2 years ago i built my server with an external water cooling system it was rush i i had paned to revisit it as i was gonna add more systems in the same loop, until now i did not have the chance to do it.
(if you wonder why i water cool this way it's because i live in Australia and my wife doesn't want the server in the house but the garage isn't climatized when it's 45C [113F] the garage get to hot for air cooling)
This is what it look like right now
this old loop is 100% Koolance parts and Koolance LIQ-702RD-B bright red fluid
the new parts I'm doing to add are a EK fittings, XSPC tubing and the new fluid is EK-Ekoolant EVO UV BLUE
it was rush, it's now time to do it right
this 2u case will now be the water cooling unit
first i have to empty my loop the fluid used to be red now it's kind of brown but there is no residue it's only the color that changed
that res needed heck of a clean
Next a back plane
cleaned the old rads
turned the fan wall around to have space to run the tube true the wire hole
i then started working on the rad mounting
I ran into some problem:
1. The old tubing i was planning to reuse for parts of the loop is permanently stained reddish.
2. The link between the rads wont fit and I'm out of 90 deg to make it fit.
3. it's Saturday, the store i get water cooling supply from is closed until Monday.
29-03 Update:I just order 4 EK 90deg rotary and a 3meter of tubing to replace the old one.
01-04 Update: I was planning to use a cheap SilverStone ST50F-ES 80 Plus 500W to power this thing but the store I order it from eventually told me they couldn't get it anymore so I opted for SilverStone ST55F-G 80Plus Gold 550W ill have it tomorrow and the tubing and the fittings should be here by Friday
02-04 Update: I receive the parts this morning
this case 5.25 bays have a strange latching liver that doesn't hold my reservoir at all.
I was lazy and just used the sheet metal cuter to reach the side and made a hole where I needed
while I was at it i made 2 quick hole for the leds i didn't really have the space for 3mm on the other side so i used 2 of 5 mm on this side to try making up for it.
The inner tubing is done with the new tubes.
07-04 Update: The psu is finely in, gotta hate the Easter break when your trying to get parts
I took a quick picture with fans and leds connected as i was testing the psu
Notes:
1. the funny looking stuff on top is the protective plastic i didn't peal off yet
2. I also lost one of my fan screws
I used a silverstone modular psu for many reasons but one of them is that i don't have to buy a wire or to void my warranty in order to have a compatible connector with a wire short enough to avoid cable management
the only real difference between the silverstone wire and a standard psu wire is that on the psu side pin #20 is populated and then merged with #13 on the MB side
13-04 Update: My rack is only 800mm deep any my current rails are 26" causing some issue.
The door interfere with some equipement, Netgear switch work well as they are recess, but the Cisco ones aren't as you can see (Netgear one is the very last one with the gray / green / yellow / blue wires poking out of)
to solve this I'm changing the rails to 20" ones
Removing everything changing the rails and putting everything back in took more then 90 minutes but the result is worth it, the rj45 connector wont be stress by pressure and the door can be closed properly
Test fitting on the new case to cut the external tubing, i think it look good.
14-04 Update: redoing the loop inside the xeon server you can see up top
After measuring the tubing I took it all out to fill, bleed and leak test the loop
Since i didn't get any feedback i just follow my first idea for the air intake, i bough magnetic filters the screws are just so they stay in place i did not put a screw in 1 of the hole as it will be under the PSU
I don't know what you guys think but I really like the blue liquid I think it look amazing, much better then the red i used to have (even when it was new and not brown like at the end)
15-04 Update: After 24 running the bleeding look to be mostly done and no leaks so far probably safe to assume it wont leak
next will be the custom pcb to run the psu and led signals
TO BE CONTINUED