Sounds weird doesn't it? Well, for this computer we added liquid cooling so, now we have to figure out the best way to run the plumbing for it. I bought the ThermalTake Bigwater 745 system. It uses 3/8 inside diameter hoses. (pretty good size by the way.) I also added on a few extra plumbing components. Water block for memory chips, hard drive and chipset. Although the chip set already has a cooling system on it. (Didn't know that when I ordered it). But the chipset block can also be used for video GPU or other chips on Motherboard. (Like southbridge.)

Memory Water Block                                  Hard Drive Water Block (dual)

     CPU Water Block                                     GPU/Chipset Water Block

One thing to know about liquid cooling your system is the flow rate. If it flows to fast the liquid won't be able to transfer enough heat to the radiators. Yes, the computer has radiators just like in a car. This one has two. A single fan one and a dual fan one. The dual fan was designed to be mounted outside the computer case and comes with a stand. It also can be mounted inside at the rear fan locations or on the outside at the rear fan locations. I currently have mine mounted on inside but may move it to outside case location.

A good thing to know is the direction of flow through your pump and reservoir. Also, it is good to note the amount of fluid it can pump in an hour. This can do 400 Liter per hour. Some are much higher. There is a cooling system out there for just about every kind of system or multi-system setup you may have. Make sure you have an idea where the plumbing is going to go to first. For this computer setup we will be going from pump to CPU, then to Memory Chips, then up to the hard drives then to radiator #2 (dual fan) and radiator #1 then back to reservoir.

Dual Fan Radiator                                              

Single Fan Radiator

My friend Vern also made a good comment about keeping the incoming coolant separate from the outgoing coolant tubing. They can transfer heat back and forth. Don't need warm coolant going into the CPU now do we. I did the best I could on that part. I have a little space between the incoming and outgoing tubes.

Getting the length of tubing is extremely important. Cutting it to long and you will get kinks in tubing slowing flow rate and increase pressure. To short and you get the same thing. What I did to help solve this was take full length of tubing and mounted one end to first the CPU and then routed it back to pump. I routed it the best way I could to not have any kinks in it. I then went from CPU to the memory chips. Now this is where it got interesting. I went to FrozenCPU.com and clicked the 1/4 inch cooling systems, and selected the Bigwater 745 listed there and then memory and drive and chipset cooler, all 1/4 inch inside diameter. NOPE, the Bigwater is actually 3/8 inch inside diameter. I called frozenCPU and they said that Bigwater was usually 1/4 inch and then sold me the reducer fittings I needed to complete system. Now this is going to have some effect on the flow rate through the memory chips, and hard drive section of the cooling system. I will probably add a flow meter to system later on to double check this. But the on board sensors say everything is well within heat levels.

Now that I have the reducer on the tube coming from the CPU and have 1/4 inch tubing to go from there, we can continue. The hard part about this is that now I have added the reducer and it has made it a little harder to get length correct to prevent kinking. With a little trial and effort and a little cutting here and there we got it set. I then routed tubing from memory to the hard drive coolant pack. From the hard drive pack to, oops need another reducer here. Luckily I had ordered 2. One for incoming one for out going. Ok, we are now going from the last piece of hardware to be cooled to the actual radiators now. The first radiator is the dual fan one mounted inside case. Right behind the hard drive area by the way. I had to test fit and refit tubing several times to get it to fit without kinking. But it is done. We then go from double fan radiator to the single fan radiator below it. Not a hard one at all. I routed the output from single to the reservoir. System tubing is all done.

Now for those of you thinking this is WATER, it isn't. It is a nonconductive fluid that comes with the system. I also recommend getting a second or third bottle of this liquid. The original system was able to hold 300ml of fluid, but since I added the extra parts we will need more. Each bottle of the fluid is 500ml. Not enough for what I have setup in the system. So make sure you have plenty of fluid. It won't do much good to have a pump running dry when you turn the system on.

All the tubing connections should be hand tight, and double check the radiator connectors to make sure they are seated properly. One came loose when I took the locking nut off of one of the connectors.This can cause leaks. So double check all connections in ENTIRE system.

You will probably need a small funnel to fill the coolant reservoir. A second person to help spot leaks as you turn system on and are filling the reservoir as the fluid gets cycled around the system. OK, now for the first time of turning on system. We turn on the power and I was quickly surprised how fast the fluid was going through all the tubing. OOPS got a leak at radiator #2 power down real fast. Rags are also a good thing to have at this point.Not a big leak just a drop here and there, no spurting or anything. Tightened up the fitting a bit, dried up the tiny amount of fluid that leaked and turned system back on. You will need to keep an eye on the reservoir at this point, it goes down fast as all the tubing and water blocks get full. I had to have over 1000ml for the added stuff for pump to maintain a full level.

