Never ending build Lian Li pc-q37 htpc

[MaratM]

It’s all started around a year and a half ago, I’ve decided to build a new pc, at the moment I had a kind of old pc

i7 920 with 6gb of ram and gtx750ti (gtx470 died) later I’ve made some minor upgrades to it (buld log) and managed to get it playing most of modern games, but before that I’ve bought some parts for htpc

First was the case Lian Li PC-Q37

To fit it in the living room it was slightly moded

It was planned to be fully watercooled

 

I’ve decided to make a “vertical” actually horizontal gpu mount to do the mock up I used “miniITX” motherboard, got it from a dead ancient office pc and a dead asus gtx470

[MaratM]

“motherboard” and vertical gpu bracket is installed

in order to make better airflow I cut out most of the bottom (side) panel of the case

A riser cable installd (leaheat)

Meanwhile some watercooling parts have arrived from Slovenia

Ek-asus z270 monobloc, full cover GTX FE waterblock and a small res

A bit later I’ve ordered a side aluminium panel for the case

After that the panels were painted with a few lairs of paint, wet sanded to flat finish and brushed with coarse sandpaper to get lian li finish

After that the project was placed on hold for around a year

[MaratM]

Finally I’ve ordored some parts

i7 8700k

Asus z370i mother board

EVGA GTX 1080 SC (not Ti)

Samsung 960evo 500gb boot drive

Samsung 860evo 500gb games and apps

Seagate 6tb hdd

Corsair sf600 psu

16gb of Corsair rgb ram 2x8

some noctua slim fans

Cooler Mastet downdraft cooler

for first the rig will be aircooled and later than a pump and fittings arrive it will be watercooled

nvme ssd installed

corsair rgb ram

evga gtx1080 sc

trying to get it all pluged in, but realised that I forgot the CPU at work

Cooler Master cooler placed ontop of the motherboard to figure out how to install it

[MaratM]

The cpu was installed and I run into problems the corsair rgb ram was too tall, there was not enough clearance for a good contact with the cpu

So the angle grinder came in handy

I had to shave off a few mm from the bottom of the cooler

Perfect!!!

First boot on the “test bench” (a mobo box) I’ve also changed the the Cooler Master fan to a Be Quiet sw3 (i had a few of them lying around for x58 build)

All is running and windows is about to get installed

All that was left to do was put it all into the case

The Lian Li case was carefuly brought home

[MaratM]

After the case was brought home all the parts were placed inside it in order to see if it all fits

The case had to be slightly “moded” once again

The hole for the EPS cable was not big enough

The original plan was to use 90 degrees HDMI cable/adapter, but I could not find one so I desided to mod the rear panel

Finally it was all assembled

The front panel extention was very handy

All that was left to do was a bit of cable managment

Cable mess detected

Most of the heavy files (games and programs) were copied to the new rig from the old one

All that is left to do is to tune up the system, however I’m not planning to overclock it untill the rest of watercooling gear will arrive

[MaratM]

The cable managment is done

The worst cable is the dual usb 3 header

Also i’ve installed 2 Noctua slim 120 fans

The bolts I bought were m4 20 mm and I’ve calculated that it will be enough, but I forgot that the fans are not mounted straight to the rad, but through the panel, so I had to improvise a bit

I’ve also played around with fan settings in bios and managed to get the fans as quiet as possible at idle. Now I’m planning the loop to order some fittings. I’ll stick to barrow fittings they are cheapper than everything else and have really good quality. Also some custom sleved cables would be nice.

I’ll add some pictures of the final aircooled rig then I clean the glass, cause it is a fingerprint magnet

 

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Looking good, that stock psu wires are kinda weird.

[MaratM]

6 hours ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

Looking good, that stock psu wires are kinda weird.

Thinking on getting a kit, but can not decide on the colour, probably black and white or black or white)

[MaratM]

Finally I installed my “htpc” there it belongs - in the living room

temperarly borrowed keyboard and mouse from my x58 rig,

I bought a corsair lapboard for it (k63 wireless and dark core wireless  mouse are on the way somewhere between US and Russia)

Installed few games and played them

Doom is “locked” to 200 fps on vulcan with all settings on ultra. On a old pioneer plasma 50” tv, looks great

But I decided to start hardwaremonitor while gaming

surprise!!!

CPU is easily hitting 80+ c and it is doom!!! It is not very cpu intensive game!!!

