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BUILD LOG: Modded NZXT Phantom 410, Acrylic Loop, OC'd 3570k, R9 290 xFire
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01-04-2015 12:54am#1So after 13 months of planning, getting married, having a baby,starting a new job and a move to another town, I have finally broke ground on a case mod and watercooling project I have had in the pipe works for far too long! The plan is to upgrade my watercool my current system as the 290s are far too hot, I need to set the GPU fans to 100% via Afterburner and turn all 7 case fans up to 12v just to maintain temps of high 80s! Some games reach 94c where my cards start to thermally throttle by up to 20%.
Could I have done this cheaper and easier? Certainly, but where is the fun in that?! :P
This is how she stands today;
The only difference is I have an EVGA Supernova G2 1000w PSU in there now instead of the XFX 750w.
The vital stats,
3570k.
Two Asus r9 290's in crossfire.
Both currently stock clocks as on stock cooling but I had the CPU OC'd to 4.5ghz for the better part of a year and a half until my H100 died a while back.
A black NZXT Phantom 410.
Into which I plan to fit two radiators.
A 30mm thick 240mm Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 on top.
And a 45mm thick 360mm Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 in the front.
To fit the front rad I will be removing the lower HDD cage and the 5.25" drive bays on top.
The 240mm rad on top will be configured push and the 360 in front will be push pull. To which I will add 9 Enermax TB Silence PWM fans. 8 for the rads (actually 7 for the rads, more on that later, and one as a stand alone exhaust.
I have an EK Xres 140 D5 PWM pump and res combo which will be mounted onto the back of the 360mm rad and a pair of EK blocks for both the 290's and an EK Supremacy CPU block (tips hat to Serephucus :cool:).
The pump and all fans will be PWM controlled (hopefully) via a custom made 10 way PWM splitter PCB I managed to get off some guy in the UK. He made a handful as a project and flogged em on eBay afterwards.
I plan to delid the 3570k also and originally had planned a full set of custom cables but I'm not 100% on that at the mo cause I dunno if I can be arsed tbh! Oh, there'll also be an obligatorey window mod to follow as well!
So, without further adieu, onto the nitty gritty of ot all!
I spent a few hours at today, stripping down to old build test fitting a few pieces and have already hit several snags. Details in the pics below.
Stage one, after stipping down the existing build I set to work on those useless 5.25" bays. A few minutes work with a drill and a long nose pliers and those rivets are outta there.
Followed shortly thereafter by the HDD cage below.
Now to test fit a few pieces. My first concern was having the radiator ports from the 240 rad on top, at the back of the case. I thought there would be clearence issues with motherboard heatsinks or the I/O panel.
Luckily however, there is not. It only fits by a couple of millimetres, but it's plenty!
Next job was to assemble the pump. I have a multi port top, additional mounting brackets and a dress up kit to install.
The additional pump cover tidies everything up nicely.
So the first snag I hit was the additional mounting plate I bought from EK so I could mount the pump and res vertically on the back of the radiator is drilled for 4mm bolts. The tapped holes on the rads are only 3mm so they had to be widened.
I tried to get all engineery and use the tap and die set I bought from Aldi for €20 to tap 4mm threads into the newly widened holes.
And proceeded to drop the tap handle directly onto the rad and damage some of the fins!
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The pump wit all the accessories fully assembled and mounted to the rad. Looks like some sort of future tank!
Or maybe some sort of laser cannon, I can't decide!
But at last, here she is installed into the case. Looks pretty sweet!
My chuffedness is short lived however as we have just hit snag number two. The GPUs will not fit with the above config. The PCB is about 5mm too long. ****.
I suspected I may have had trouble here which is why the 360 rad is not fully push pull. I will be leaving off the middle pull fan to make way for the res. But look at all that wasted space behind the bracket between the res and the rad. There must be 20mm in there easily. I decided I would have to scrap the bracket and try make something myself so I called out to my Dads and had a route around his garage and found this. Not sure what it is, a cassette tape display for a shop maybe but it's 1.5mm steel and black, happy days! I taped off a section and marked out a 120x120mm square.