You will notice air bubbles in the tubes here and there. Gently move the tubes a bit to get them out. I noticed a few and once they got removed from where they were at seemed to flow through to reservoir very easily.

As the system came online and my wife and I are watching for leaks, I turned the Monitoring software on to check speed of fans and temperature of CPU and Motherboard. CPU temp maintained a 67 degrees and motherboard at 70 for several hours with little usage. Now the real test. To max out the CPU as much as possible and see how it is affecting the temps.

A great program for testing it was the BOINC software for networked computing for med research. The Rosetta data crunching is very intense for a computer to run. I loaded up BOINC and Rosetta and told it to run 100 Percent CPU usage. Now since it has dual core, the BOINC software ran two Rosetta files at once. Now this is going be fun. I watched the CPU usage meter peg at 100, memory went to 35 %. I then let it run this for over 6 hours of non stop data crunching.

I monitored the system every few minutes and watched as the temperatures climbed rather quickly when CPU hit 100 %. It then stayed at 82 degrees for almost the entire 6 hours, the motherboard was hitting 95 degrees. A lot better then 100 plus temps for the CPU and MB that I was used to seeing on air cooled only systems.

As of this writing the system rarely gets to 90 degrees on CPU and has never hit 100 for the Motherboard. Make sure that you also have some fans running in the system to help remove heat from the non liquid cooled components, like the cd ROM, video card, other add on cards. I added one more case fan to the system. Just to be safe. Heat kills computers, the more you can get rid of the heat, the longer and better your system will run. I added a 120cm 70 cubic feet per minute fan to the front of the case right in front of the video card. They generate a lot of heat from those higher end video cards. So make sure you have a good way of cooling them.

I have to admit I was skeptical about putting a LIQUID in the computer case. But after seeing the efficient cooling it does and also makes it look nice inside to. The pump and CPU have a blue LED UV light on em. The tubing and fluid are both UV reactive. Kind of cool looking, and helps to spot fluid leaking. I may just add one more small LED to make it look nice.

Well there you have it. Computer is built and running Windows Vista Ultimate with a rating of 5.4 out of a scale upto 5.9. The CPU ran 5.4, Memory 5.6, drives 5.7 and video card at 5.9. Lowest score determines system final score.

This mother board has two power connections. The EATXPower connection and ATX 12v connection. The EATX connector can only be inserted one way, attach the cable from the power supply with the EATX connector on it. Make sure it is securely fastened. Now connect the ATX 12v cable from the power supply to the motherboard. Now would be a good time to connect the hard drive cables to the drives and motherboards. Follow your motherboard manufacturers directions as to there location on the board.

This is the first time I have used SATA drives. I was informed that you need to make sure the SATA cable matches the drive. Some cables are 150mb/s transfer rate and others are at 300mb/s. Check the side of cable to see what it is rated. If it doesn't say then check the end connectors, for 300mb/s rate cable it should have more then 4 pins in the connector. (Thank you Vern for this helpful information). The SATA drives also have a different power connector then IDE drives. The connector is more flat. Connect the power and data cables up to each of the drives you have.

The motherboard I am using has 6 SATA connectors on it. Again, check your manual that comes with your motherboard to see which ones to use first. Make all cable connections from hard drives to motherboard.

The case came with 5 internal fans, the liquid cooling came with 3 more additional fans mounted on radiators. A double fan radiator and a single fan radiator.

The single fan radiator has a speed control that you can mount in an empty bracket on the back or you can do what I did and plug it into one of the motherboard CPU or chasis fan speed control connectors.

The chipset on this motherboard has a HUGE solid cooper heat sink with ribs on top and pipe that goes to a small copper fin radiator. It to also has a small fan that is connected to speed control on motherboard.

Total 12cm fans for this system is 8. 4 intake with filters and 4 exhaust, three of which are on radiators. The power supply has a built in 14cm intake fan that draws air from the side. And it is very quiet. The total noise volume coming from the system is very low. The fans are extremely quiet. I highly recommend the case, it is very well designed.

Once all the cables are in, try organizing them and tieing them up out of the way. it will make it easier later on to work on if you don't have to fight your way through a jungle of wires and cables.

Now that the motherboard is ready to put into the case we need to make sure the case is ready. I removed the two bottom intake fans from the front just to make sure I had plenty of room.

    Then i realized what I had forgotten to do. Mark the holes I needed for the mounting standoffs on the backside of mounting plate. Oh boy. Well I got a small drill bit and started poking holes through the sound dampening material from the backside of the mounting plate. Held motherboard up in the case almost where it was flush with the back end face plate for all the  external connections. This greatly aided me in locating the proper holes.

