My Water Cooled 3700BQE Project

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Wed May 04, 2005 10:06 am

I got the SPCR bug really, REALLY bad. My system MUST be as quiet as possible. Right now, it's pretty good. I can just barely hear my system over the ambient room noise....but that's not good enough. I want my system to run quiet AND cool. I have a water cooling system planned for it.

Here are some pics of my progress so far:

My orginal setup:

The new setup:

I removed the HD rack in the front. Ripping this out dropped my overall temps ~5c-8c. MUCH better airflow now. It also allows plenty of room for a 120mm radiator and fan.

That's a SilenX 120mm @7v in the back (I bought it before I started reading the SPCR forums...oops). The Zalman 7000cu is at 5v, and my NV Silencer 5 runs at the lowest speed all of the time.

My new Seasonic Super Tornado 300W rev A3 never ramps up!!! I love it!!!

There's also a Card Keeper on my 6800gt. I had to modify it a bit to get it to fit my NV5. The 6800gt weighs so much with the NV5, the Card Keeper makes me feel safer

I didn't remove the 3.5" bay because it's going to hold either a fan controller & lcd display or a reservoir...haven't decided yet.

What an improvement over the stock antec rubber bushings and drive rails. I can barely hear my drive seeking (it's a maxtor sata 7200, so I'll never get it completely silent). It runs warmer ~40c-44c, but it's an acceptable trade off for me.

That's it for now.....Here's what I have planned in the near future:

-Eheim 1048 pump
-1/2" tubing
-CPU & GPU blocks (haven't decided on brands yet)
-2x120mm radiators. One in front, one in back. Push/Pull config, but both will be pulling air throught the radiators rather than pushing.
-either a 5.25" bay reservoir, or a 3.5".

Input & suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

vapb400 · Post by **vapb400** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:03 pm

Looks good! I was about to watercool my S754 inside a 3700BQE, (I got tricked into SilenX too, lol)

Well now I just purchase a 3200+ Venice with a DFI and a 3000B, i will be watercooling it shortly. I can't wait to see how this looks up front, I was thinking I would mount it on the top and leave the front and rear fan, I can't hear them from when I sleep and that's all that really amtters to me. I want to mount the single radiator up top, and use the new swiftech pump/res combo to keep the tubing really well routed. We'll see!

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Wed May 04, 2005 6:17 pm

What kind of radiator are you going to use?

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Wed May 04, 2005 7:43 pm

i used to run a 1x120mm rad (black ice extreme) in my bqe at the back and it got ridiculously hot to the touch. but given that you've opened up the front of the case so much, you should fare much better. the front radiator will be doing the majority of the work though, so i wouldn't be afraid to go and cut out the steel in front of that radiator so it can get as much fresh air as possible from the front (so it'll only have the plastic bezel in the way). the existing slats in the bezel should be sufficient.

you might also want to note a few things:
1) the 1048 is rather large. when i had mine inside my bqe, it was a tight fit to get it sitting nicely under the video card.
2) with such a large pump inside the case, the tube routing is going to be a bit tricky with the vga block. you really want to avoid using 90 degree angles here because they'll kill your water flow, but you should be fine as long as you keep in mind the fact that the order of the components does not matter... except the reservoir has to be immediately before the pump.
3) you'll also need to allow space for a shroud to space the fans about 1.5" - 2" away from the radiator. this will be fine for your front radiator, but it'll be a bit tricky for the rear one. i think a good idea would be to have the radiator mounted directly to the case from the inside, and a shroud and fan hanging off the outside.

DGK · Post by **DGK** » Wed May 04, 2005 9:59 pm

One bad thing about having a radiator in your intake is that you are warming the air as it enters the case. This will probably increase your case temps a bit and also increases the chances that your PSU fan might speed up more often. If you are going to just have gpu and cpu blocks, one 120 radiator should be more than enough. If you add a northbridge cooler and start watercooling your hd's you might need more radiator area but for just two blocks I would stay with one 120.

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Thu May 05, 2005 4:43 am

So a single 120mm in the front with the fan @ 5v is enough?

If that's the case, I think I'll leave the rear 120mm fan, and add a passive intake in the front somewhere for more cool air to enter the case (maybe by the 5.25 bays where my HD is suspended).

Also.....I told my wife I wanted a ThermalTake BigWater kit a while ago....before I started researching a DIY setup. I think she might have purchased it for my birthday.

If that's the case, I have some work cut out for me to try to get good temps. I don't think a single 120 rad with a low rpm fan will cut it with a 1/4" low flow system cooling my cpu AND my gpu. I have read many good reviews of the bigwater kit on a single cpu, but I haven't been able to find any examples of dual radiators or a gpu block in the loop. I love experimenting though, so if I get it, I'll have fun with it.