Time to break out the Dremmel!
Slowly but surely, getting there.
And it's free!
A hacksaw made light work of the remaining side. So much faster than the Dremmel it's hard to believe!
Now to straighten out those edges. I just took my time, teasing my way up to the line.
With the edges straightened out, I clamped the EK bracket onto my work piece to use as a template to make out the holes. As some of my woodworking friends always say, "You can never have enough clamps!"
Again using the original part as a template and marking out the holes for the pump holder.
All holes drilled.
Now to mark out interior to be removed and come up with some sort of design.
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With the design drawn out, I drilled a few 8mm holes to try and make space to get the hacksaw blade in there to start removing the waste.
Most of the material has been removed here by now. To get tight down to the line, I just cut a series of shallow cuts at then came at them sideways to clear them out. It worked out quite well.
And then the filing began. And went on and on and on for about an hour!
Finally here we are, not bad for a fella with no experience in metal fabrication and only hand tools! I'm not sure on the curves though, I thought they might look nice but I think I'm just gonna square them off tomorrow. I also need to square up a few places and then sand it all down and give it a spray paint, but for a bracket that will be difficult to see, I think it will do nicely.
And finally an obligatory beer! More to follow tomorrow, cheers!
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So haven't had a chance to get a lot of work done recently, real life getting in the way etc but I'm making some progress!
Also did anyone else know you can only upload 15 pictures per post? Kinda annoying!
Anyway, onto the build.
Day 2:
So day two started where day one left off, filing!
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really like the curves on the bracket I was making so I decided to square them off. I just cut down with the hacksaw and used a worn dremmel cutting disc to cut out the bottom pieces.
Followed by more filing ...
And the final shape starts to come together.
Unfortunately I got a bit carried away with the filing and you can see one of the centre holes is very close to the edge, we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.
After all the filing it was time to try out a bit of sanding. Here I have an 80 grit sanding attachment for the drill which I used to debur all the edges and holes.
Followed by some hand sanding at 120 grit.
And here it is, ready for it's first coat of paint.
Here's how it turned out after the first coat. I managed to smudge some TIM into as I was test fitting pieces but I will be sanding and adding another coat later.
However we've hit another snag. The centre holes are out by a couple of mill in relation to the pump holder. Plus the issue with the hole being so close to the edge I thought I would have to start over.
But I decided to try clamping the two pieces together and drilling new holes through both at the same time, at least that way I would know they would definitely line up.
Et voila! Everything lines up and fits together correctly. And a little sneak preview of the drainage system, subject to change of course!
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So the next job I tackled was installing the blocks and back plates on the GPUS.
Opps, there goes my warranty!
But four screws later, the stock cooler was off.
Getting the end plate off was a bit tricker but the long nose pliers made another appearence and saved the day.
But the stock coolers did not come off as cleanly as I had first thought. The four screw holding the stock cooler onto the PCB are connected to standoffs, just like the ones you use to connect your mobo to your case. One of the standoffs had unscrewed from the cooler but was stuck to the screw which was going through the PCB.
And then to make matters worse, the screw head stripped out on me!
I tired every tool I had to hand but was unable to get any purchase. I futzed around with it for ages before admitting defeat and having to resort to more extreme measures. Yup, Dremmel time again!
I cut a channel into the screw head as deep as I dared go, but it was enough to get a flat head screwdriver in there. I had to hold the standoff on one side with the pliers and jam the flat head screw driver in for the other side. After a couple of failed attempts and a lot of cursing, we finally made progress and the offending article was removed!
And here's the whole card disassembled.
I used some Articlean TIM remover which made short work of cleaning up the die.
However, one of the GPUs had these striations left over that I couldn't get rid off, not sure what it is, haven't seen it before.
