Water-cooling Build Log: Project Red-Chalk This is the log for the water-cooling process of Project Red-Chalk.
Water-cooling Build Log: Project Red-Chalk This is the log for the water-cooling process of Project Red-Chalk.
Welcome to the ongoing build-log for my system, the
Red-Chalk
. It details from when I first started water-cooling and covers pretty much all the goings on with my rig since then. All my long winded thoughts, idea's and explanations are here, so a light read this is not :lol:.
Big thanks to Moto, Scopey, Rubix , Big-Cyco and amuffin for helping me out when I first inquired about water-cooling, and many others who I have learnt from since.
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The XSPC Raystorm 750 RS360 water-cooling kit.
PrimoChill PrimoFlex Pro LRT tubing red, 7/16ID 5/8OD. 2m of it.
And a Killcoil.
Well, I took the plunge and got all that water-cooling stuff yesterday, and now it is assembled, leak tested and probably not fully air bled yet if the pump noise means anything :lol:.
As promised, here is my build log and hopefully all the pictures you could want.
This is before I started pulling everything apart, my dual fan Hyper 212 Evo doesn't even know what happening yet.
Stripped out all the unnecessary stuff, the HAF-X is starting to look empty.
My 3570K tries to hide itself under a layer of thermal paste (which is fairly well applied, I wasnt expecting that good an application considering it was the first time I had done it. Little bit of spillage though)
Remove the Thermal paste with some White Spirits cleaning fluid, and its revealed.
Took the opportunity to clean my PSU. Full modularity is so useful.
Time to get down to business. First the radiator had its stock XSPC push fans screwed to it and then was mounted in the case.
Protip: When water-cooling in a HAF-X with a triple rad, you will need the top 5.25" bay clear if you want to fit a radiator+fan in there, even for slim radiators. I was lucky my fan controller doesn't take up the whole bay, but if you had in optical there and every other bay was full, you'd be in trouble.
Mounting the pull fans, two Coolermaster Silent red LED fans and one mystery red LED fan I found in an old PC one day.
The Raystorm CPU block did go on with some trouble. The LGA1155 backplate was somewhat difficult to place on the back of the mobo, and that caused havoc when you try to screw in the block and the plate has moved. Got it in eventually though.
One uneventful (and undocumented unfortunately) pump/res mounting later, I got down to putting in tubing.
ProTip: Measure everything! Once that tube is around the barb, it aint coming off without a fight. Stuffed up the connection between the radiator and pump/res, spent the next 20min pulling the tubing off each end. Makes me wonder why we even need clamps.
The loop was completed and the leak test began. My dog wasn't very enthusiastic. After roughly two hours of shaking it and switching the PSU on and off to remove air, I decided to stop and gave up. The following morning I announced it had passed the leak test officially. I reconnected all cables correctly, set everything up, and added all the components. It was time for some photos! With the side panel back in place. That’s about it for the images. If you’d like to view them (there are more), visit this link: http://s1146.photobucket.com/albums/o537...1QQtppZZ36.
From a temperature standpoint, there’s been noticeable progress. On the 212 EVO I was idling at around 25°C, now while I’ve been typing it’s been about 15°C (11°C coolest core, 21°C hottest), which matches the current room temperature. That’s roughly a 10°C improvement at idle, and potentially more if the ambient temperature allows.
Load temperatures haven’t been fully verified yet, but after an hour of Prime95 I reached 61°C, and now 5 minutes brings it to 45°C. This represents a 16°C drop in load temps—something I’ll test more thoroughly soon. I’m quite satisfied with this, and I plan to overclock my CPU more aggressively to make the most of this extra cooling.
Any feedback would be welcome, and if you anticipate a noisy pump upon installation, please let me know—it would be great!
So I'm trying to make sure the res isn't overflowing. It looked like the pump intake and (the exhaust is a mistake) were below the water line, so I thought leaving a little space would help air flow through the rest of the loop. I plan to fill it all the way.
The fans I have aren't the SickleFlow model, just this one as far as I know.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main...s_id=11128
They seem to be marketed as Rifle fans, though I don't know what that means.
EDIT
Located the product page for the CM fans.
http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6037
These are the sickle flows. Completing it should remove any air, leading to a noticeably quieter pump. Is the pump shaking? I have the same configuration, but with an Alphacool VPP655T; I had to place a small piece of paper under mine to prevent it from vibrating. Now my setup is much quieter..:O
I did some research to learn more about the fans. The site they came from lists them as "Rifle Red" but doesn’t provide much detail beyond that. It’s hard to locate a dedicated product page for them.
The image they use matches both the Sickleflow and Silent models, so it might be one of those two, possibly a discontinued Rifle fan.
I can’t feel any vibration, and it sounds more like a whirring noise. I plan to fill it as much as possible and try packing it to minimize vibrations.
Motopsychojdn :
Yup, brim that res, air helps noise travel so a full res helps keep pump noise down
Nope muffin, the V2 of the 750l is pretty much silent, you've heard mine
Nice looking build Chalk, pat yourself on the back there and welcome to W/c
Moto
I've got my rig pretty silent over the weekend.
😉
I did some research to understand what the fans are about. The site where I found them lists them as "Rifle Red" but doesn’t provide much detail beyond that. It’s hard to locate a dedicated product page for them. It shares the same image as both the Sickleflow and Silent fans, so they might be a Sickleflow, an A Silent, or possibly a discontinued Rifle fan. I can’t feel any vibration, and it sounds more like a whirring noise. I’ll fill the reservoir as much as possible and try packing it to minimize vibrations. These fans don’t seem to deliver the performance they’re supposed to.
Search for the model details on the fan sticker Chalk, as it's a good reference,
Used this method with my cases fans in Windows and they performed well,
Gelids blue wings are my preferred option
Moto