Liquid Cooling Overhaul - In Progress

[jasonvp]

I recently decided to replace my CoolerMaster Cosmos II case with a Corsair Obsidian 900D.  For water cooling in the Cosmos, I originally had a Swiftech H240x AIO at the top of the case with 2 Noctua 140mm fans pulling air through them.  Separately, I had an external Koolance 360mm rad/pump/res combo unit sitting on my desk with lines running into the case, cooling my 2 Titan X cards (equipped with EK's full-cover blocks).  Cooling performance was good, but noisy.  Having that Koolance rig on my desk especially added to the cacophony.  What I really wanted to do was package everything up inside the case and call it a day.  As large as the Cosmos II is, it really isn't large enough to accomplish what I wanted: more and larger rads!

 

Enter the beast from Corsair, a case that's been on the market for a few years and everyone knows about (except me, apparently, when I bought the Comos II... duh).  The word "large" doesn't begin to describe it properly.  "Cavernous" is probably better.  Anyway, I picked up 2 480mm x 60mm AlphaCool rads, a pile of Noctua high(er) pressure 120mm fans, and a Swiftech Maelstrom V2 pump/res combo.  There's a side story to the Maelstrom which I'll get to in a moment.  In my inventory, I had a Swiftech 280mm radiator, which I intended to add to the loop at the bottom of the case; remember those 2 140mm Noctuas I was using at the top of the Cosmos?  They'd work perfectly with the 280mm rad.  I don't do "pretty" colors when it comes to my PC, form follows function.  Clear tubing, and the liquid of choice: plain 'ol distilled water with a silver coil.  To top it all off, a pile of Swiftech quick-disconnect ends for the tubing, rads, blocks, and res.

 

Maelstrom aside:

I actually had the Maelstrom V2 purchased and installed in my Cosmos II prior to receiving all of the other goodies.  I wanted to put it through its paces in the old build by bypassing the Swiftech H240x and instead using that previously mentioned 280mm rad.  I was having a ton of trouble getting the pump in the Maelstrom to start sending fluid through the circuit, and the problem is the design: the pump's intake is actually upside down.  Instead of a gravity fed intake, it's a pressure (water weight) feed: the water presses itself into the intake chamber of the pump, and when there's enough pressure: up into the pump's intake.  The problem: air bubbles.  It's very easy for a large air bubble to form at the opening of the pump intake, thereby preventing it from pulling water from the res.  You won't see the air bubble, but you'll hear the pump start to strain because it's not moving fluid.  To solve this, I snagged a straw, stuck it down into the intake chamber of the res, sucked in a little distilled water, and then forced it back out.  Upon doing that a few times, the air bubble popped and the pump started moving fluid.

 

That's not all that happened.  I came home from work one day to the fantastic and well-known smell of magic smoke.  I ran upstairs to the office, and sure enough, the odor was coming from the PC.  Oh.  Shit.  It took me a little while of digging, but I eventually found the problem: the pump on the Maelstrom apparently tried to pull too much juice through its SATA power cable, and it literally melted the rubber insulation off of it.  The power supply did the exact right thing and immediately killed the PC's power.  Best as I can tell so far: nothing else was hurt.  But the stench was atrocious.

 

What that picture is failing to show is the actual exposed copper wire.  Whooooopsie.  Fortunately, Swiftech replaced it without any questions asked.

 

Anyway, on to the new build.  After getting the 3 radiators and all the associated fans installed, I stopped to take a quick snap:

 

Important to note that the 480mm rad wouldn't fit properly in the lower part of the case without first removing the bottom front fan from the case, along with the fan's bracket.  So the front of my case only has 2 intake fans (replaced w/2 Noctua 120mm ones) vs 3.  But that should be fine.

 

The replacement Maelstrom finally arrived yesterday, along with my new CPU block from EK.  The first thing I did with the Swiftech unit was to create a small loop between its output and one of its intakes, using the Swiftech QD ends.   I filled the res with distilled water, powered it up, and had to once again do the straw trick to help prime the pump.  But before too long, the water was circulating between the res' output and intake.  There: primed.  Time to install it.

 

Seen below is a very bad photo of the leak testing.  Bad because of the poor lighting: I was using an LED flashlight to try and illuminate the innards of the case:

 

The fluid path is Maelstrom -> CPU -> top rad -> GPUs -> bottom rad (large) -> bottom rad (small) -> Maelstrom.  I had a bunch of trouble with one of the QDs: naturally the one attached to the Maelstrom's output.  It started leaking when pressure was applied but would stop when I shut the pump off.  I removed the entire unit, took the QDs apart, reassembled them, and reinstalled.  So far, the troublemaker is holding up as I've seen no evidence of leakage from it.  If it does leak again, I'll remove it and replace it with a compression fitting.  I don't want to wait for Swiftech's slow-boat-from-California order processing and shipping.

 

So how's this all performing?  I don't know yet.  The rig is still sitting on the floor in my dining room, undergoing circulation and leak testing.  I want 100% confidence in that before I haul it back upstairs and start connecting stuff up.  I'll update the thread if folks are interested.