First custom water loop

[Daneger]

Sprung a leak Few more details in post 12

 

Most of the parts here, looked like a lot until I put them on the desk.

 

 

The final result

Made some mistakes and bending the acrylic had its frustrating moments. In the end I had a lot of fun building it and learning about new things (water loop) and that's what this build is all about.  Couple of the mistakes will be corrected when it come time to drain and flush the loop, or I get mad and just drain and fix because lol.

 

Basic specs

 

Motherboard - Asus x99-Deluxe

CPU - Intel I7 5930k

GPU - EVGA 980 SC x 2

SSD - Samsung EVO 850 250GB x 3 (Raid 0)

Memory - 16 GB Kingston HyperX Predator 

PSU - Corsair RM1000W

 

In case anyone was interested here is the partpicker link.  Almost everything is there, couple fittings that I bought after the build started.

 

 

 

[slifer]

Amazing job! How did you do all the measurements and everything for the bending?

[Altecice]

Looks great!, Much better than my first loop  B)

[niofalpha]

What temps you getting on the CPU and GPU's? 

[Daneger]

Amazing job! How did you do all the measurements and everything for the bending?

 

Rough measurement with measuring tape, then trial and error till I got what I needed(got better the more bends I did).  There were more than a few errors (bad measurment, over heat acrylic).  In the end I have 12' of acrylic left from the 30' I bought originally. 

Looks great!, Much better than my first loop  B)

Thanks, I actually tried on this one lol. Still some things I would like to change (custom PSU cables for one) but had to stop spending money on it.  

[Daneger]

What temps you getting on the CPU and GPU's? 

For the GPUs in valley benchmark I was hitting 70 Celsius on air during the pre build bench test. Now it hits 40 Celsius after several runs of it.  If I am gaming for a prolonged period of time (several hours or more) they usually hold in the 48-50 Celsius range.  For the cpu I didn't look at the temps pre build but now they idle around 35 Celsius (been running all day) and usually hit 40-45 while gaming for a while. This is with all the fans at their almost lowest settings, I hear the pump more than the fans most of the time.

[niofalpha]

For the GPUs in valley benchmark I was hitting 70 Celsius on air during the pre build bench test. Now it hits 40 Celsius after several runs of it.  If I am gaming for a prolonged period of time (several hours or more) they usually hold in the 48-50 Celsius range.  For the cpu I didn't look at the temps pre build but now they idle around 35 Celsius (been running all day) and usually hit 40-45 while gaming for a while. This is with all the fans at their almost lowest settings, I hear the pump more than the fans most of the time.

Under full load, what is the CPU hitting?

[slifer]

Rough measurement with measuring tape, then trial and error till I got what I needed(got better the more bends I did).  There were more than a few errors (bad measurment, over heat acrylic).  In the end I have 12' of acrylic left from the 30' I bought originally. 

Thanks, I actually tried on this one lol. Still some things I would like to change (custom PSU cables for one) but had to stop spending money on it.  

how did you manage to account for the bend radius? Which bending tool did you use? which fittings and what tubes?

[Daneger]

Under full load, what is the CPU hitting?

This is only a 10 min aida64 test.  Haven't really started OC on the CPU yet. Temp started at 37 Celsius. Oh, and the CPU fan is reading pump RPM.

 

[Daneger]

how did you manage to account for the bend radius? Which bending tool did you use? which fittings and what tubes?

I used the monsoon 1/2" (blue) mandrills.  I measured to the approx side of the fitting, and used that as the inside of the bend.  Seemed to work for me but there is probably a better way of doing it.  The fittings I am using are the PrimoChill​l 1/2" OD ​Rigid Revo​lver Compr​ession Dia​mond Knurl​ed Fitting​s.  As for the tubing, I ordered the 1/2" O.D. x 3/8" I.D. Clear acrylic tube from plasticworld.ca(hope I am allowed to put that here).  It worked good for me although there was the odd scuff mark from shipping (not individually wrapped).

[Daneger]

So bit of an update to those who are thinking about building a loop like this.  After several weeks one of the runs (lower rad to res) cracked and started leaking.  It was no big deal as there is nothing under the that tube but air filter.  Drained loop and refilled.  In my tilting the case to get air out I cracked another tube (run from cpu block to the cable side of the case). So drain again, bend and replace.  Computer has been running for 2 days now and I found another crack (lower rad to cable side of case), this one was probably done when I was fitting the top cable side of case to cpu block and I did not notice till now. I am not blaming the acrylic as this is my first custom loop and I probably heated the tubes to much (or not enough) before bending. Just a warning that new builders may want to consider PETG tubing as I read it is much more forgiving in terms of not cracking and ease of bending as it is not as susceptible to cracking from not being the perfect temperature.  

 

First Crack

 

Second Crack