Project Bahamut

[Danny79-Qc]

Heh. That's how it has always been. With my repair shop I had to deal with customer services a lot of times from every single manufacturer you can think of. Msi used to be decent but what I experienced here was just terrible. Amazon told me to contact msi, so I did. They told me to do the troubleshooting I had already done but I still went ahead a second time, just in case. When I told them it didn't work, immediately told me to contact the reseller... like what the ****. What would Amazon do to help me??? Have the board since December. Still, I called them again. They told me to send a copy of msi email to prove I really spoke with them. Basically calling me a liar. I told msi they are a bunch of loosers so I can forget any help from them now.. and Amazon are just not answering my email at all... that's just ****ed up because it's stupid msi bios update that killed his rig.. now I want a board with dual bios but don't wana go with gigabyte. Loved the z390 aorus master but the z590 is not that good. Only 12 power phases at 60amp, not great look. I would go with z590 carbon ekx but no msi for me again lol. Only option is Asus but their voltages are meh....

[section31]

I gave up on motherboard warranty in general, don't even bother registering them anymore. Basically they can find any excuse to not service the item. That and often times they just send you an refurbished unit. What end ups happening in most cases is resell the board and buy brand new board instead.

I suspect though most of the manufacturers have been pretty hard hit on there margins even with the price increases. So them cutting down on RMA quality is not shocking. I rather they cut down on there marketing department expenses, fancy boxes and reduce/keep prices affordable. That and stop paying/bribing youtube reviewers to review there products favourably.

[Danny79-Qc]

Last update for a long time.. until I get the new board actually...


Just to show with the lighting I got so far. Not final but it's getting there...


Still can't see the EK logo very well... need to flip the fans!!! I'm too exhausted... also forgot to paint them lol...


Yup, so that's pretty much where I got until the mb gone poof..


Just to show the temps after my test in AC Valhalla and CP2077. Kept the AI on so it only used 8 cores of 10 at 5.3GHz but 63° after an hours of gaming at 4k in AAA games is kinda satisfying.


Here's the gpu temps which are really impressive with only one rad to cool that beast. That's in CP 2077 1hour of testing. I have a 120hz Samsung screen but can't achieve 120 fps at max settings in 4k lol. So I bloquer the fps at 60. It was just for testing so I didn't care much about tweaking just yet...

Now with the board messed up, when I power it on, it has power but I get no beep and no post processing. Just the CPU debug led on.. it better not have killed the cpu with it... I can't even test them since I sold my other boards and cpu.. made me cry like a baby.. still close to crying just thinking about it.

Now all I can do is wait until I have money to buy a new board.. I pray I will have enough time to complete it... I was almost to the point to give him the pc. The rest of the mods I could do them without the need of having the pc here. Already took all the dimensions I need. I will be crafting a pedestal to put under to bring fresh air from bellow onto the board, gpu and the pch. With no airflow in open case like that, the pch and system in general gets warmer than in a closed case and I want to change that.

See you all soon!!!

[Danny79-Qc]

More more and more!!!!


Air bleeding and leak testing (kinda) because I already know it won't leak...


This is how it looks with no lights. I like it better like that but I know the nephew will want colors...


With the too short tempered glass haha!



Now time to start trying to get some lighting effects. I've went with blue lights with everything connected to blue loop aka gpu loop and white with all the white loops aka cpu.

one more update to come..

[Danny79-Qc]

More porn!!!!


Installed 3d printed logo on both sides after painting them...


Found a good place to install those orange badges!!!


Testing fans before filling...


Tip view. Like I said before, I need to flip the fans cause we can hardly see the EK logo.


I kinda like the frosting effect when it's not solid inside... might switch for clear blue and clear red once I strip up everything to install the new board. More updates to come...

[Danny79-Qc]

Right now I don't really care about rads. I have 2 XE 1 PE and thermals were impressive at 5.3GHz. I'm surprised you haven't seen it on Facebook. My motherboard fried because of a shitty bios update and msi are being real jerks about the warranty. MSI used to be reliable but I can confirm they are not anymore.. Trying to get help from Amazon but I'd surprised if they'd do anything. I might end up contacting customers protection office. In any cases, that 700$ wasted. I have to wait to get replacement because I'm more broke than I ever have been...

