Old PC resurection on a budjet [Build Log] A watercooling thriller

[MaratM]

6 hours ago, Jsunn said:

Excellent build!  

Now I reached the stage of cable managment and leak testing, but unfortunatly do not have enough time(((

[MaratM]

Leak testing the rig with distilled water. I’ll add some EK concentrate later

 

[MaratM]

Found this on aliexpress
http://s.aliexpress.com/2i2InmU7

RGB RAM (not the real rgb but it is the last feature which is not supported by x58

should I do it?

[MaratM]

It is alive!!!

leaktest is complete

currently it is running stock cpu at 2.8gHz turned down oc while was installing and setting up aquareo5

 

[MEC-777]

Sweet!

[ShadowChaser]

I find it odd that you've gone so far, yet still not all the ram slots have been filled. That is one sad xeon in there just waiting for the day it'll reach MAXIMUM capacity.

Does it run on single channel or triple channel in your current config?

[MaratM]

1 hour ago, ShadowChaser said:

I find it odd that you've gone so far, yet still not all the ram slots have been filled. That is one sad xeon in there just waiting for the day it'll reach MAXIMUM capacity.

Does it run on single channel or triple channel in your current config?

It is tripple chanel 32 gb of ram. It is very tempting to get additional 2 sticks but it is a dead end, I’ve placed a couple bids on ebay for it but did not have any luck. How long will this xeon last? Might be a couple more years? What next? Switch to x79? So i can use the RAM))))

[MEC-777]

12 hours ago, MaratM said:

It is tripple chanel 32 gb of ram. It is very tempting to get additional 2 sticks but it is a dead end, I’ve placed a couple bids on ebay for it but did not have any luck. How long will this xeon last? Might be a couple more years? What next? Switch to x79? So i can use the RAM))))

I have an HP Z600 workstation with dual Xeon X5650's (same as yours, just clocked lower). While these are getting old, they aren't lacking for performance. Even by today's standards, they still pull their weight just fine. They will hold back gaming performance in some scenarios due to single core performance, but not too much. 

 

If you don't need that much ram, then there's no need to fill all the slots, IMO.  

[MaratM]

1 hour ago, MEC-777 said:

I have an HP Z600 workstation with dual Xeon X5650's (same as yours, just clocked lower). While these are getting old, they aren't lacking for performance. Even by today's standards, they still pull their weight just fine. They will hold back gaming performance in some scenarios due to single core performance, but not too much. 

 

If you don't need that much ram, then there's no need to fill all the slots, IMO.  

I can always run my games of RAM drive))) but modern games are getting a bit heavy. I still remember then original doom came out and it was on 4 or 5 3,5” floppy drives (hard drives were really slow and were up to 40-60mb) and it took nearly half of that hdd space!!! It was the time of intel 386 with 16 mb of RAM. This pc is used for gaming, internet browsing and some simple cad work. No professional apps is ever been run on it at professional level. 32 gb of ram is more than enough.

[MEC-777]

48 minutes ago, MaratM said:

I can always run my games of RAM drive))) but modern games are getting a bit heavy. I still remember then original doom came out and it was on 4 or 5 3,5” floppy drives (hard drives were really slow and were up to 40-60mb) and it took nearly half of that hdd space!!! It was the time of intel 386 with 16 mb of RAM. This pc is used for gaming, internet browsing and some simple cad work. No professional apps is ever been run on it at professional level. 32 gb of ram is more than enough.

I'm still rockin 8GB of ram for the same type of usage as you and it's been enough (so far). 

[MaratM]

It took me a some time to figure out how to set up the aquero, but finally it was set.

The pump is set to operate from 40 to 100% depending on CPU temp

The fans are set to run from 500RPM to 1100RPM based on the liquid temp. 1100RPM is a comfortable noise level on SW3 fans

After half an hour stress test (AIDA64 + Heaven) the loop was equlised with the following result:

CPU (OC 4.2 gHz BCLK 200 Multi 21 1.38volts) - 70-72C

GPU (stock) - 52-55 C

Liquid - 41C

Fans around 1000 RPM

I'll play with oc a little bit to get the voltage a bit lower.

However there is around 10C difference between the cores 1-3 - 65C 4-6 - 75C

[Zammin]

6 minutes ago, MaratM said:

However there is around 10C difference between the cores 1-3 - 65C 4-6 - 75C

Not sure if this is helpful, but if we are talking peak core temps I have found that on my 8700k before and after applying liquid metal, AIDA64's FPU stress test tends to run 2 of the 6 cores a bit hotter than the others. When I run other stress tests like RealBench all the cores are very close in temperature. Maybe try a 30min - 1hour run of RealBench stress test and see if it evens out.

[MaratM]

15 minutes ago, Zammin said:

Not sure if this is helpful, but if we are talking peak core temps I have found that on my 8700k before and after applying liquid metal, AIDA64's FPU stress test tends to run 2 of the 6 cores a bit hotter than the others. When I run other stress tests like RealBench all the cores are very close in temperature. Maybe try a 30min - 1hour run of RealBench stress test and see if it evens out.