Time to apply new TIM. I ended up going with GC Extreme. And then it was a simple matter of applying all the thermal pads to the memory etc.
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A bit of reassembly and we're done!
Seems like a waste to have all this kit left over just sitting in a box!
And here we are again with more test fitting. I've had to change the orientation of the front rad, placing it with the ports on top instead of on the bottom as I originally planned, simply because it won't fit the other way. And because of that, I decided to spin the top rad around so the ports are at the front as well, just to make the loop cleaner.
I've noticed that with the new bracket I made for the res, I actually can't fit a fan in the pull position on the rad. It's no big deal though, I'll just make some 5mm spacers and we should be in buisness.
After that, I need to cut a piece of metal out off the front of the case to fit a fan on the rad where the 5.25" bays were, delid the 3570k, mount the waterblock onto that and then I should be able to get everything installed back into the case and start working on the loop!
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Day 3
Got a couple of hours in the other day but unfortunately most of it was spent in the car, driving out to the PC, taking measurements, driving into town, getting parts, driving back out etc etc.
I needed to make some sort of spacer to raise the home made pump holding bracket off the radiator so I would have sufficent clearance for a fan between the res and rad. I figured about 5mm should do it so set off to the my local hardware store and picked up a few things.
I originally was thinking some small diameter steel tube that I could cut down to size for the spacers but they didn't have any so I ended up getting a load of washers and some bolts also.
By stacking the washers on top of each other I was able to attain the clearance I was looking for.
Then it was time to take it all apart again for paint. I must have assembled and disassembled this one component about 20 times by now!
About an hour later it was time to flip em all over to do the other side. After that I left them over night.
Now the next job to tackle was to installed the CPU block.
Ugg, stock!
But not for long!
Before I installed the new block, I decided to delid the processor. I know this is a well documented method but all the same I was like, "Am I seriously gonna hit my CPU with a hammer?!" :eek:
Yes, yes I was! And three firm knocks later, the heat spreader is free without any damage, phew!
I even bunched up some overalls behind the PCB in case it went flying but I needed have, the PCB burried into the wood!
The Articlean made another appearance and made short work of the old TIM.
And then to apply new TIM. For anybody curious, this is WAY too much TIM. I took the block off again afterwards to check how it had spread out and it was everywhere. I reapplied in the same way but only using half the TIM.
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Day 4
So day 4 began by checking in on our newly blackened hardware. I found a stack of 6 washers to be the magic number. I made an extra set, just in case! Turned out well! The bracket looks a bit of a mess after the misaligned holes but it's all square when in place and all the holes are hidden so it's all good!
Back to the case. This crossbar is just below the 5.25" drive bays and is in the way if I want to put a fan in there.
The Dremmel made very short work of it.
And a quick file down and blast of paint tidies it up nicely.
The next snag I hit was I ran out of screws to connect the fans. And it being Easter weekend, no where will be open for two days. **** that! I have a load of very short screws, 10mm and less so let's make use of them!
I tried connecting the fans with short screws from the inside holes but wasn't able to get the screwdriver in at them. So I widened the 4mm holes to 6mm with my drill.
Even then the screws were only 10mm long, they were still too long. So I clamped them in a vice and took the Dremmel to them to take about a third off the length.
Back in and after a bit of reassembly, now we're getting somewhere!
Fittings. I am actually one push in fitting short for my original plan. I wanted to connect the GPUs in parallel but have settled for connecting them in series as I don't have the patience to wait for one fitting to arrive in the post!
The layout of the loop is totally different than I had planned due to changing the orientation of the rads. So I spent a good while trying out a few different options and think I'm good to go.
Not sure how effective the drain port will be here, it's directly after them pump so I should get a good amount out but the GPU is lower so I may have to drain the separately. May have to revisit this later.
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The next job is to build a jig for bending the pipes. Back out to the garage to find some off cuts.
Making sure everything is square.