Debating between z490 Formula and z590 Hwro. Both have pretty much the same performances but the Formula bridge would be less expensive than the hero monoblock. The hero have 70amp vrm and the Formula I think have 60amp. Not certain about the formula. Was going to sell the z490 carbon ek x and upgrade to the z590 but screw msi. The z490 had nothing to help troubleshooting. No q-code, no reset cmos/flash cmos, no dual bios... just the old debug led... we are in 2021, all boards should have better features than that. Hell, it doesn't even have power/reset buttons. It's a watetcooled board and it doesn't even have temperature sensor headers..

Anyways, it's either Formula, hero but thinking about dual bios, the aorus master would be the solution but it has shitty power phases...

By the way, here's a couple pics of where I got to with the build!
Here are the first part of my mods I was talking about.. more mods to come but it will have to wait.


Getting there slowly. At first I had the top radiator ports up but it looked terrible so I flipped it.


All tubes in place, time for some dual leak test the dual loop!!!


I might paint the EK covers in white too because they don't light up very well since they are on the back of the fans... I will show what I mean in the incoming other updates..
Still not the best cable management but not too bad either... that's with everything finally connected except I need to switch the top left fan lol. I don't care about the other LL series since they are all gona be replaced by either noiseblocker or vardar x3m fans..

[section31]

Did you see reviews on heatkiller new radiators. I think they got an hit on there hands. The 30mm is near HWL GTS levels of performance and 50mm is near HWL GTX level of performance but they are half the amount of flow restriction. Good prices too (once you take off 19% VAT) and can do groupbuy.

Hope Dazmode carries them. They really look like they will sell out on watercool.de based on initial level of interest.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/w...d-360-l/5.html

[Danny79-Qc]

It's a pretty sweet case and very unique! I'd only seen the gamers nexus review of it recently, and no actual builds in it. I'm surprised you were able to get hold of one so quickly!

I love an open chassis like that but sadly it wouldn't survive the cat-hair in my house, lol.

Haha depends. I also have two cats but I do proper cleaning. Kinda a clean freak should I say.
With the filters between the fans and rads, plus the net I'll be crafting to place on top, dust and cat hair or anything won't be much a problem. My nephew also have cats but he is just like me with cleaning so I'm not really afraid. I'll tell him to do what I do with my rigs and blast air after every uses. Makes the monthly and big maintenance day much easier and faster too hihi.

Yes it's a very nice case and well built but the no cable management shroud makes it such a pain. Actually been looking at the back a lot these days to try to find a way to design a box of some sort to hide all those cables... with a regular build it would not be a problem but with 18 corsair fans and so many rgb stuff, I have no idea how I managed to do something decent.

If you search "Masterframe 700" on Facebook, you will find all the pictures there is soo far about it. You'll see IFR one. Very beautiful

[MackTheKnight]

It's a pretty sweet case and very unique! I'd only seen the gamers nexus review of it recently, and no actual builds in it. I'm surprised you were able to get hold of one so quickly!

I love an open chassis like that but sadly it wouldn't survive the cat-hair in my house, lol.

[Danny79-Qc]

Great looking build. Love the frosted tubes!

Thank you. Not my best build out of all the ones I did but with my situation, I'm getting more and more happy with it as it gets closer to completion. Went through 7 cases before finding one I actually liked. Saw this one before release so as soon as it came out, it was on the way. Going with dual loop and the way I want it to be didn't make it easy at all lol. I'm still not completely happy with it but once my custom box if crafted, I will be removing the top radiator to place it with a 480mm in a three chamber pedestal. It should improve the aesthetics drastically lol. I'm happy because there's still not so many builds in it and even less with hard tubes. The only one I've seen that looks good is the one design by IFR did with a custom distro at the floor. Also starting to look good with part 1 of mods I'm going to use. Can't show them just yet but it should be very soon hehe.

[MackTheKnight]

Great looking build. Love the frosted tubes!

[Danny79-Qc]

Last part of today's update. Received the first part of my 3d printed mods from my friend Marc but I'm not ready to show them just yet :-P I will post some pics of what I have done so far without the mods on.