It is not near max temp, i think it will be fine)))

[Zammin]

3 minutes ago, MaratM said:

It is not near max temp, i think it will be fine)))

Yeah that's all good. I just thought I'd mention it in case you were concerned about the 10C difference.

[MaratM]

Two empty ram slots were a pain to look at, so I’ve got two more

Will post some pictures of the finished build soon

[MaratM]

Here is an idea:

problem numero uno: looks like old xeon is degrading, bluescreening for no reason what so ever, freezes, and in order to have it stable I had to downclock it back to stock 3.3 gHz. Just loaded bios default values, not even RAM XMP. I can always get another one from aliexpress or ebay, but there is no chalenge!!!

Problem numero 2:

As the x58 mobo and xeon have to go I have 48gb of ddr3 memomory.

There 2 ways to solve these problems. I can either go with x79 way and get a 1650 xeon And use 32gb of ram, but the x79 bards cost an arm and a leg. OR I can get z170 board with ddr3 support (there were few made by asus, asrock and gigabyte) and by the magic of internet get it paired with i5 8600k (8700k is a bit too expensive and the vrm on this boards does not look very promising)

Looks like i’ll go the hard way)))

Any advice?

 

[MaratM]

I've desmissed the idea of using secondhand z170 DDR3 board.

I've bought a brand new board 

Asus Maximus VIII Hero 

The price of the board was $100 delivered to my door

Also ordered a VRM waterblock from amazon (22 Euro)

Also borrowed a TOP OF THE LINE SKYLAKE CPU ))))

for testing if it all actually work

prepaired a hacked z170-coffee lake BIOS and found a person with tools to update the bios directly on the chip

Mobo started with g4400, all is working

time to flash the modified bios, mod the cpu and start it all up

WISH ME LUCK, so i do not fry my 8700K nor the RAM nor new mobo. 

[Lagercat1]

dude this is insanely cool, hope it keepsyou going for another like 7years

[MaratM]

1 hour ago, 82223 said:

dude this is insanely cool, hope it keepsyou going for another like 7years

I bloody hope so))) have to wait till it all starts

[MaratM]

So far so good

here is a short story behind it:

got the mobo, got the cpu, mod the cpu, mod the bios with a fully automated tool. Went to a computer repair shop with a programmer tool. Flash the bios chip. And nothing!!! Even g4400 would not start. Bios is corrupted.

so i used asus flashback, got a stock bios on the usb stick and success!!! It has started with g4400, but the Integrated NIC goesn’t work. Missing MAC address.

I is not very clever all the old data on the bios is erased so no MAC, No serial number, no UUID.

spend a few days trying to figure out how I can get this data back. And by lack I went to discord forum where people making it all happen. Got some help.

Next day ordered a programming tool, at the “local” shop (it is around 1000km away from me) cost me around $4 and $5 for shipping)

waited for a week, got the tool and started to create a new bios with correct mac and serial number (UUID is gone forever)

Flashed the bios again with moded bios with all the data. All started with g4400. NIC is working and all is great!!!

(“moded cpu” isolate 2 pins, short 2 pins with aluminium foil)

stick 8700k into the socket. No LUCK, the motherboard just would not start. Discord chat started with people willing to help. One guru of bios modding sent me a pre-made bios.

Flashed again, it is alive, post codes are changing and stop at AD. Nearly successfull post!!! The problem was nvme drive, changed it to normal sata drive and got this screen

window is up and running, 15 minutes later another bios is in the mail. Reflash it again. Windows booted from nvme drive. Great!!!!

however v-core is a bit too high. Rebooted, set it up to auto, disable multi-core enchantment, applied xmp profile.

and here it is: ram is at 3600mHz, cpu is at 4.5 v-core is 1,24 at max with aida stress test.

The temps are around 73c

With a crappy cooler such as This

Got to wait for vrm waterblock to arrive and will integrate it into existing rig

 

[MaratM]

Here is result without OC on 8700k

[Nicnac]

On 1/30/2018 at 8:44 PM, MaratM said:

SSD UPGRADE (NVMe SSD)

Today I finally recieved pci-e to m.2 adapter and installed Samsung 950pro

The adapter board was with an aluminium adonised heatsink (I thought it was cupper)

WHY IS THIS SO SEXY

 

lol

 

on the real tho why do they always have to be installed upside down

[MaratM]

12 hours ago, Nicnac said:

WHY IS THIS SO SEXY

 

lol

 

on the real tho why do they always have to be installed upside down

I've ordered a different heatsink for nvme drive.

[MaratM]

It is really got out of control

Almost ready for upgrade

[Lagercat1]

3 minutes ago, MaratM said:

It is really got out of control

Almost ready for upgrade

What card is that? (just curious)