This is my first time doing any type of water cooling. I'm sure people will see a million things wrong with the loop and the build itself, but it's just a small project I did out of curiosity.
The components used were PC Hardware Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 Intel i7 3820 EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Corsair AX850 Patriot 16GB 1333 Lian-Li PC-A05FNB
Water Cooling Water Block: Phobya UC-2LT Pump & Reservoir: EKWB EK-XRES 140 DDC Radiator: Alphacool XT45 140mm Fittings: EKWB 13/10mm White Compression Tubing: Home Depot 20 ft roll
Here's my original build using a Noctua NH-D14. Because this cooler is so large the video card is in the second PCI-E slot running at 8x.
This is the loop I decided to route. This case is extremely small for an ATX tower. The radiator would not mount inside the case on the single 140mm fan hole. The pump and reservoir had to be mounted horizontally because the res turned out to be too tall even with the video card moved up a slot.
Now sitting properly. The large bubbles in this system were a pain to get out once rotated. I also had to use an NZXT 140mm fan since the Noctua 140mm fans I have only have 120mm mounting holes, and I only have one set of adapter brackets.
The computer with all the components installed, back panel screwed in and basic cable management done. Eventually I will get a matching 120mm fan for the back.
Could do with a nicer case perhaps? If you're on a budget, define S might be a good'un? That's what it's marketed as, anyway. A budget watercooling case. I've no experience with it though, should look into reviews.
Internals certainly look nice though. Shame you can't see them!
hi there, nice build. Shame you have no window to display it. Its easy to make one, all you need is some sort of metal cutting tool , piece of clear acrylic sheet and rubber u channel to mask imperfections on the edges of cut out the hole. If you cut out the famous rectangle with round corners its easier to use u channel.
is that an empty 5 1/4" drive bay? If it is, You can remove it.and use a pattern to drill air holes in the top and use a larger rad, maybe a 240 or larger, depending on the length of the case. but that is going into case modding. otherwise. I would save my caps to get a case that was more suited for water cooling.
Your going to want to rotate that resovuar so that the inlet and outlet are gravity fed and on the lowest point ESPECIALLY because you can't SEE the res, With it like that, as soon as some of that fluid evaporates, that res will start blowing air through the system. The whole point of it is to ensure that doesn't happen
Because you can't see the fluid levels, you will never know when your levels start to get low. But with it like that, in no time flat you'll get bubbles and loud sucking gurgling
But whoo hoo external rads If it don't fit MAKE IT!
Welcome to water cooling, One radiator like that should do your cpu Double it to overclock the cpu tho, And honestly one that size would handle a gpu as well with like a dwood bracket or that nzxt thing Here was my old gtx670 on the green mod dwood bracket https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0kw50a487936yz/2014-05-11%2009.44.58.jpg?dl=0
If that's a good card you have, try for an ek waterblock
I am very much a fan of the case. It's so small can fit a lot of things. It's been to two QuakeCons and a handful of private LANs so it is kind of beat up. Lian Li has since release a more versatile version with the PC-A51, but lots of places don't have it in stock and if they do, they are asking $200+. I also wanted to try something that would be unconventional and a decent challenge!
I've thought about making my own. FrozenCPU made clear panels for this case at one point, but they're gone v_v. I'd have to find someone with the tools to get it done myself. Hate to purchase equipment that would be used once and collect dust afterwards.
Yeah it's sitting vacant right now. I had an idea to mount a 280mm rad on top and sit it on risers and have both the fans and radiator in a pull configuration.
here, look what heppened when i used shitty tubing
primochill advanced lrt is the go-to reccomendation fyi
it got like that in like 2 months i think
but seriously, your going to kill your system, if you dont rotate that resovuar so that it actually can operate if anything take your WHOLE computer and ROTATE IT. so that that res is supplying the fluid that it needs too. or hang it outside of the case for a while or SOMETHING
as soon as you get a little bit of air in there like that, your done the POINT of a res, is to compensate for air, but with the inlet and outlett on the TOP of the res like that your not doing that
also, your gunnna want to spend ten dollars on a .999% silver kill coil, and some pt nuke
You could mount the reservoir vertically if you made a bracket that screws on to the side of those 5.25" bays. That would put the res above the front of the graphics card
