[Build Log] Aurelia - 900D

HappyChubbs · August 27, 2017

Hello Everyone,

Was not sure if it would be a good idea to restart the old thread so I created a new thread with the continuation of my on-going, never ending build (Actually it will be ending). The following link is to the old build.

At the end of this thread either the board or the CPU perished. Was not able to test it separately since I could not find anyone else that had an Ivy Bridge compatible system. A little after the break I was able to purchase a i7-5930k and Rampage V Extreme (Thankfully there were no issues with the system). Then later down the line I replaced the two GTX 680s with two Titan X (Pascal). Still peeved the the official pascal Titan was released a few months later. Everything was put together and I went on my way...feel bad for not updating the post.

Below is what the system ended becoming.

As time passed I realized I was not completely satisfied with it. The tubing didn't exactly come out as well as I hoped and the area around the reservoir was lacking. So starting from December of last year, I started to plan out what I was going to do and finally finish this.

So lets get down to it. The biggest change to this setup will be changing all the soft tubing to hard tubing.

Current --> New

CPU: Intel i7-5930k --> Intel i7-6950X

Motherboard: Asus Maximus V Extreme --> Asus Maximus V Extreme Edition 10

Ram: Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz - 32GB --> Corsair Dominator Platinum 3200 MHz - 32GB

Main Drive: Samsung 950 Pro - 512GB

Storage: 2x - Samsung 850 Evo - 256GB

Samsung 850 Evo - 1TB

Western Digital 1TB

Graphics: 2x - Titan X (Pascal)

Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum

New Cooling

[Radiators]

Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 FullCopper 480mm

Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 FullCopper 240mm

[Blocks]

EK-FB ASUS R5-E10 Monoblock RGB Edition

2x - EK-FC TitanX Pascal-Copper Water Block with Acetal Top

[Fans]

14x - EK Vardar F3-120

2x - Corsair AF120 - Front Intake

Corsair AF 140 - Rear Intake

[Pump/Reservoir]

2x - D5 PWM

2x - Singularity Computers Protium

2x - Singularity Computers Protium D5 Pump Top

2x - Singularity Computers Protium D5 Pump Cover

Singularity Computers Dual Reservoir Panel – 900D

2x - Singularity Computers Ethereal Dual V3 Reservoir Mount

[Extras]

15x - EK-HDC Fitting 16mm

8x - EK-HDC Fitting 16mm

10x - EK-AF Angled 90

4x - EK-AF Extender 6mm M-M

2x - EK-AF T-Splitter 3F

EK-AF Ball Valve (10mm)

10x - EK-HD PETG Tube 12/16mm

2x - Mayhems White Pastel Concentrate 250ml

2x - Mayhems Red Pasted Concentrate 250ml

Picture of all the parts

There's some cabling equipment since I will be adding custom sleeves to the power cables.

The case now with all the parts removed and case cleaned. Cat hair gets EVERYWHERE!!!

The reservoirs are at the base of the case. Along with the mag tray.

Current Progress

Already did some painting of the reservoir and pump covers to match the color scheme. The mounting plate for the reservoir also has been painted. I forgot to take a pic of the parts before painting.

Felt like this was a little plain so I decided to jazz it up with some awesome stripes.

Surprisingly a red Gundam marker did the job really well.

Here is the pump in its cozy new housing.

Here is the pump/reservoir in all its glory.

Billy_Mays · August 27, 2017

Good job so far

HappyChubbs · August 28, 2017

Some more soldering tests to make sure I get the hang of it. Sacrificed two Coolermaster and one Noctua fan. Cutting the ends of the Noctua cable kind of hurt. Purpose of doing all this is to drastically reduce the amount of splitters and extenders needed for the fans. Also reduces the bulk of wire so cable management will be a bit easier.

This will be my second set of soldering. Counting all the connections it will be 32 total that I have ever done. If anyone has any advice or comments on the solder please let me know before I start going all out on the actual fans.

This is the result of the first run through connecting all the cables. None of the cables were really organized and had a hard keeping them separated.

Soldering the Noctua cables to the main line. So nice they color coordinate the wires. Realized that I should have turned of the helping hands lights when taking these pictures.

Soldering another line that will have the 4-pin connector.

Attaching the terminals. Somewhat annoying keeping them on the wire since they are so small.

After attaching the connector I hooked it up to my test power supply and let it run. It has been running for awhile and so far no smoke or sparks.

I think I am pretty confident with my soldering so the next step is to start daisy chaining these bad boys.

My next step will be testing the motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Should have done this first...oh well...

HappyChubbs · August 29, 2017

Installing the EKWB RGB Monoblock on the motherboard and testing everything to make sure it all boots.

Woohoo it posts. All RAM detected. So shiny.

Next step is... ... ...I am not too sure. It will be either start soldering the Vardar fans together, do some test bends for the hard tubing, or start putting some hardware back in the case and start measuring cable lengths.