Now i have to remove the back face plate to put the one that matches the motherboard in. After getting all the holes poked and getting the standoffs in we are now ready to place the motherboard into the case. Be aware of the back faceplate and make sure everything lines up well.

Starting with the motherboards center mounting screw on top i began to just snug down the screws to hold it in. DO NOT tighten these down real hard you can damage the motherboard. you can lay the case on one side to make aligning and tightening easy on yourself.

 After getting all 9 of this motherboards screws in, I then put the memory chips in. Total of 4 1gb chips. I learned that you need to make sure certain motherboards have certain types of chips that are approved for use in your motherboard. These I made sure were on the approved list. 

 After the memory chips are all snug, and the locking clamps snap down on them i can now put a memory chip cooling unit on. The one unit cools 2 chips at a time. It has three small bags of heavy plastic material that fills with liquid. Each bag goes on one side of chip. The center bag goes between two chips. See photo for better idea of how this works. The coolant comes in from top of one chip and out on top of the other. You can hook up two of these together to cool all 4 memory chips. they have a slight angle on the top for the tubing, make sure if you use two, that they angle away from each other. Tighten down the end clamps that go over the chips snap on clamps. Again hand tighten, and you don't need to be a gorilla about it.

Replace fans or whatever else you may have removed prior to installing the motherboard. Check the rear face plate to make sure all external connections are lined up properly. Congratulations, your computer is really starting to take shape now.

Ok, probably the most important thing I can think of here is GROUND yourself first. I left the Motherboard on the anti-static bag it was in and wore latex gloves to keep any oils from hands getting on things.

I first had to find the parts needed to put the water block for the CPU on. An H bracket and gaskets that are mounted on the underside of Motherboard, long mounting screws and top H bracket to hold the water block tight on the chip. I first place the thin stiffer gasket on bracket, self adhesive on it.

Then placed the thicker foam gasket on that. Pulled the backing of the foam strip so it would adhere to back of motherboard positioned it over the holes for mounting in under CPU/motherboard.

Now, for the fun part. Putting the CPU into the socket!! OK, first off this is using an LGA 775 socket. On other cpu's the pins are on the chip. On this there are tiny metal wafer thin blades coming up in the socket that plug into the chip. It is EXTREMELY Important you don't bend, touch are breathe hard on these. The chip has an arrow in one corner, you really need to follow the directions that came with your motherboard and cpu for this, so READ EM!! Gently placing the chip into the slot I lowered the cpu cover, making sure it didn't bind. Then I brought the release lever back up to locked position. Chip is in. Won't know if it is in right till you power up. Good luck at this point on that. I then took the really long screws and put them through the bracket in all for corners. On the top side of motherboard I put washers on the screws to help hold em in place and to insulate.

OK, now they chip is in and locked down time for the massive and heavy solid copper water block with lexar top clear cover on it. You need to put heat sink grease on the cpu BEFORE putting the water block on to help transfer heat from the cpu to the water block. Then place the second H bracket onto the water block. It goes only one way. Tighten it down HAND tight with the nuts that are provided with the water block. This one also happens to have a nice Blue LED in it to give the cpu a little glow. Looks nice that way. Plug the power cord into a cpu fan connector. OK all done. Motherboard ready to install into case.

The first thing your gonna need to do is to get someone to help you pull the front cover off the case to get to the external 5.25" drive bays. You are also going to want to pull the internal 3.5" drivebay.you are going to want to put the 3.5 inc drives into the removable bay section and put it back into the machine. You  will discover this will hinder your mounting of the 5.25 drives. The left side of 5.25 drive bay screws will be covered by the 3.5" removable bay. I learned this on my own, so now you wont have to.

There is one screw on the front of each drive slot holding the front grill in place. Remove them. On the right side you will see a plastic locking slider, you should push this towards the front of case before mounting any 5.25 drives. I put my DVD burner in the third slot from the top. On this case the top slot is a 7 inch wide bay. It is for the optional slideout pop up 7 inch LCD monitor. The bay below that is for the secondary power supply if you add the the second motherboard. (Mini ITX). The third slot, where I put my DVD burner, is supposed to be for the Hard drive for the secondary mother board.

Now since I have purchased the Hard drive liquid cooling pack I thought I would give it a go.

First off the cooling pack isn't really designed for removable drive bays. (didn't know that till today), second, it will not allow the drive holes to align with the holes in the drive bay. I had both the 320gb and 500gb drive attached to both sides of the cooling pack. The drives are held onto the pack with 4 crews with plastic locking washer thing. ( see photo)

These little things mount to the 4 holes on the bottom of each drive and then are inserted into the grooves on the cooling pack. You really have to push em fairly hard onto the pack and slide em to lock into place. The end result is both drive circuit boards are touching the heavy lined bag that will fill with coolant. and on one end is another swing lock fastener to keep em from moving. They are real snug on this thing.

