Old PC resurection on a budjet [Build Log] A watercooling thriller

[MaratM]

19 minutes ago, Lagercat1 said:

What card is that? (just curious)

Gtx 1080ti Strix with ekwb full cover waterblock all cost me just over 400usd (30 000 russian rubles)

[Lagercat1]

6 minutes ago, MaratM said:

Gtx 1080ti Strix with ekwb full cover waterblock all cost me just over 400usd (30 000 russian rubles)

damn nice card lol, also you got a reall good deal, i paid the same for my rtx 2060 strix

[MaratM]

6 minutes ago, Lagercat1 said:

damn nice card lol, also you got a reall good deal, i paid the same for my rtx 2060 strix

I can probably raytrace at the same level as 2060)))

[MaratM]

Today I've recieved one of the last parts for my "not really budget" upgrade

M.2 waterblock from China

it is RGB

PS The last part has arrived, it is very heavy and a bult like a tank. The system rebuild will start within a week time

[MaratM]

Started to work on the “new” rig

All 32 gb (4x8) of ram is installed, ssd waterblock is in place

even the ram is completely different (inside) 3200 cl 16 (hynix a-die) and 3600 cl 18 (samsung b-die) all 4 modules started at 3600 xmp and delivered very nice result

however it was unstable and i dropped it down to 3200

I decided to stay this way till it all be installed in the case

The vrm waterblock

was installed as well

The plastic cover does not fit perfectly but it can be easily solved with a dremmel

That is all for today

[MaratM]

The old loop is drained

installed the motherboard and made the first tube of the new loop

installed the gpu

Main problem was is lack of tube, I have 2x0,5 meters of new tube so I had to salvage as much tubes and bends from the old loop. (Still have not used the new one)

donated my reference blower style gtx980ti to my step son and installed evga 1080ti sc cooler on it

 

[CiBi]

Worst budget build ever, I LOVE IT!!!

[MaratM]

17 minutes ago, CiBi said:

Worst budget build ever, I LOVE IT!!!

The budget build is a “concept” that goes through the build in any aspect.

The motherboard cost me $90 new, I already had the 8700k and 16gb of RAM compare to last years RAM prices 16gb on top of that was a “budget” as well

Most of the watercooling gear was one sweet deal for $160 as a starting point of the watercooling adventure,

The case Lian li o11-d is a “budget case” compare to the original lian li lineup.

The strix gtx 1080ti with the waterblock was a steal of a deal for $450.

The budget has increased over time, but it was not one massive expense but the process of buying all the upgrades was spread in time and it did not affect my family budget.

[MaratM]

The loop is almost done.

Most of the loop is assembled, took me a lot of time to make it all as paralel and perpendicular as possible.

Need to dissasemble it all, check all the fittings, do all the cable managment, wash all watercooling gear. rearange 8+6 vga cable to 8+8 and few other minor things.

 

[MaratM]

Very slowly the rig is getting finished

GPU waterblock is properly installed

and slightly modded to make it RGB (I do not see a point of buying an RGB kit from EKWB for $60 if i can diy it for a fraction of the cost)

VGA power cable extension (6+8) is taken apart an reassembled to 8+8

Added another RGB strip next to the top rad and an LED to the res

All RGB is fully tested and working

I did not have a splitter so had to make my own

 

 

[Cola]

this is looking really good. And you are really good at DIY things!

[MaratM]

All tubes are washed, all fittings checked for damaged o-rings let the final loop assembly begin

the first tube installed

the second

cpu waterblock is connected

gpu is installed

I’ve almost started to fill up the loop, but before that I decided to pressure test it with air (da blow test)

Connected a hose to one of the ports on the res and blew into it as hard as I could. The “leak” was found instantly.