I was wondering what I was going to use for the round part and what sort of diameter I wanted for it. I lucked out and found an old wooden curtain railing in the garage that was perfect. I used the tubing itself to space it out.
At last, tube bending time!
I ****ed up the first tube trying a long run for the front the loop but luckily had enough left over to do a short run at the back.
The jig is working great, very happy with it. It creates nice, tight bends accurately at 90 degrees. and A bit more practice and we'll be flying I reckon!
And alas, I had to leave it there for the day! Just as I was getting into it but that's life. Dunno if I'll be able to get away to do some more work tomorrow but will update again ASAP.
And don't be shy guys, comments, questions or opinions are more than welcome!
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Day 5
So Day 5 began by getting stuck into some pipe bending. Again, this jig is making life a lot easier!
Here's a failed attempt at bending on two planes. The tube creased a little bit.
I found cutting the tube to lenght to be a bit of a pain in the hole so decided to add a little something extra to the jig. Back to the shed to find some more off cuts!
A few minutes later and we have a nice secure tube holder!
It allows for some really accurate and small incremental cuts, ideal for trying to tease the tube down to the correct length for a sung fit.
So I wasn't happy with where the drain was before and after a bit more poking about, I have relocated it over under the GPU. I had a spare 90° fitting so might as well make use of it!
A couple of bends in place up in the top right.
First attempt at a second bend.
And another tube in place.
And one final addition to the jig, a ruler along the left guide.
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Working on another run. The loop layout had been changed quite dramatically from concept by this stage but I'm very happy with the results. I started filling it at this stage but tbh, I was getting leaks left, right and centre so had to put down my phone! Nothing major, some fittings not as tight as they should be, some tubes not pushed far enough into the compression fittings to make a seal and quite embarrassingly, I forgot to plug one of the outlets on the pump! :eek:
Luckily I had taken the necessary precautions so nothing was damaged.
Here's a load of pics in it's current state. Loop complete but not filled.
And all the off cuts and rejects!
Finally for this update, I'm not sure if I'm having an issue with the pump or not. The flow rate seems very slow. It is the PWM version but I'd imagine that it would be like PWM fans are run full tilt when connected direct to 12v power supply? It's like it's only pumping at 10% power. I left it running for about 20 minutes and there was a small bit of improvement b nothing like I was expecting.
Check out the clip below and let me know what you think. I've sent a ticket to EK re the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFuZ6NpYpHA
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So just a quick update with a few pics of the loop full. Please excuse the state of the cable management, my 1000w has died and is going to have to be RMA'd so I've just thrown in this spare 750w I had ti tide me over. Once I get the 1000w back I'll be doing custom cables for everything.
The loop has been running and bleeding for about a day now, think I've got most of the air out. There was a particularly nasty bubble in the CPU block that was a bitch to get rid of, the PC nearly had to turn a cart wheel to get it out! I'll top up the res now and that should be finished.
I the pump set to run off one pwm header and the eight fans are run off the only other pwm fan header on my mobo via the pwm splitter pcb I have. The fans set to level 1 in BIOS which results in about 800rpm and the pump set to level 8, about 2850 rpm. Both are very quiet.
It's set to keep temps under 65°C which I only hit during a 20 minute, maximum stress, run through IBT. Max temp I hit was high 60's to 70. The fans ramped up to about 1500rpm and got temps back down to the 50's where they slowed down again. Temps slowly went back up, fans followed, temps fell ... rinse and repeat!
Overall I'm very happy with this result. It's also worth nothing that this was only in IBT while overclocked to 4.8ghz@1.288v by the way! Prime95 hardly got temps up to 60°C! I was getting 60's while at stock clocks.
Anyway, enough prattle, on with the pictures! Again, only temp PSU so no cable management has been done yet. I also need to tidy up the HDD and SSD and make a PSU cover to clean everything up. Need to give the case a good polish as well!
As always, you're feedback is welcome!
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