Yes I used a sharp here. It's not the tubes I'm installing. I use them as a ruler. But gives an idea of the run. Would've made it a single run but will be running both loops with a filter just before both blocks for 2 weeks. Just to filter everything that,could be left in the loop. Then gona replace both line with single runs.


That's the result once installed... Not great but it fits.


That's where I decided to change tubes plan. looked terrible with the top radiator runs like that... Tried to make both side have a identical top run but the left top tubes were saging badly as you will see on the next photo...

Like I said, it didn't look good. So I thrown both top runs in the garbage and flipped the top radiator to have the ports down. Will be harder to Bleed air but it's the only option I could come with at that time.


Last picture I can share since all the rest have half of the mods installed... that's with the top rad flipped and gpu run completed.

I won't be updating again until I'm done painting my mods and the lights are on. It will be a little while for sure..

Have a good day everyone!

[Danny79-Qc]

Still in process... getting very slow.. very very slow haha..

Almost done with the tubing.. had to,change routes a couple times just because of the aesthetics.. Couple pics.


I had a little problem with one sticker of the gpu block. Its now fixed thanks to great ek support!


Tubes planning was going smoothly... Taking my time frosting the tubes... Sadly, my pads are dead so the quality of the frosting is bad right now...


Third tube in... It's starting to look like a loop lol...


I was still waiting on my first batch of mods so after stopping playing guitar for like 3 years, and had sold my collection, decided to buy a new one to have something to do, while waiting on the mods.. I quit playing because of my health, I can't play more than 15-20 minutes here and there and can't do much anymore with my fingers. The pain of looking at all my guitars and not be able to play anymore is the reason I sold em all. But I realized not having them anymore just to be able to play a little, was even greater. So I got this little baby. Not the greatest guitar I owned but it's still a Fender and I love the Johnny Cash look she have! :-) funnily, I will be modding it soon haha!

More updates about the build to come!!!

[Danny79-Qc]

I meant idiot proof for idiots like me lol, one of my corsair xr5 360's was originally a Ek Pe for some extra thickness, had to pause the build waiting on replacement after leaking distilled water all over the place checking flow that turned into another corsair matching with other one. How I managed to screw into the rad with the correct screw I'll never know.

Always figured the open cases were pain for dust glad I'm wrong.

Open air are deff not made for everyone. If the person plans on cleaning once a month or even less than that, then it's deffinately not a good solution. I clean everyday or before use with air so it's not as bad. With the filters I have installed on radiators and the one I'll mod to fit the top, it will have the same results or close, as a closed case. Went that way because my project is too restrictive on airflow in a standard case. Even this one will eventually be modified to remove the top radiator. Going to craft a 3 chamber pedestal to put under it and bring frais air from bellow and create a somewhat type of airflow for better heat dissipation through the top. Unless temps show to be really good but this build is a guess at each steps lol.

Yeah just realized what you meant about idiot proofed. Still need to work on my english obviously haha. It's weird it happened with original screws. Haven't used Noctua in a while so maybe they are too slim. What's the thickness of those already?

[Wyn]

I blast air prior every utilization so I'm not worried. Its far from being my first build. It's a present for someone tho but he's a clean freak like me. Dust won't be any worse than any other case. With the tempered glass on the front and the custom filter I will install on top it will be more than enough. Plus I've installed custom filters between the fans and radiators so it will be easy to clean. Haven't been in the industry for the past almost 25 years for nothing lol.

No idea why you call them idiot for that. The screws they send with their rads are between 28-30mm so unless you use unconventional fans, you shouldn't hit the fins. You should always make sure the screws length is ok before screwing in. So that's user error if something bad happens lol. I thought you said the build you posted was your first watercooled build?

I meant idiot proof for idiots like me lol, one of my corsair xr5 360's was originally a Ek Pe for some extra thickness, had to pause the build waiting on replacement after leaking distilled water all over the place checking flow that turned into another corsair matching with other one. How I managed to screw into the rad with the correct screw I'll never know.

Always figured the open cases were pain for dust glad I'm wrong.