Red N White Army : First Water Cooled Build

[THFourteen]

So I didn't feel like my system was really in need of an upgrade but I wanted to scratch that PC building itch, so I decided it was time to try my hand at water cooling. 

 

And even though I'd not done it before why not start the hard way with a full custom loop and hardline tubing!

 

Now I have a full time job and a young child so my time is limited, this could take me a couple of months to finish so bear with me. 

 

Colour scheme, I really wanted Red and White, I struggled to find a completely white case so I have gone for the NZXT S340 which altho is black inside, has a nice big window and PSU she out which I really wanted. Plus £56 delivered in the UK is a bonus. So it'll be red white and black I guess. 

 

Pre existing parts :

i7 4790k

2x8GB HyperSavage RAM (Red)

600W Cooler Master Silent Power Pro PSU

PALIT 980 Ti Super Jetstream

Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD

 

New parts

MSI Gaming 5 Z97 Motherboard 

NZXT S340

 

Watercooling parts : TBC

[THFourteen]

Decision 1 : Choice of case

 

So I wanted a white case for obvious reasons, looked at a few, Bitfenix, Fractal, Phantoo (silver), but they all had things I didn't like about them, too much black, Windows too small, price. 

 

In in the end I settled on the NZXT S340 because I really liked the look of the case and although not specifically designed for custom loops, everyone likes an extra challenge right!?

 

One side note - given the time or skills i would LOVE to take the case apart and paint the insides white. However i feel like this is something that would a) take me far to long and b) be a frustrating experience for me (no DIY skills) so i'll have to give it a miss, and hope that there is a nicer all-white case next time i do an upgrade.

[THFourteen]

Motherboard fitting : looks alright altho definitely starting to look pretty black inside!

 

 

[THFourteen]

Radiators!

 

So building in this case requires some pretty detailed planning. 

 

I wanted to keep the cable bar, so the case leaves 58mm at the front for a 280mm radiator and fans. I have two noctua NF-A14s knocking around which I want to use, so the radiator needs to be 33mm or thinner. In the end I settled on the Black Ice GTS 280mm for the front also thanks to mod zoo who had an Internet pic of the same rad in the case. The magicool 280 might also have fit and been cheaper but the Black Ice reviews very well. 

 

At the back, although it should fit a 120mm radiator, you can't fit most 120mm radiators because they are too wide! I reckon you have about 126mm to work with if you don't want your rear rad hitting the window of the case or even not fitting at all. An alphacool Nexxos xt45 seems to fit the bill as its 124mm wide, also 45+25 fan = 70mm which means it won't poke out too much over the motherboard. 

 

You can't fit a radiator at the top at all, too much interference. 

 

Pics of the radiators fitting in the case. 

 

I'll probably reverse the order of radiator and fan on the back but I didn't have the right screws and also I haven't chosen the rear or top fan yet anyway. 

 

 

[THFourteen]

Next problem to tackle was the reservoir and pump. 

 

There is about 330mm between the radiator and the back of the case, and my 980ti is 280mm long so that doesn't leave much room for a full length reservoir. 

 

Think the the best I could do was to split the pump and the reservoir hopefully leaving enough space for the graphics card to poke in between. 

 

I wanted a D5 pump ideally as they are the best and it would last me for the future. 

[THFourteen]

So I ordered pump housing, top and reservoir from Barrow (eBay) and think it looks like there will be just enough room for the graphics card if the waterblock isn't too thick!

 

Think it it looks good - only small issue is the mounts are black instead of white. Might see if i can spray them red 

 

[THFourteen]

In terms of fans for the front radiator, i have two Noctua NF-A14's lying around so i was planning to use those. Only problem is the horrible colour scheme which doesn't match anything.

 

General concensus seems to be that painting these fans is a bad idea as they are finely balanced, and you cant take them apart.

 

So I figured if i taped off the fans and the inner housing i could just paint the outsides, which is essentially all anyone can see between the radiators and case. so that's what i did!

 

Results next - to be honest i think it achieved the desired effect, but it was a pain in the arse to tape all the fans off, not sure i'd do it again in a hurry.

 

I still need fans for the top exhaust and rear radiator - any suggestions as to what i might use that are either white, or easy to dissasemble and paint?

[THFourteen]

[THFourteen]

So finally had some decent weather to attempt to paint the radiators. Made quite a few mistakes so I'll list them out here as they might help other people doing this for the first time. 

 

I used a plastikote white primer after some scotch brite pad brushing, and then some plastikote red gloss. 

 

1) Wasn't sure I should admit to this but I was lazy designing something to hold them upright so I gorilla taped them off the coat hanger. The large radiator fell off when it was drying and has a dent in it now :-(

 

lesson learned don't be lazy. I did a leak test and think it's ok to use. 

 

2) painting outside sucks. I have no where else to paint them but the wind blows the paint around, stuff lands in the paint, and you have to wait till it's sunny which in the UK is like once a month.

 

3) I think as a result of paint blowing around it became hard to paint even coats and I ended up respraying difficult areas too many times so they aren't as good as I hoped. 

 

4) the red is also too bright perhaps I should have used a dark primer. 

[THFourteen]

Having said that as it's the first time I've done any painting I'm reasonably pleased with how they turned out! 

 

Here red are the pics!