So i run aida64 stresstest just too see how bad is the coolermaster cooler

95-100 degrees on all cores

It is time to get out from the toolbox a chinese delidder (cost me around $10 from aliexpress) and Thermal grizzly conductonaut

Build quality is not the best, but it gets the job done with a little help from my wife’s hairdryer

I used buildzoid’s method of applying liquid metal

and placed the IHS on top of the cpu and fixed it with the socket lid

All was assembled back and I fired up aida64 stress test

the result was great -15-20c on all cores

Next step is to put all the watercooling parts on the system and order some fittings

 

 

[MaratM]

Upgraded mouse and keyboard to wireless ones.

Corsair K63 wireless and Corsair Dark core SE

Both of them were ordered from USA even with a ripoff shipping price it was cheapper than get them in Russia. The Russan keys were taken from K63 wired and K63 wired got a set of unbranded chinese keycaps

 

The old K63 with chinese keycaps

[Lunithy]

Always liked the Lian cases nice stuff.

[MaratM]

2 hours ago, Lunithy said:

Always liked the Lian cases nice stuff.

I’ve got 2 of them)))

[Zandvliet]

3 hours ago, Lunithy said:

Always liked the Lian cases nice stuff.

 

48 minutes ago, MaratM said:

I’ve got 2 of them)))

I love them too! I've got the PC-O6SX

[MaratM]

Just a teaser

when the time is right it is time to upgrade

first is the “monitor” it is capable to run 4k-60Hz, 1440p 120Hz and 1080p 120Hz

The second one is a mistery box

[MaratM]

The “monitor” was delivered this morning

Samsung 65” q9fn with local dimming, 120hz refresh rate at 1440p and all the other bells and whistled. Still waiting for the mistery box from Moscow.

[MaratM]

The mistery box arrived yesterday

A GTX 1080ti evga SC black edition

It is not new and it is from an "evil" miner, the price was around $450US (30 000 rubles) I took the gamble and it is indeed a working 1080ti, changed thermal paste, blew all the dust out ffrom the cooler and pluged it in.

It is not as fancy as SC2, but it is known that it is 100% compatible with EK-FE waterblock, and the waterblock is been on my shelf for almost a year.

Gaming on a 4k hdr tv is great, on top of that it is capable of 1440p 120Hz if something like Assassin's creed Odissey does not run at 60 FPS in 4K it is always possible to turn down the resolution. From 2-2.5 meters away it is not visible.

Next step is to watercool the rig. ordered some barrow fittings from aliexpress and now just have to wait for it,

[MaratM]

Finally!!!

a shue box full of fittings has arrived!!!

Let the fun begin!!

I’ve also got some cable extentions and some cable combs, should I paint them black or keep them bare aluminium?

P.S. I’ve got monoblock for the motherboard, 2 240 rads, full cover block for 1080ti, a d5 pump, a small res and hopefully enough tubing

[MaratM]

Work in progress

looks like this loop will have only one bend from monoblock to the res

need to drill a couple holes for the pci-e power cables, and the drain port at the bottom chamber

[LaserLion]

This has been really interesting to read and I'm looking forward to your progress! Good job so far.

[MaratM]

Custom cables are done

the cable combs are painted aluminium, custom cut by cnc laser.

The only custom cable is a 6+8 pci-e power, the others are extentions. I did not order enough pins and ordered extentions which are too short for the eps and mb cables.

[MaratM]

So far so good. Both waterclocks are properly installed

Did a little rgb upgrade ti the Founders edition block.

almost all of it is assembled all the cable managment is done, it is actually easier to build a pc with cable managment in mind. 

All is left is one more tube in the second chamber and I can start leak testing

 

 

[MaratM]

All bends (ONE) are done

The “bottom” chamber

Drain port

The “blow in” test showed some leaks (poorly tightened plugs on the GPU block)

All is left is add some water

The flow indicator is spinning (leak testing) not really nessesary to run it for a long time, but I spilled some water so might leave it running for a few hours.

P.S. The leak test showed me one leak, one of the bottom ports on the res

 

[MaratM]

Something went wrong!!! Looks like mobo is dead. The power light on and nothing happens. No post led, no rgb, tried to reset the cmos, used different psu, nothing. Hopefully will get a replacement from the seller

The cpu, ram and 2 ssd are fine. Just the mother board

[MaratM]

The mobo is sent to the seller, due to being the largest country in the world and some consumer protection laws it might take a while to get back a new one. So i decided to go nuts and make my very own distro plate. Thanks to my friends I have acces to laser cutter. This way I can make all holes alligned before sending the final design to the CNC mill.

getting all the tubes alligned

[MaratM]

I have designed the distro plate, looking for the cnc milling shop to get it done

Ordered some more fittings, rubber gasket (2mm) and lots of bolts, hope it will work and the milling shop will charge me a reasonable price