First Time Build - Black Ice

[Pooooookie]

Hello,

This is the first watercooled build I've done and it is prematurely named "Black Ice". The idea is to have the various lighting (motherboard, Ram, etc...) refracting off/through the various acrylic blocks, tubing and reservoir. Other than the lighting and the acrylic blocks/tubing, everything else is black with no other color found. Pictures coming soon! (depending on when the ram arrives)

The parts list:

• NZXT S340 Elite Matte Black
• MSI Z270 Gaming M7 Motherboard
• Intel i7 7700k
• G.Skill RGB 32GB DDR4 @3000mhz, CL14
• EVGA FTW GTX 1080
• 2x Samsung EVO 850 SSD
• EVGA 750 G2 Power Supply
• EK 240CE radiator
• EK 120SE Radiator
• EK Supremecy EVO Gold Edition CPU Block
• EK 1080 FTW Waterblock/ EK 1080 FTW Black Backplate
• EK - HDC Black compression fittings
• Various Bitspower Black angled adapters
• EK-HD 16mm Acrylic Tubing
• Metallic Graphite Sleeved Cable extensions for motherboard and gpu
• Alphacool Eisbecher 250mm Plexi Reservoir
• EK-XTOP Revo D5 PWM stand alone pump
• 3x Thermaltake Riing 120mm Blue Fans
• Mayhems Blue dye + Ocean dye (attempt to make the ocean dye less dark)
• 6x Darkside RGB LED strips (4 around edges of case, 1 behind acrylic gpu block, 1 behind cable management bar found on the s340 case)

Most of the parts have arrived except the RGB G.Skill Ram (super cool ram, check it out) and the fittings composing the drain/fill ports, and fittings to be used underneath the power supply shroud (have yet to order as I need to get an idea of the amount of room available to me before buying).

My initial impressions:

This is a beautiful case. I've been eyeing this case since it came out a couple of years ago and the Elite version (tempered glass side) sold me on it. There is a lot of hardware being shoved into this case so this will definitely be a challenge. Several case modifications will have to be made to accommodate the pump that will be housed underneath the power supply shroud toward the front of the case. The reservoir is mounted at the top of the case horizontally with the addition of two mounting holes. I only wish I found Dazmode before I already ordered some of the water cooling supplies hahaha...

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think or if you've got any questions. Suggestions are welcome!

[Hooded]

6 Darkside LED strips. Man this thing is gonna be the main source of light in the room.
Darkside LED strips are the brightest LED's on the market.
Reads like a super sweet build to me.

[Pooooookie]

6 Darkside LED strips. Man this thing is gonna be the main source of light in the room.
Darkside LED strips are the brightest LED's on the market.
Reads like a super sweet build to me.

Haha, I'm hoping to add a translucent plexiglass strip to them, somehow, to even out the lighting and hopefully bring the brightness down. I am really hoping the strip behind the cable management bracket and the one behind the gpu acrylic won't overpower anything but I guess i'll find out eventually.

[Necrodead]

Sounds like an awesome project! Looking forward, nice case.

[MemBusX]

Very nice Build.

[DazMode]

LED are dimmable... just saying.

Build is looking good.

[10e]

Welcome to the forums. This is the best version of the S340 to date. You mention a 240CE radiator for the front. Do you mean EK PE 240?

Because that would work and should still leave room for the cable bar. A CE 280 probably would not because it's 45mm thick and you get 64-65mm clearance from front to cable bar.

Good luck and welcome (again)

[Pooooookie]

Welcome to the forums. This is the best version of the S340 to date. You mention a 240CE radiator for the front. Do you mean EK PE 240?

Because that would work and should still leave room for the cable bar. A CE 280 probably would not because it's 45mm thick and you get 64-65mm clearance from front to cable bar.

Good luck and welcome (again)

Haha yeah, I definitely meant the PE. It is literally a perfect fit with maybe 0.1 of a mm to spare before the cable management bar.

Will post more updates with pictures as soon as the tubing finally shows up. So far, have installed everything and is ready for a test fitting when I have the tubing. Decided to go with no bends and all fittings and adapters simply for the look, but wow, completely underestimated the amount of adapters i'll need. I may eventually decide to go with bending the tubes on my own in the distant future but that's a thought for another day.

[Pooooookie]

I've been thinking about what more I could be doing for the build, and was curious if anyone knew of where I could order custom cut frosted acrylic? Let me know if you have any idea (or if you would be willing to offer this service) as I think having this available would change quite a few things. This would probably lead to a custom powersupply shroud, top and front panel detailing, cable-side panel replacement. Will be interesting to see if I can do this without making it look obnoxious.

[EZ's PC's]

6 Darkside LED strips. Man this thing is gonna be the main source of light in the room.
Darkside LED strips are the brightest LED's on the market.
Reads like a super sweet build to me.

Yes they are. I have one 12 inch white darkside strip and I have swapped it between 6 different projects. still as bright as the day it arrived. And yes 1 strip lights up a mid tower perfectly if placed correctly

[Pooooookie]

Pictures!

Tubing showed up so decided to some some preliminary measurements and test fittings. Unfortunately pump won't arrive until March... Let me know what you think, what could be improved, or anything on your mind really.

Pre-test fitting:






Experimenting with layout, and ended up with the below:



Short some fittings and adapters to complete the res -> pump and gpu -> res area.

[Hooded]

Tried to edit your images to show but Photobucket is screwing with their sharing.
Update: to use the image you need to use the "Direct" link to share your images on forms.

Turned out very nice. Very good cable management.
Not sure where your pump is at. You need to make sure your pump has a constant flow of fluid to it or it will cavitate heat up and make a lot of noise.
This sytem looks tricky to fill and bleed.

[Pooooookie]

Tried to edit your images to show but Photobucket is screwing with their sharing.
Update: to use the image you need to use the "Direct" link to share your images on forms.

Turned out very nice. Very good cable management.
Not sure where your pump is at. You need to make sure your pump has a constant flow of fluid to it or it will cavitate heat up and make a lot of noise.
This sytem looks tricky to fill and bleed.

The pump is actually located underneath the powersupply shroud, the reservoir leads directly to the pump. The trickiest part was thinking about how to fill the system. The port facing out of the reservoir towards the side panel, will lead directly to a 3 way split piece, the fill line will have to be attached to the port facing the side panel and the fill line will have a valve on it. Unfortunately, in order for this to work, the inside tube of the res will have to be shortened in order for the res to be filled to an acceptable level. Somewhere below the powersupply shroud will be the bleed valve along with the pump. I've been debating adding another bleed location after the GPU since it is one of the two low points in the loop.

edit: I can't see the post with the pictures anymore for some reason, will re-upload that post if it doesn't appear again.

edit2: Thanks for editing Hodded

[Hooded]

I can see the post with the pictures. I could not see pictures before I edited it.
Feel free to repost them.

[nass]

Can see this is going to be fun to bleed the air out of and fill, ambitious layout ya have there, have never seen this before.
Be cool to see it running.