 

 

[THFourteen]

So most of my parts have now arrived! I ordered :

 

Radiators:

Black Ice Nemesis GTS 280 (watercooling.co.uk ~ £60)

Alphacool Nexxos XT45 120mm (watercooling.co.uk ~50)

 

Waterblocks :

EK Titan X / 980 Ti plexi/copper (Amazon £80)

EK Supremacy EVO plexi (Amazon £51)

 

Other :

Clear Reservoir / Red Pump Housing + White Pump Top: Barrow (mizucooling ebay £61)

Mayhems X1 Clear Coolant 1L (£10.50 Amazon)

XSPC tube bending kit (Kikatek  £13.50)

EK Vardar F4-120-ER White (Kikatek £15)

Bitphoenix spectre pro white 120mm (Amazon £10)

Fittings : so far Barrow : 8xwhite compression fittings 2x white rotary fittings, 1x pump/res extending fitting (mizucooling ebay £41)

 

Waiting for :

Pump : Alphacool VPP655 D5 non PWM (aquatuning.co.uk £55+shipping)

Red Monsoon PETG x2 (aquatuning £30)

 

Extras :

EVGA G2 750W (£100 novatech - easily the nicest PSU I've ever owned and a massive upgrade on my very old old silent power pro 600W)

Silverstone white braided cable extensions (£21 for 4 Amazon)

NZXT S340 (£56 on Amazon)
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (£120 on Amazon - initially i got this for £80 on ebay second hand but it was damaged so had to return it)
 

Still to order : more fittings depending on test fittings, possibly screws for the radiator/fan combos i want to use.

 

Not sure what the rules are on recommending sellers here, but i did want to shout out to mizucooling on ebay, the fellow i chatted with was very friendly and put together a specially made order for me outside of ebay and delivered it in great time for low cost. I can't comment specifically on the Barrow fittings as i haven't used them yet, but they look nice at least!

 

So far about £5-600 project :-\ but also :-D

[THFourteen]

A couple of pictures for this evening, started putting a few things together in the case to see how it might come together. 

 

Pleased with the red and white effect of the radiators and fans, especially at the front!

 

Annoyed that the alphacool has fittings on both sides of the radiator- who the hell ever needs those?! It's causing an issue because the plug/ cap on it is pushing against the case so the radiator is not quite straight 

 

 

[THFourteen]

I need to paint those res mounts they are REALLY ugly!

 

also I'm not sure how all the builds I've watched say you should aim to just have one bend in your petg to make it easier. I can't for the life of me see any way to run even a single tube without at least two bends :-( nothing lines up at all. 

[THFourteen]

Just a small update, I haven't ditched this project - said it would take a while! CPU block is in, looks lovely

 

 

[THFourteen]

I've also ordered some red cable combs from kustompc. 

 

Fan wise, gone for a Bitfenix spectre 140mm up top and an ek vardar f4 for the rear rad, also in the same kustompc order

 

heh the cost of this build just goes up and up!

[THFourteen]

All the fittings washed and cleaned, thanks to my sponsor Eurolub for the distilled water hehe. 

 

Next step tonight hopefully fit the GPU block and install all the radiators... Will mean just the tubing to do. 

 

"Just"

[THFourteen]

[THFourteen]

Some more work done today, the GPU waterblock and backplate are in. Wishing they did a white one, guess I could spray paint it if I was that bothered.  

 

Radiators are also mounted, the second pic was me experimenting with a double fan on the rad but felt it was too close to the CPU block. 

 

The silverstone cables and red cable combs I think will look really good, just need to pull the cables out and train them as they are very stiff! Cable combs were from kustompcs, one didn't arrive so waiting for that in the post. 

 

One of the things I'm a bit worried about is that apart from the tubing I think we are pretty much there. Just need to find a way to mount the res and pump. 

 

But I have just come to the realisation that I have absolutely NO idea how to put the tubing in. I have a decent number of fittings but nothing seems to line up and every run will seemingly require multiple bends. 

 

Soft  tubing would have been SO much easier :-(

[THFourteen]

Res mounted. Think we are looking good.

 

have also picked out how I'm going to bend the tubes, there will be one soft tubing right in the back corner between the res and the radiator as space is really tight. 

 

There red will be four other tubes, one with two bends, one with one and one with dunno, one and a slight kink?

 

Also need to determine how to fit the drain port I have a valve but no 3way fitting so need to buy one.

 

Also I have 3 or 4 various rotary fittings looks like I won't find these that useful?

[THFourteen]

So the tubing at the back from the radiator to the reservoir looked too tight to even use soft tubing. 

 

I I had to get creative and I think this might work, now I just need to bend a u-bend!

 

 

[THFourteen]

DOH

 

i fell foul of monsoon tubing. 

 

The he tubing is advertised as 16mm but it's about 15.4mm and too loose in the fitting :-(

 

have to order more, gone for EK 1216 tubing hopefully that fits better. £30 wasted. 

 

Also my bending tool only works up to 14mm so I will have to bend all the tubes by hand with no bending tool which sucks. 

[THFourteen]

Had some time this weekend so started trying out some PETG bending. It's not as hard as I thought in terms of getting a usable tube but damn it's hard to get a nice bend without deforming the tube. 

 

Tried the spare monsoon tubing first, the silicon insert was far too loose and it went flat. 

 

The size of the insert is supposedly 11.5mm but the inner diameter of the monsoon tubing is ridiculously larger than 12mm

[THFourteen]

Had a little better luck when trying the EK tubing you can see the bend at the top left of the screen, looks better than the previous attempt, not perfect but with a limited supply of tubing I'll take it for now!

 

you can also see the three way fitting at the bottom of the picture which is where I will put in a drain port I think. 

[THFourteen]

So all the bends were done!

 

Not completely to my liking if I'm honest, I got better as I kept practicing but I ran out of tubing and I'm still dubious about the size of the silicone insert I have. 

 

However im satisfied with it, especially as I ran out of tubing (2m) and I will do them again in 6 months when I clean the loop. 

[THFourteen]

Oh and a picture of my bending kit - £79.99 if anyone is interested :-)