Previous owner used to run this gpu in triple SLI and then he was reassemble the waterblock he squashed the o-rings, I borrowed 2 o-rings from gtx-980ti waterblock and it solved the problem

Here is a picture of his insane rig

I’ve contacted the gpu seller last night, he has some spare gaskets and will post them to me. Was really surprised by his behavior, usually it is “sorry mate, it is second hand goods, piss off”

[MaratM]

Leaktest is passed with distilled water, not a single drop for 3 hours, cable management is also done, time to change the fluid and press the start button.

the rgb controller and pump is powered by external psu

[MaratM]

It is alive kind of

old samsung 950pro is not detected by windows, however 960 evo is perfectly working

tried to run aida64 stress test at 4,5 ghz, could not be bothered to play with overclocks, the result is very nice indeed, all cores under 60c, vrm is around 44c

 

[glenalz81]

How hot is it after 10-15min ?

[MaratM]

8 minutes ago, glenalz81 said:

How hot is it after 10-15min ?

Have not tried it, was trying to boot it to windows on 950pro, and it is a bit of pain in a butt to change m.2 drive with my setup.

managed to get it working with a different drive, run a quick test and switched it all off.

[glenalz81]

Hope you don't need much stripping down to get at the drive...Such a pain  

 

Love watching the progress    Got a little budget X58 project on the go myself atm, might be a while before i can step it up to an 8700k though.

 

 

 

Keep at it!

[MaratM]

9 hours ago, glenalz81 said:

Hope you don't need much stripping down to get at the drive...Such a pain  

The main problem is the m.2 bolt. It is aluminium or some kind of alloy and it is not magnetic. I found the way around it just using pci-e - m.2 adapter and it can be installed from the back of the pc, without tearing it all appart

[MaratM]

Was trying some oc a little bit

5.1 ghz crashed after 5 min of aida64

5.0 ghz survived for almost 20 minutes and I stopped

vrm temp was stable at 50c

all cores were around 75c with spikes up to 80c

still have not figured out how to start samsung 950 pro

Update:

water torture test (aida64+heaven) run stable for 30 minutes with coolant temp reaching 35c

ram is running at 3466 18-19-19-39 1.4 volts

cpu is stable at 5ghz 1.34 volts (around 70c)

gpu runs at around 2020 mhz with maxed out power limit and +60 on the core at around 40c

aquaero is tuned up - the pc is almost silent. 

[MaratM]

So I thought that it was a compatibility problem with 950 pro.

Trying to get my old windows working I cloned 950pro to 860evo and after that I cloned all data from 860evo to 960evo. The drive (960 evo) was not detected by bios at all, but it works in windows as another not bootable drive. Thus it was clear it is not custom UEFI issue niether 950pro compatibility. The solution was simple and elegant.

Due to the fact windows was installed on x58 system and it does not have UEFI but only legacy bios the drive was set up in MBR mode, which makes nvme drive not compatible with modern UEFI. I followed this instructions, however skipped the part with cloning disk, just changed MRB to GPT

AND

 

here is a screen of windows disk managment utility Samsung 950pro is detected as C drive (boot drive) and my old windows is up and running (I did not get windows activation watermark even though it is a free updated windows 10)

 

[MaratM]

The build is complete!

finally i had some time to drain the loop and install nvme ssd into m.2 slot.

here is some pictures of the finished build

(i hope so)

 

[MaratM]

More pictures with RGB

 

[raultherabbit]

This was a great build to read through!  Also super interesting to see since I use the same motherboard.

[MaratM]

A little update on the setup.

Due to the fact that all schools in Russia gone on quarantine my kids are staying at home and the teachers gone online (skype and other platforms) thus I had to get a second pc in kids bedroom. But LTT video from the past “1 tower 2 gamers” gave me an idea. To do a real virtual machines with unraid was a bit too complicated for me. After some research I found Asper a software capable of do the same thing but slightly different than unraid.

after trying it out at work (it is easily to get borrow a monitor and mouse and keyboard) I bought a simple 1080p monitor, 5meters hdmi cable and a logitech wireless mouse/keyboard combo. All was set up and the problem solved

main workplace

secondary one

the dual monitor - dual users setup