Case Log - CM690

[Grantofhell]

Well, as the new case has arrived, I've much to do with it so that it can be ready for the new hardware I intend to purchase soon.

CASE LOG:

First up, cutting mods to allow proper airflow/placement.
- The Rear 120mm vent. Cutting out the honey-comb grill and using a black 120mm wire grill. Pictures are soon to follow.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0250.jpg

Also, I cut a 3/4" hole for my rocker switch (for the CCFL's)

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0310.jpg

and cut out the top two 120/140mm vents to optimize airflow.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0290.jpg

[WeedCali]

are you gonna end up smoothing out those top vents?

[Grantofhell]

Absolutely. For now, I'm just getting the basics then the details will be worked out. I'm at a bit of a block right now for lack of proper tools. :|

As the room has gotten messier, I have had to sleep on teh couch :|. Well worth it I'll say!

I finally got my *decent* jigsaw back from a friend to do the ever-precise cut for the window I'm installing which fits with less than half and inch to clear. Anyways, here are some pictures:

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0350.jpg

The window panel ^

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0330.jpg

Right side panel with poorly-done cuts for 80mm fans (the filter will cover any and all mistakes so I wasn't terribly worried about making it perfect or absolutely round.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0320.jpg

Everything all sanded down and ready to hit the paint-shop. ^

[Grantofhell]

This paint is excellent! Dries quick and well. Humidity and temp are perfect today for painting. The garage is also very messy :|.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0360.jpg

First decent picture I've taken for this entire case log ^ (3rd coat)

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0370.jpg

3rd coat ^

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0380.jpg

Right side panel, 3rd coat ^

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0390.jpg

Window Panel, 3rd coat ^

Front, 3rd coat ^

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0400.jpg

PCI covers and screws on a box that once contained canned horse piss. ^

[Grantofhell]

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0410.jpg

The paint ^

Start to come together:

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0460.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0470.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0480.jpg

[Grantofhell]

After many test trials with negative results I am now running it for the first time live.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0490.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0500.jpg

:D

The cable management is a complete wreck right now. I really thought this case was a bit bigger but oh well. The window came out alright but it still needs work. And it creates a bit of an issues trying to get a fan on over the CPU. It's interfering with my rear vent fan. I'll do some better pictures in the morning after I've cleaned it up and put the finishing touches on it.

[WeedCali]

Lookin good. i think you need a better camera though :P

[Grantofhell]

The camera is great. I have bad picture skills. It's a 12MP Kodak Z1285. 300 dollars retail in its time. :|

I have some better pictures this morning. I'll be working on the case day by day to get things back to spec. There are alot of interference issues right now so I'm working on getting these taken care of. But it requires quite a bit more modding and I'd hate to mod hardware I'm bound to get rid of soon. Here are two more pictures of the system off.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0520.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/101B0550.jpg

[Grantofhell]

All the parts finally came in today after being delayed in shipping. The result?

Have a look:

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010158.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010164.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010171.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010174-1.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010176.jpg

[Grantofhell]

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010175.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010178-1.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010182-1.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010186.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010192.jpg

;D

[Trivium Nate]

holy shit hot man looks good

[Cabbs]

Very nice. What fan is that on your exhaust?

[Grantofhell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN_1CLYpnEM

^ that one. Popped it out of my E520 and converted Dell's propriety PWM plug to a 3pin + 4pin pass through

It's 4k RPM and I believe does about 170CFM at peak.

[Cabbs]

That thing is a monster! It almost pushed itself off the desk haha.

[Grantofhell]

Then you can see why it is off for every picture. But like I was saying in the RCC thread about fan controllers - You gotta find a good analog one or fans like this go to 100% for about 3 seconds on boot. Imagine that sound at 6am. :|

[Cabbs]

Sounds like it would wake everyone up lol.

[sniperviper21]

my tower now feels rather lame lol


+1

[Grantofhell]

So why not crack out the drill/dremel and get modding? That's what logs are about - inspiration.

[Grantofhell]

And the work goes on.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010158-2.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010162.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010165-3.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010168-1.jpg

[Cabbs]

Looks like a pretty good paint job. Did you paint it with the intake fan on?

[Grantofhell]

nope. Personally just the way the silver blades, glossy black frame, and sticker on the hub mix, it look really bamf.

It's far from being done. Expect more and the finished product in the gallery.

[Cabbs]

Cool, can't wait to see it done.

[Grantofhell]

Wow what and awful start to a weekend! The waterheater started leaking. Though since I live between houses this isn't the first time this has happened. Glad it was only leaking here instead of a blowout like it was the last time. Anyways that would explain my absence and lack of details to make you all anxious. ;D.

SO MUCH HAS BEEN DONE!. I took really cruddy pictures so I will get them in more detail after I finish doing cleanup on the wiring.

