My first water cooled PC | Build Log

Travis · January 27, 2013

Well, after over a year, I finally began water cooling my computer. I have taken some pictures so I thought I'd share a sort of build log that is more of me going by my memory of what happened. If you do not want to read, you can just look at the pictures but that is not fun for you or me. I spent a lot of time typing this out.

November 7, 2011 - I bought the case I had been waiting for to be released. The Thermaltake Overseer RX-I. When I heard about it, I thought it was so cool and looked amazing so I was determined to buy it when it came out lol. I bought it from Amazon for $129.99

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November 25, 2011 - This is when I began the purchasing of the build. Yes, it's been awhile, I am aware. I should have saved until I had enough money straight up, but I chose the wrong way and rushed it. I wanted to get started even though I was low on money due to me just buying my car in late July. I tend to get too excited and impatient with computer stuff.

It was Black Friday so I was looking for some good Newegg deals, only to be disappointed.

120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD - $150 (It was a good price back then)

Intel 2600K - $319.99 with a promo gift card

Rosewill 1000W Bronze PSU - $89.99 (I should have got a better one but I liked the LED :P)

8GB G.SKILL Sniper series RAM @1866MHz - $44.99

This gave me a total of just over $600. After this though, I didn't continue to buy anything. I do not recall why but I must have had other things I was spending it on and couldn't afford any more computer parts.

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January 11, 2012 - I purchased more RAM so I had 16GB of my Sniper Series

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February 15, 2012 - I bought my motherboard. The Asus P8Z68 -V Pro Gen3. I got it from Newegg for 189.99. It's a great motherboard and I love the look of it. I really like this series from Asus and would buy the newer versions for sure if I ever needed to.

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February 2012 - At this point, I wanted to sell my old computer to get some money for my new one. I purchased a refurbished Seagate Barracuda 750GB for $72.99 to put in there so I didn't have to worry about any of my info being stolen. Unfortunately, my old computer was total garbage and nobody would pay me anything good for it. After awhile, I realized it would not sell so I gave up and decided to keep it as a spare.

June 16, 2012 - I bought a 256GB Crucial M4 for $179.99 and my video card, the EVGA superclocked GTX 680 for $527.55.

This was finally all that I needed to finish my build so I started putting it together. I spent time with cable management for my first time and it looked pretty good. At the time, a 2600K and GTX 680 were pretty much top of the line so I was very proud of it.

After I had finished, I had to save up money for watercooling. I had it planned already before I had built the computer so I knew I wanted to do it, even considering the price.

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July 27, 2012 - I bought half of my watercooling parts from Performance PCs.

I got a Black Ice GTX 240 radiator - $92.95

Swiftech MCP655 Special Edition pump - $92.95

PrimoChill Typhoon bay reservoir - $89.95

After I bought those, everything pretty much stopped as far as progress for a long time. I was starting my first semester of college soon so I didn't have a lot of extra money to spend.

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August 8, 2012 - I was looking at my watercooling parts with my case and realized I could never fit the radiator on the top of the case with the RAM being so tall. I purchased different heat spreaders from Newegg to replace the Sniper Series stock ones. I know that removing stock heat spreaders voids warranties but I found out why.

While removing it I had actually managed to rip off and entire memory chip from the DIMM. The thermal tape, or whatever it is, was apparently considerably stronger than their soldering job. Needless to say, I was not getting a new stick from G.SKILL. So I put new spreaders on the three good sticks I had and continued on with only 12GB of RAM.

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November 16, 2012 - I bought two monitors from Newegg. They are Dell 23" LED backlit, IPS panels that I got for $250 each. I was previously running on two 22" Asus monitors and my original 20" Acer from my first build but I really wanted IPS panels because they would look so much better with the different angles associated with my multiple-monitor setup. I replaced the old Acer and a single Asus one and ran the two Dell IPS panels with my Asus one to the left.

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December 2012 - This is when I really started to kick off my build. Instead of finishing my watercooling right away though, I kept upgrading other parts. I bought 32GB of Kingston HyperX @1600MHz off of Amazon for $249.99 to put in my rig. I used the Sniper Series on my old computer then.

I also purchased a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD for $249.99. I had the M4 but I really want a computer with all flash storage in it since it's just so much faster.

Later in December, my inner audiophile came out. I purchased from Amazon, an Asus Xonar ST sound card - $199.98

Sennheiser HD600 headphones - $390

Condenser microphone - $29.99

It was by far one of my favorite purchases. The sound quality from those headphones off that sound card is absolutely mind blowing. I have never heard Pink Floyd sound so good until I heard them in FLAC through those headphones.

