Smollie1

@forScience Awesome, EK concentrate it is then. @Revan654 My first thought when this happened was totally "I should use glass". I'm not sure this case has the rigidity necessary, I'd be afraid of cracking the runs every time I moved it. I'm thinking about designing a Node 202 sized case that is aluminium and tempered glass. It would be perfect for glass runs.

Would you recommend the Cryofuel premix over the concentrate? Surely premix is simply concentrate plus distilled water? I travel a lot so the loop will get drained a bunch, can't really be lugging 900ml premix around / buying it repeatedly. 100ml concentrate I can abide.

What would you guys recommend as a biocide to go with distilled water? The loop is all copper.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner i.e. Mayhems UV. The loop is a combination of Bitspower and EKHD tubing. I wouldn't be surprised if the heat also had something to do with accelerating this process. Not sure on the loop temp, plausible that it was in the high 60 / low 70s. The thermal limit of the 860k is probably 72c and the thermal margin was in the single digits i.e. CPU in high 60s. The GPU temp was in the low 70's. Guess I've learned my lesson. Time to start planning loop v2. I wonder if I can fit 2 more fans, a loop sensor and the lighting I'd planned in there? Why do anything the easy way when you can do it the unreasonable hard expensive way and learn 100x more. I'm not going to stop until I conquer this case for hardline.

It was propped up on two pill cases so it was about an inch off the table I'd say. I think you are totally right though. I'm going to figure out some kind of feet situation. I'll probably also prop the back up slightly higher than the front to see the system better and also improve air flow directly under the case.

Yeah, a D5 would be a really tight squeeze if it fit at all. I think I could get an 80mm fan in the corner with the ram and rear I/O. Also, I'm going chop a big hole along the GPU side (Imagine identical to the grill on GPU side). I could get another 80mm fan somewhere on GPU side. If I set them both to intake, would that improve the situation without creating any extra problems? @GzeroD The copper was an absolute nightmare to work with if you don't have a $100 pipe bender, which I don't. It looks amazing but I move around a lot and PETG is cheaper and easier to work with. One day I will return to the copper (and buy the bender) as it has a bunch of preferable features. I'd probably do a copper / PETG combo.

Ah, interesting idea @RollinLower. Right now it's the EK-XTOP SPC-60 PWM - Plexi (incl. pump). I haven't cable manage at all except for the cable combs and if I did, I think I'd find some space for some fans.

@wkdpaul +1

I'm doing this for the challenge. I could order better parts and have it running in a bigger case tomorrow, but I'd be bored AF instantly. I'm taking suggestions for keeping temps down that don't involve changing core components or getting a new case. That will be considered cheating. And yes, those tubes are fucked real good.

oh snap....guess temps were too damn high. More info over here.

So I played CS 1.6 and Halo: Combat Evolved 10 years ago. Then a few months ago I decided to build my first PC and it was going to be a fully hardline watercooled Node 202. To my knowledge this had been done once before by @SonoDanshi here. He used an R9 Nano, which seems sensible. However, I was determined to use a full length GPU and ended up with an EVGA GTX 970 SC. It's currently paired with a X4 860K (don't ask). The whole ridiculous build log is documented here, I've linked to where it gets interesting i.e. a couple days ago. Anyway, fast forward to Sunday and I finally get it up and running. I play Crysis and the machine gets damn hot, but all seems well. Then today I play some Burnout: Paradise, Portal and Metro: 2033 (which looks awesome) and I notice a leak and that a fitting is very loose. Turns out EVERY fitting is loose and I have a major insane catastrophe leak. Machine is fine although in 1000 pieces again. I've had to solve a lot of problems for this build, but I never expected this one. Looks like I need to accelerate some improvements I was planning to reduce temps i.e. increase airflow with a Dremel to GPU side panel / minimizing 90 fittings to keep flow rate up and maybe adding some 80mm fans. Let the madness continue...

OK, so good news is that (I'm an idiot) my CPU wasn't 114 degrees. Bad news is that after a couple hours of Crysis the GPU is in the high 60s and CPUs thermal margin is down to single digits. Basically, this thing is an oven. A small oven attractive oven, but an oven. Also, it's kind of loud. Mostly the PSU. I was worried about head to wacked the fans on full in the UEFI. I'm going to learn how to use Speedfan and see if can do anything about it. Not sure I've got any options on keeping things a little cooler. These temps were at stock i.e. 3.7Ghz

It's possible that these temps are bogus and I should be paying attention to 'Thermal Margin' in AMD overdrive. I will try that with Prime95 when I get home tonight.

The CPU was overclocked to 4Ghz from the stock 3.7Ghz using an EZ overclock mode with the ASRock UEFI. Temps were still crazy hot before then, so it's not that. @SonoDanshi WTF is going on?

The only concern I have at the moment is temperatures. Even with the lid off I was getting some crazy high temps from the CPU. It's not the loop because the GPU is idling at 30c and around 50c under load. HWmonitor clocked the 860k at max 114c? That was after playing Crysis for about an hour I thought chips had a max temp of ~95 and then they'd shut off? That makes me think there is something wrong. The CPU idles at ~60c