NEW PARTS:

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010160-1.jpg

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010162-1.jpg
^^^ Noise Isolator Fan Controller. I like how it uses PWM so torquey fan motos don't ping when on low, but I hate how I can't turn off the fans though the controller advertised I could. I have yet to read instructions so I may edit this comment and feel like a doof.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010163-2.jpg
^^^ A TRUE 120x20mm Yate Loon. You will not see it in the pictures as I don't want to put it in just yet. I'm still undergoing some liquid issues.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010164-3.jpg
^^^ The highly renowned BitsPower BlackFreezer NS for the 790i chipset. Also came with two barbs that I couldn't trust as far as I could throw them. So I bought two BitsPower comp fittings which cost a lot... D:

[Grantofhell]

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010165-4.jpg
^^^ Two MST-66's. Since the Evga 790i A-PWM (E-179) uses an all-in-one cooling piece...And just to let others know who may be attempting this (guests or other forum members) I'll be posting some details on the exact measurements for each MOSFET bank min mm and max mm. I could have used longer copper blocks, but I would have needed a thermal adhesive rather than the standard FujyPoly tape they come with. Stangely, both of these blocks came with all 4 stacks on the left end bent in.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010166.jpg

^^^ The MST-66's mounted.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010173.jpg

^^^ The chipset block mounted with fittings.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/P1010179.jpg

A quick and crappy snapshot of the system booting up. Again, I'll give you all some more detailed pictures of just what all was done when I get it all tidied up.

[Neodude112320]

Dude how fast is boot up with that SSD?

[Grantofhell]

Uhh. Depends. A fresh xpx64 copy is about 12 seconds from POST. xp32 with MBR protection from AVG and Nvidia driver boot with a modified .ini is about 20 seconds. I am making estimations as I've yet to count.

EDIT: This is a side note to anyone who stumbles across this thread or is going liquid. DO NOT use FeserTube. Though it performs well and has an incredibly smooth surface, it simple does not hold it's own in the kinking department. It kinks and folds on moderately tight curves where I've seen other tubing do it just fine.

Sorry for the delay in pictures for anyone who was waiting. The snow keeps throwing the power off. I eventually got real good with using candles for lighting during my cable management for the two hours we were without power. onward!

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/72.jpg

^^^ Front side

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/76.jpg

^^^ Angle shot

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/73.jpg

^^^ Just to give you an idea of the depth and protrusion of the knobs on the controller which I am already taking a strong disliking to...(I'll cover this in a bit)

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/711.jpg

^^^ Inside.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/719.jpg

^^^ Looking from the back to the front.

Lol, Cabbs is going to rip me a new one for how I set up my loop. I wanted to go from top to bottom but FeserTube doesn't bend tight enough. And the strain on the pump is minor, plus it has ample head pressure. So for now, this will suffice. I just hate how the inlet tube is sitting on top of my GTS250 :|

[Grantofhell]

MUSH I say. MUSH. pictures ahoy.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/712.jpg

^^^ In case some of you haven't noticed yet, almost every cable attached to the board is sleeved with black nylon. Here you see the SATA cables which I'm going to bend tighter so they don't appear so bushy.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/717.jpg

^^^ CPU region. I polished the CPU-340 and those Enzotechs really shine.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/716.jpg

^^^ Again, sleeved cables. Which I might add was a very large PITFA with a hair dryer. I know a guy who has a nice heat-gun made by Chicago but I forgot to ask him for it. It worked in the end, but some of the heatshrink was a little too large for some cables.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/713.jpg

^^^ The chipset block.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/720.jpg

^^^ Personally, this is my favorite angle to take a snapshot of in a liquid cooled rig.



uhh. Here is the part where I answer some questions before people ask them.

Q: Why is there an ugly ziptie on your tube?
A: I'm leaving that on for about a week so the tube will naturally stay open instead of folding closed.

Q: The bottom of the case seems dark, why?
A: Half of the bottom cold cathode miraculously died while it wasn't even on...(EDIT to complete - Power went out) I have another cold cathode stick I'm going to get to replace the bottom one.

I'll also cover here the aspects that I mentioned in previous post I would.

From order as they were mentioned from my update post:

The Noise Isolator Fan Controller is infact a good looking unit and can control 6 fans between 3 channels (2 fans per channel). It can support 20W of power per channel. It does use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) for controlling, but it executes poorly and causes motor noises. The power stepping is great though. The fan controlling part of this device is best used with low power fans - It does great with my Yate Loon. But causes noises and even cuts off when controlling my AeroCool Turbine 3k. And makes HORRIBLE noises when controlling the Delta fan for exhaust which I normally leave off because it is so loud. The bright side of this device are the two latching switches. They can each support 12v at 3A to make 36W of power. It uses a female floppy 4-pin to female 4-pin molex to power the device. I simply hooked on up to my CCFL harness and controlled my cathodes and the other to the exhaust fan so I can turn it on or off with ease. This is one of those analog controllers that does not fully power the fans on system boot so major + from me for that.
NOTE: This device comes with two 3pin (but only two wire) 6 inch extensions that are not sleeved. It also comes with only ONE of the adapters requires to power devices from the switches. Luckily I have some male 4-pin to female 4-pin that my Corsair came with which are similar to what the controller uses. Overall, for 30 dollars, it was not worth it for me as I already have a switch for my cathodes and I can control fans through the board. But it is nice to not have all my fans go to 100% at boot and have access to my most powerful fan and lighting at the front instead of reaching to the back or using SpeedFan which takes considerable time to initiate.

