nice setup. Still rocking the 7970 or itching for a 970 or 980?