Looks pretty nice doesn't it. The 3.5 removable bay has rubber grommets and comes with special mounting screws, you are given plenty of em with the case.

The rubber mounts help keep vibration and noise from the vibration down. Now onto the 5.25 side of the case.      

You can lock the 5.25 drive in place with the plastic slider and then on other side put two screws in to keep it solid.

Next hook up the power and data cables and for CD/DVD drives add the sound cable. Re insert the 3.5 inch drive bay and tighten down the thumb screws. If using IDE drives make sure jumpers are set to master/slave and same with the CD/DVD ROM drives.

The Computer case had a hard time finding the house, well, actually UPS couldn't find the house, but yet they marked it as delivered. I called em up to find out exactly where they delivered it. After bout an hour I was informed that it was actually still on the truck and they were not sure why the driver marked it as delivered. ALWAYS track your packages online. It may help keep you from getting ripped off.

The first thing I did was to measure out the sound dampening material. It is basically a layer off light foam rubber.I cut it out to fit the bottom of the case, the door of the case to help cut down on possible noise from that. I even put some around the rear exhaust fans. The material I got was from FrozenCPU.com. I highly recommend these people if you are looking for cooling systems and case. That's where I got this one from. The liquid cooling system, video card, power supply, sound dampening material all arrived on Friday.

 I promptly followed the directions with the power supply to do a bench test on it to make sure it works. The Thermaltake 850 watt power supply is , well, SWEEET. I couldn't even here the fan running on it. I had to look at the fan and make sure it was running. It also has a rubber gasket to help eliminate vibration. It did make it a little hard to match up to the screw hole but I managed to get it in.

You can see it has a huge fan on it. It also has Modular Cable plug ins. I only have to plug the cables in that I will actually use. No more dangling empty wire harnesses. Speaking of witch the wires were wrapped in a black mesh and had heat shrink tubing on the ends.  A very neat and well thought out piece of equipment. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give this a 10+.

If you are wondering exactly how Big this case actually is then you may want to look at the following pictures.

I told ya it was a BIG case didn't I? Well, Monday the rest of the components should arrive. I am getting a little concerned though. UPS has sent the monitor to Albuquerque then to Carlsbad, (which means it went through here) then from Carlsbad back to Albuquerque, (again going right through here one more time). Now let's see if it makes it back to Roswell on Monday.

I also tested the fans for the liquid cooling system to make sure they all worked. They did. And to my surprise they were almost as quiet as the power supply. Well, the liquid cooling system is also made by Thermaltake. I purchased the Bigwater 745 system which uses 3/8" inside diameter tubing. HOWEVER, FrozenCPU.com had it listed under the 1/4" systems, so I ordered the chipset water block, hard drive cooler and memory cooler with 1/4" fittings. Once it all got here and I realized what had happened I called FrozenCPU.com and they were surprised to hear that the Bigwater used 3/8", they usually use 1/4". I then had them send me couplers to go from 3/8" to 1/4" tubing. No biggy. The single fan radiator also has a speed control on it that I will hook to the motherboard to control the speed of the fan as the system needs.

I will tell you more about the motherboard once it gets here Monday. You're not gonna believe what features it has on it.

That's all for this round. Expect to see more postings and photos on Monday or Tuesday.

This is the year we Build a New Computer

After many yrs of figuring out what we wanted in a computer, this is the year we finally get to build it. I have been trying to build a decent video editing machine for over ten years. Something always came up to prevent me from building one. This year is different however.

After weeks and weeks of hunting for parts, finding out what new technology may be useful, finding the best possible prices on the components that we will need, I finally got a reasonable system figured out. Everyone was helpful in locating places online to search for parts. But it seems I always wound up coming back to one place that always seemed to have the best pricing on the parts i needed. That place is www.Newegg.com. The only thing they didnt have was the special case and liquid cooling system I wanted to use. I got those from www.frozenCPU.com.

The case is able to hold 12 drives and a slide out 7 inch lcd monitor, and it also can hold two motherboards. I will be adding photos later as the parts come in and I start putting it together.

Here is a partial listing of some parts:

1. (1)500gb Sata Drive
2. (1)320GB Sata Drive
3. 4GB DDR2 RAM
4. 768Mb EVGA 8800GTX video Card
5. 850 Watt Thermaltake power supply
6. ThermalTake BigWater 745 Liquid Cooling System
7. ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
8. HP 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With LightScribe, 12X DVD-RAM Write Black IDE Model DVD940I
9. Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600
10. Creative Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speakers
11. Sound dampening material

That's pretty much what we got plus a few extra water blocks for memory and chipset and hard drive cooling system.

Well that is it for now. The parts should start arriving by the 8th of February. I will take photos of them as they come in and I start assembling them.