Water noob checking in..

[sludgeface]

Just dropping in to say hello, I'm about to start the watercooling voyage on my game rig. I wish I had known about DAZ before I placed my order through EKWB, but, as I'm finding out, no matter how many times you calculate how many pieces and fittings you need to do a loop, it will always be wrong. Placed an order today via DAZ for some missing stuff, and i look forward to sharing some pics of the rebuild.

Current hardware:

Asus Strix X99 Gaming mboard
Intel i7-6800k (currently under a Corsair H115i)
32gb Corsair Dominator Platinum
512gb 950Pro
EVGA 1000 T2
2 x EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3
Phantek Evolv ATX Glass w/ some self inflicted mods for airflow

and now a stack of ekwb parts that I couldn't put together this weekend 'cause I couldn't count how many fittings I actually needed.

Thanks for being there, this forum has been some help!

[DazMode]

Welcome to our forum!

[nass]

Welcome to the forums.

What are u going to use for fittings for your new loop, ie: hard or soft tubing?

[sludgeface]

Welcome to the forums.

What are u going to use for fittings for your new loop, ie: hard or soft tubing?

Originally I was going to just jump in and go PETG hard tube on the loop, as I'm pretty confident I could pull it off successfully, but in the end decided to go with a 12/16mm soft tube set up. The PETG would look a lot sharper but I've also seen soft tube rigs that looked just as good if proper attention is paid to routing. I saw a couple of rigs where the runs were cut just too short and it ended up looking shoddy, but I have a vision. (heh)

I went with all EKWB parts mainly because their configurator was very easy to use, and I just wasn't all that familiar with the other brands that were available (I am now however). It's a deep hole to fall into, this water cooling stuff.

[Bartacus]

Welcome, nice sounding building! How many rads can you stuff into an Evolv?

[sludgeface]

Welcome, nice sounding building! How many rads can you stuff into an Evolv?

It's going to be a tight squeeze but I am planning for a 360 on top and a 240 on the front. The only issue I can foresee is these EVGA FTW3s are long as shit and it will definitely be a tight fight with the pump/res. But I will make it work.

[sludgeface]

So I finally had some free time to get my machine prepped and ready for the water remodel. I was pretty apprehensive, while I have years of experience building regular gaming machines for myself and the occasional friend, I have never done any watercooling, outside of using H100s for cpu cooling. Looking at all these parts was a bit daunting but I am an adult.


Since I am bad at things I failed to take a pic of the machine before i started stripping it down, but it was pretty alright. Here's a shitty pic from a few weeks ago.


I pulled out the H100i cooler and the video cards and started planning the build. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do beforehand after watching 300,000 youtube vids and reading 700,000 forum posts (this forum included) but of course once you actually start, shit does go sideways. But again, I am an adult and this stuff is fun.


Added CPU cooler, very straightforward, barely worth a pic but this is a build thread so have a pic.

[sludgeface]

Cont'd

I added an M.2 heatsink as well. I thought this was kinda overkill but it's a cheap part and looks pretty cool.


Here is where I started to encounter the first real problem with trying to watercool in this Phanteks case. It's been pretty well documented across the internet about potential problems with it, but in all honesty, it's really more my skill level and not having any background with custom watercooling, and relying entirely on the EKWB configurator to select all the parts for this build. The Enthoo case in its default config does not have enough room to hold the radiators that EKWB suggests at all, so I had to remove the top radiator tray completely and do some drilling. I attached the 360 to the top of the frame with a bit of hassle but it worked perfectly and gave me enough room to place the 240 radiator in the front.




I had also considered mounting the 240 on the outside front of the case with the fans, because i was worried there would not be enough room between the rad and the video cards for the pump, but in the end opted to go with it inside so I could preserve the front of the case.

[sludgeface]

Cont'd

Pulled off the GPU coolers from the FTW3's and added the waterblocks. I meant to take more pics of this but of course you get wrapped up in it and forget.



GPU waterblocks installed and the parallel block. Looks pretty eff'in slick if ya ask me.


Here's as far as I got last night, it was almost daybreak and enough was enough. Pretty happy with it though.

[MackTheKnight]

Looking good, man. I started with EK Configurator as well - it's a great place to start!

[sludgeface]

cont'd

Today I started doing the tubing, pretty straightforward stuff I guess. New stuff to me but I think I got it down.


The run from the CPU block to the 240 radiator was a bit of a challenge. I didn't want a long ugly piece of tube meandering its way across the case, over top of the motherboard and video cards. After mulling this trauma for longer than necessary, I realized I could use the cable access to run the tubing out the rear of the case and back in below the video cards, and into the second radiator. Worked perfectly.


The next pic is a few steps down the road. I got caught up in puzzling the fittings together to connect the final piece from the 240 radiator into the pump inlet, at the same time adding a drain port out through the bottom of the case floor. To make things extra exciting, I forgot entirely about the flow meter and had to re-jig the entire assembly. I also had to finalize the pump and reservoir location on the back wall, which I ended up lowering slightly. The options for placing the pump were very limited, as this case just doesn't allow for much messing around. I had intended to use a pump/fan bracket but those damn FTW3's are just too long and there wasn't enough room, so I had to get the drill out and modify the pump bracket that comes with the Phanteks case, and attach it to the rear wall. It's a tight fight but it worked out perfectly, I think. And of course, once I had solved all these dramas, I had completely forgotten to take any pics, but here's the end result and ready for water.

[sludgeface]

Cont'd

(Some of my posts aren't showing up for some reason, need to be approved by a moderator it says, so the timeline is going to be screwed. Anyway...)

Here's where I'm at right now, water is in and doing leak testing. So far not a drip.




How long do you guys usually leak test for? A lot of what I've seen online says to run for 24 hours but others say a couple of hours is more than enough. Actually I think Dazmode says it's not necessary.

Anyway, I'll let this run for the night I guess and then tomorrow add the coolant additive, and get back to gaming the shit out of this thing. Thanks for reading.

[Hooded]

It was due to moderation requirements.
You're past it now so no more worries
to the forums

Forgot to say nice build.
Sweet bit of kit.

[DazMode]

I pressure test now and water test only till bubbles settle.

[bungwirez]

good stuff here Sir. Welcome to our wacky world.