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The downside to this purchase though, was me installing the sound card itself. Anyone who knows about computers would say you shouldn't mess with the internal components when it is turned on. It is common sense. Well, I do not care about common sense and I like to do it anyways when I do not want to deal with shutting it down. Well, I was trying to install the sound card but it wasn't going to work with it turned on (I had realized lol) so I tried unplugging the molex power cord and it was really stuck so when it finally came loose, my hand slipped and a part of the sound card made contact with my motherboard, making my computer instantly turn off. I tried booting it only to find a "VGA LED" light up on my motherboard. I had hoped I didn't break my 680. I swapped it out for the 6870 in my other computer and I still got no display. I assumed I had shorted out a connection with the PCI slot. I sent it in for an RMA to Asus. I was not happy that day.

After that, I took my 680 and put it into my Core 2 Duo, old computer build. I started using that computer instead. (Which is still the one I am typing this with).

In very late December, I purchased the rest of my water cooling components from Performance PCs and some from Newegg.

I bought an XSPC Raystorm waterblock - $49.99

Koolance quick disconnect fittings - $167.89 (That might seem like a lot for just fitting but man, these things are amazing. I highly suggest them to anyone water cooling. They are super slick.)

10 feet of PrimoFlex Blue UV tubing - $27.50

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From Newegg I bought two Silverstone Air Penetrators for my radiator fans. They are great quality fans and worth the $15 for each of them.

I also purchased a new case, the Corsair C70 for $139.99. I had realized that my Thermaltake case was not great for what I was planning to do with it and it was just too big. I like having portability as an option with my computers so the C70's handles were a great addition.

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These components showed up before my motherboard was returned of course so I had everything ready but I was at the mercy of Asus' RMA department.

January 2013 - Now we come to the present. I got a package from Asus yesterday so I began returning my build to it's former glory with water cooling added. I could finally finish my project, almost 2 years in the making.

I mounted the motherboard and mounted water cooling components. I was having a hard time with the radiator, however. While the C70 is a great case for even 240mm radiators, it does not fare so well with ones as thick as the one I purchased. Reluctantly I accepted that I had to mount the radiator on top of my case. I had all the parts mounted and I wanted to get the tubing started until I tried using the Koolance hose clamps they had provided. They were impossible to fit around the tube and they were way to tight if you managed it. I decided to take a trip to Microcenter and picked up my friend on the way. I bought some plastic ratchet type clamps instead and they worked like a charm. With the help of my friend we connected all the tubing and everything. We were ready to start bleeding the system. All we needed to do was hot wire the PSU so it would send power to the pump.

It decided not to. After much testing of different wires and everything, I got out my volt meter to realize my power supply was not sending power to almost anything. I then realized the "motherboard short" issue I previously had was now also a PSU issue. With no power supply, progress was pretty hopeless but I wanted to at least get water inside of the system. We connected the pump to the molex of my old computer and booted it up. I was not actually bleeding it from the tallest poin in my loop which made it very difficult. Me and my friend also realized that I had not put my reservoir together properly with o-rings so it liked to drip a lot of water. I was ready for everything this time and paper towels caught anything that dripped.

After an hour of fiddling with everything to get the air out, we finished. My loop is now full of distilled water and all I need is to go buy a new power supply tomorrow from Microcenter. Then I will redo my cable management and this thing should be up and running in no time.

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I bought this new power supply off of Amazon the other day. I took out my other one and installed this one. It really made me appreciate the quality of Seasonic power supplies over others. It was so easy and convenient. I love it so far.

After i had everything together, I attempted to boot up but I am finding a few issues with my front I/O. Sometimes one of the connections goes bad and stops the boot. I will look into it more but I use the power button Asus has on my motherboard for the time being. Anyways, I tried to boot up and found that the VGA error LED that was lit up before when I had sent it back to Asus was lit up. Again.

I promptly called Asus so I could sit on hold for 30 minutes. I talked to a guy and I asked him what exactly happened with my RMA and if I got the same board back. He said "Yeah they sent your same board back. It looks like they updated the BIOS." Now anyone who knows something about computer should be outraged right about now after reading that. I told Asus in my RMA request that there was an electrical short on my motherboard. They decided that the proper fix was a BIOS update. I was furious but I know support guys can't do anything. I saved my anger for later. So I have now had to disconnect my watercooling (made easy by my Koolance quick-disconnects, thank god I bought those) and remove my motherboard again until they send me a brand new one to replace mine.

So to anyone buying Asus products, they are amazing quality. Some of the best in fact, you just have to accept the fact that if it breaks, your life is in the hands of a bunch of utterly useless support teams. I have heard way too many bad stories about Asus support. Yet, they claim to have so many awards for it.

After receiving a brand new motherboard I finally hooked everything up and am glad it's finally done. I am currently on a quick overclock to 4.7GHz but I plan to go above 5.0.

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Here is the final product of these years of component purchases. It is my build from the Overclock.net RigBuilder.

First Water Cooling

Total Build Worth (including all peripherals and things I did not spend money on)

$4,172.63