Next, I'll make a diagram to show where the mosfet banks are and their min mm and max mm.

[Grantofhell]

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/evga_nforce_790i_sli_ftw_profilelar.jpg

[Cabbs]

Looks like you've been doing work. Wouldn't you be able to get your tubing off the GPU if you cut it a little shorter? You could also move your bay res/pump up a notch too.

Anyway, rig looks good brah. Those Bitspower fittings are nice, but man they cost a pretty penny. I managed to rack up over $100 in their compression fittings and I still don't have them completing the loop.

[Grantofhell]

Yeah, I've been real busy. But I keep getting cut off when the power goes out. And yes, I could move the pump up one now, but it would mess with the lighting balance a bit. I can also cut the tubing shorter but then it starts to kink. And with SLI boards, I can't move the card down at all. Maybe I can on this one because all slots are x16. Only two are 2.0. Middle slot ver.1 I believe.

yup. It's 18 dollars for two. I would have bought TFC comps but the e-retailer didn't stock them. And the retailer I normally use for liquid parts was out of stock on the BlackFreezer NS.

Most importantly, I love the new block. It's really brought down system temps. Where the SPP would normally idle on 38-40, it now sits at 21. I just need to get a new graphics card and go liquid on it, then I'm done. And amazingly, I've got 700W of cooling capacity on my rad. Because of how dense and well designed DD rads are.

[Cabbs]

Hmm. Looks like your only option is to get some new tubing:|

[Grantofhell]

I really need to. I can't even express my disappointment with FeserTube. But do not let that deter you from their liquid.

[Cabbs]

Tygon :D

[Grantofhell]

I'll definitely consider it.

[Cabbs]

Don't go with the R3400 like me though. The ones below 1/2" ID has a higher tendency to kink.

[Grantofhell]

Yeah and that's kind of where I'm suffering. 3/8 ID. But if I go with larger, I need all new fittings and a more powerful pump. My pump's head pressure and speed work perfectly for throughput with my tubing and loop size as well as its complications.

[Cabbs]

Sounds like you're in a pickle. That can be an expensive way to go , fittings aren't add up.

[sniperviper21]

I'll re-post so you understand the competition, sniper.

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu7/Grantofhell/lowtempq95-3.png







http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v211/Sniper_Viper/4C.jpg

so is it still on?

[Neodude112320]

Small question.

How the hell do you get your CPU THAT Cold on air?!?

[sniperviper21]

Elementary Dear Neo... lol


http://www.computerforums.org/showthread.php?p=1006851#post1006851

[Grantofhell]

Dammit! Well, since we're talking "elementary" I'll just go ahead and give you another run tonight. I got dem new blocks and my CPU cooler now makes full contact. We'll see. Oh, we'll see...

[sniperviper21]

Dammit! Well, since we're talking "elementary" I'll just go ahead and give you another run tonight. I got dem new blocks and my CPU cooler now makes full contact. We'll see. Oh, we'll see...

lol, ok, if you say so, i'll wait your return. haha.

though i can go MUCH lower.

[Holysky]

Did you really just open all your windows when its about 20'F outside to cool your computer?

[Cabbs]

I feel bad for your hard drives.

[Grantofhell]

I'll be running strictly on my SSD which loves the cold ;D

[Cabbs]

What's the storage capacity on your SSD?

[Grantofhell]

OCZ Vertex Turbo 30GB/64MB

;D

I'll probably buy another one soon and go RAID 0 on it.

[Cabbs]

Edit: Nevermind.

[sniperviper21]

Did you really just open all your windows when its about 20'F outside to cool your computer?

pretty much.

though it was more like 5F

[Grantofhell]

Couldn't do a run last night. Humidity was 100%. That's how my Q66 got toasted - Benching while it was sleeting.

[sniperviper21]

Couldn't do a run last night. Humidity was 100%. That's how my Q66 got toasted - Benching while it was sleeting.

Im glad you didnt do that :/

i always check the % when im running for cooling.

[clawbog]

I love the look of the case.

[Grantofhell]

Thanks :D

EDIT: So anyways: I found out that it wasn't, infact, a dead CCFL. The extension that I use on the cathode causes power loss when bent. The tighter I bent the wire, the less light there was in the cathode. Interesting.