Project FN-2187

Grosh · February 19, 2018

FN-2187

Because it’s the right thing to do…

Overview:

Hi all. After many years of craving for a show case PC I’ve finally decided to bite a bullet and build one. Due to space constrains I was limited to ITX size case but still wanted all the custom water cooling, RGB and tempered glass goodies.

I’ve picked up PC-Q37 from Lian-Li as I feel it is the only case manufacturer that has been on top of the mini ITX game. Some others (Phanteks) released some products recently and others are plainly ignoring small form factor “show” case market (looking at you Corsair)!

Decided to do custom water cooling loop for CPU and GPU with hard line PETG, never done anything like it, not even soft tube so it was a new challenge for me.

There are also custom-made cables as well as few small mods to the case.

For those curious FN-2187 is the Stormtrooper that denounced First Order and was later known as Finn. In my opinion it’s great how they show that even brainwashed kid, raised and trained to be emotionless soldier can have conscious and will to ‘do the right thing’.

Oh, and I love Star Wars ?

Below is the list of the currently owned and upcoming hardware for the build.

Parts:

Processor: De-lidded Intel Core i7 6700k
Motherboard: ASUS z170i Pro Gaming
Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) LPX 2400MHz
Graphics card: KFA2 (Galax) EX OC 1080ti
SSD: Sandisk Ultra II 480GB

SSD: Samsung 960 EVO 500GB
PSU: Corsair SF600

Cooling:
Controller: Corsair Commander Pro
CPU Block: EK-Supremacy EVO - Full Nickel
GPU Block: EK FC1080 GTX Ti - Full Nickel
GPU Black plate: EK-FC1080 GTX Ti Backplate – Nickel
Radiators: Magicool G2 Slim 240mm (x2)
Pump: D5 PWM sleeved with acrylic top (Aliexpress)
Reservoir: Barrow 180mm cylindrical with 50mm diameter (x2)
Radiator fans: Corsair HD120 RGB (x4)

Temperature sensor: Barrow G¼ extended sealing plug temperature sensor

Additional air supply fan: Noctua NH-R8 REDUX 1800RPM

Fittings: various Barrow
Hardline Tubing: 12mm OD Bitspower

Soft Tubing: Mayhems Ultra Clear 16/10mm
Cooling liquid: Mayhems Pastel – Dark Grey, distilled water

RGB:

Controller: Corsair Commander Pro (Corsair LINK)

Strips: Corsair addressable RGB strips

Fans: Corsair HD120 RGB fans

Keyboard: Corsair K70 LUX RGB MX Brown (CORSAIR – please release white version in Europe!)

Mouse: Corsair M65 RGB

Miscellaneous:

Cable Sleeving: custom lengths, black, white and red; parts ordered from Shakmods UK

Vertical GPU Mount: Cooler Master Mastercase Accessory Vertical GPU holder + riser cable

Monitor: Benq BL3200PT

Monitor 2: Acer Z35P

Speakers: Microlab 20W Bluetooth with NFC – White

Headphones: HyperX Cloud – White

Design ideas:

Initially I wanted to use EK Fluid Gaming aluminium set for cooling, what stopped me was issues with availability of fittings and radiators compatible with it. I should probably mention that I’ve been gathering parts for last 8 months and EK only released additional bits recently.

I’ve read every single thread I could find referring to water cooling in Lian-Li PC-Q37 and although few of them had dual 240 radiators all were struggling with cooling in comparison to similar setups in the larger cases. Main reason for this seemed to be placement of the bottom radiator with GPU constricting airflow acting basically like a heat shield. Moving GPU into vertical position seemed like obvious solution and after a while I came across newly released mount by CM, it looked like with a bit of modding it could resolve overheating issue. To achieve that I’ve cut ‘FN-2187’ out in the horizontal part of the mount allowing more airflow to fan below.

Vertically mounted graphic card would force quite a few 90 degree turns in the loop substantially restricting flow of the cooling liquid. Theoretically there was very simple solution to this, splitting flow in two by creating parallel CPU and GPU loop would allow to keep flow high while keeping pump rpms low. In my mind there was additional benefit to the idea of parallel loop, great visuals.

Q37 is on the larger side of the mini ITX cases and it has glass on two sides this means that cable management must be perfect as even the slightest mistake will be visible. I’ve decided to do custom sleeving for all main cables, i.e. 24pin ATX, 8pin ETS as well as 6 and 8pin PCI-E, upgrading wiring to 16AWG and cutting them to custom lengths. Colour scheme for the build is white and black with few subtle red accents and as PCI-E cables would be going across the GPU I used red in three channels referring to FN-2187 blood marks on the helmet.

Unfortunately, I did not document much of the build process to this date, but I’ll try to look through pictures I got and add some to the thread. Build is nowhere near completion as I’ll be painting case (or rather getting it painted by specialist) white and anodising three external panels white too. I also still need to work on the cable management in the back/hidden compartment as I want it to be as immaculate as front.

Currently there is a distilled water in the loop following leak testing as well as torture temperature tests. It will be replaced with Mayhems Pastel Dark Grey as soon as I’ve some spare time to do it. When drained I’ll redo PETG run from GPU to bottom radiator as it’s just slightly off the straight.

There is one more thing I’m thinking of modding in the case but as it’ll require specialist tooling and a lot of design work I need to put it on back burner for now.

Below is one, teaser photo of the build only done with my note 8. More photos to follow in next few weeks when I got time to dig my flash lamps and backgrounds out of the garage and set it all up.