HappyChubbs · August 31, 2017

The next step I decided to take was to solder all my fans together to get them ready for mounting and measuring out the sire to the fan controller.

Chopping up the Vardars.

Soldering the fans to the main wire. Really getting the hang of this.

The cable sleeves that I had could not fit over all the cables + heatshrink so I had to make due with some electrical tape. I think they came out pretty good. Kept the cables pretty organized.

First set of four done. Have two more sets of 4 and two more sets of 2.

Someone wanted to help...or attention.

And the last set of twists for the second set. My fingerstips are starting to get tender...

Got a lot more fans to go and since the process is identical to this I will not be updating until the next step.

HappyChubbs · September 8, 2017

Well I kind of skipped ahead and forgot to update this page. Basically went to the final steps. I decided to skip custom cabling the power sleeves until I get more practice in. Will use a spare power supply I have for testing. I forgot to document earlier testing but I managed to use about a third of the 25ft of sleeving I had. Would not have enough for everything in this build.

Currently the system is running with no leaks.

Here is the progress up to this point.

Getting motherboard in case.

Attaching fans and radiator. Radiators were cleaned with vinegar and distilled water. The leads were sleeved which came out really nice. For the PWM fans I could not fit all four cables in a single sleeve so I doubled up. The three pin fans were single albeit very tight.

Testing the water pump and housing to make sure there were no leaks.

Some bends for the line coming from the CPU to the Radiator. Also from the Reservoir to the CPU. For some reason in the back of my mind I thought this was going to be simple but getting the correct length and having it bend at the right spot proved me very wrong. Almost raged hard when the rubber tubing broke in the pipe while trying to take it out. You can see the rubber tubing on the bottom piece. Doing the CPU loop alone took me close to 7 hours.

The mounting plate for the Reservoir + Pump. Drilled two more holes near the top so I could add another bracket. Extra bracket is shown is later pictures.

Here is the completed loop. Surprisingly the GPU loop wasn't to bad. I did have a small leak with the 90 degree fitting coming out of the bottom card.,

Test run with the colored fluid.

The system now.

Looks like this is nearing the end of the build. I will get some better shots of the PC once Windows is done installing and I finish doing the leak test.

HappyChubbs · September 16, 2017

After a few days of leak testing it seems like she is good to go.

It looks so sexy with the lights. However, it was not meant to be. Once I set out to get a stable overclock I was doomed. First started out with a base OC of 4.0GHz at 1.200V and AVX Offset at 2. It ran through Prime95 26.6 and Aida64 for 30 minutes each reaching temps of 68 73 76 76 72 57 58 60 61 58 for each core. Looking at the temps for of the four cores I should have just stopped but I kept going. I did the same tests until I got to 4.2GHz at 1.246875V. It didn't fail Prime95 26.6 for 18 hours but it did fail Aida64 5 hours in. However there was another problem, the temps for the cores were 77 83 87 88 82 63 65 67 68 65. I know it could be normal for high core count CPUs to have a 5-10 degree difference between cores but 20 wasn't right. Thinking that I might have a bad spread between the heatsink and CPU I set out to drain the loop and re-seat it.

This is where it all goes horribly south. When the block was separated it didn't look bad. Forgot to take a pic but the spread was covering the whole CPU with no resemblance of air pockets or thick layers. Realizing that wasn't the issue, I reapplied the thermal paste and went to remounting. Once I was at the part to secure the heatsink with thumb screws I couldn't get a decent grip. So with my infinite wisdom I grabbed some pliers and went on to tightening. Following the cross pattern of tightening the screws I got to the last one... On the last turn I slipped...hard. Tip went straight across the back of the motherboard and ripped off a resistor. The damage is shown below, it seems so menial but in my mind I knew I just killed a $500 motherboard. But I wanted to be sure, so I continued to put everything back together and re-filled the loop.

Turned the PC on and... ... ...boot loop. Even with clearing CMOS I was not able to post. The PCIEX16_4_LED1 was constantly blinking and the Q-Code would reset at bd.

Defeated, I drained the loop once again and went on to re-installing my Rampage V Extreme and EK Supremacy Evo block. Luckily all I had to do was create one more bend from the CPU to the top radiator. Re-tested all my previous clocks but with a CPU Voltage of 1.253125V to compensate for the Aida64 failing. Re-did both tests and they didn't fail 18 hours in. Even better the temps were much reasonable at 60 66 68 69 64 57 58 60 60 56. Max difference only being 10 degrees between cores and 20 degrees cooler than the mono block. Also I realized that I got very lucky that I upgraded the BIOS to something that could handle the 6950X. If not I would have had to drain, install 5930K, update BIOS, re-install 6950X, and re-fill loop.

Now the system is up and running with out the pretty lighting. It seems so much darker than before but at least it is running. Here are some shots of it currently.