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Thu May 05, 2005 7:05 am

sarbz wrote:So a single 120mm in the front with the fan @ 5v is enough?

i tried to do that with my system and it failed miserably. temps were higher than with aircooling!

then again, your system will be different in that you'd be mounting the radiator in the front of the case. also, you might not be interested in overclocking your computer by ridiculous amounts, so cooling isn't as much of a problem. (but then why not just stick to aircooling?)

if you're going to watercool your hard drives, make sure it's on a different loop to your cpu and gpu. with those 2 items adding heat to the loop, and with a single 120 radiator, chances are your watercooling would be heating up your hard drives rather than cooling them down.

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Thu May 05, 2005 8:36 am

I'm not going for huge overclocks. I don't have an AGP/PCI lock on my motherboard, so I couldn't go very high even if I wanted to. I just want silence. My NV silencer 5 is too loud

.

EDIT: I will be overclocking my 6800gt, but that doesn't seem to change the temps a whole lot. Usually only ~5c or so no matter how high I crank the core.

vapb400 · Post by **vapb400** » Thu May 05, 2005 5:24 pm

sarbz wrote:What kind of radiator are you going to use?

BIP w/ coolshroud and nexus fan, probably, the nexus might not be enough.

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Thu May 05, 2005 5:28 pm

vapb400 wrote:BIP w/ coolshroud and nexus fan, probably, the nexus might not be enough.

i think you'll find it'll be the other way around. i strongly recommend getting a thicker radiator than a BIP, since my BIX (black ice extreme) barely coped with a stock axp 2500+ and stock radeon 9800. a low airflow fan is fine, but the determining factor will be how much surface area your radiator has, and in my experience even a thick 1x120 is barely cutting it.

vapb400 · Post by **vapb400** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:39 am

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably end up with a dtek pro radiator or BIX.

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Fri May 27, 2005 12:18 pm

update:

I got a Thermaltake Bigwater Kit for my birthday from my wife (isn't that awesome....my wife actually took the time to get me something for my hobby....even though she thinks it's a waste of time and $ :rolleyes:) It really does perform good. My cpu at load is about 10c cooler than what it was with the zalman 7000cu.

I modded the radiator and fan already. I took off the stock 120 (too loud) and put my 120mm stealth on, but reversed, so it's pulling air through the rad instead of pushing. I had it mounted in the front of the case.

I'll be using the stock 120mm antec fan for the rear exhaust.

I had everything assembled in the case, but last night I ripped it apart to paint.

Here's the case stripped apart and painted. I masked off the top and bottom as I wanted to keep those black, and didn't want to rip out the rivets that hold them on.

That's engine enamel. Should be tough enough.

I'm planning on getting a vga block for my 6800gt. I already picked up some OCZ ram sinks for it.

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Fri May 27, 2005 12:19 pm

more updates:

I bought a DFI Lanparty UT 250gb (it undervolts VERY well)

Here are some pics of the current progress. It's a mess right now, but I just wanted to get the dfi board in and tinker with it. When I'm done with the mobo cover.....you won't see ANY wires

(well......maybe the power lead for my 6800gt. Not sure how to hide that yet).

Doesn't even look modded here

Hello John Deer!

The thermaltake does have some bling

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Fri May 27, 2005 12:21 pm

I'm also going to make a motherboard cover to hide all of the yellow on the motherboard. Here's what I'm going to make (rough sketch...not scaled properly):

The black strips are velcro. I want this to be easily removable. The velcro will be completely hidden, beacuse the bends will all go inward. It should look nice and clean this way. There is an 80mm fan hole for a fan to blow out into the case. This should pull air from the openings (mainly the top area around the ram and processor) and exhaust it directly under my video card (perhaps helping to cool my video ram just a weeee bit after I install the vga block). I don't expect this air to be very warm. I'll run the fan at 7v to keep it quiet, that should generate plenty of airflow for this use.

I'm going to use some 2mm hobby foam to act as a sort of skirt around the agp opening in the mobo cover. This will help prevent air from being pulled through this hole instead of the top area.

Sorry for the multiple posts in a row. I'm pulling it from another forum, and it's easier this way

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Sat May 28, 2005 6:35 am

I made some inside panels and the graphic for the top panel last night. It's starting to look really clean inside. I can't wait to get started on the mobo shield. I have the plans made, and the sizes down. I just have to make a cardboard one and do some last minute tweaking before I start bending the aluminum.

Here's a shot with the new internal panels attached. (with velcro so they can be removed easily)

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sat May 28, 2005 6:45 am

looks nice.. is that chroma key green?

slightly OT.. but u mentioned that you're gonna bend the aluminium once u've got the dimensions downpat.. is there a precise way of bending aluminium? i'm in the middle of a project where i need to make an aluminium structure that's accurate to about half a millimetre and i can't think of a way to do it nicely.

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Sat May 28, 2005 9:17 am

thanks.

I'm not sure how to bend that accurately. For my application, that level of precision isn't necessary.

If the aluminum is thin enough, you can score it with a utility knife, and it will bend along the score quite nicely. I usually sandwhich the aluminum between two boards, and make the bend with a third board. This gives me as close to a square edge as I think I can get without machinery.