Guess what?

[clocker]

Boy, I must apologize for the massive brain fart I laid here yesterday.
Whew!

Allow me to explain.
Yesterday I said...

Although the tubing has not been substantially redone, for some reason I like it better. Believe me, I tried every combination I could think of, but the bend radius is a very limiting factor and this ended up being the most acceptable solution.

Sheesh, that still stinks.
While pondering the pics yesterday at work, I was troubled by the illogicality (is that even a word?) of the loop. The second, smaller rad really made no sense.
If there was going to be another radiator, the only intelligent place for it was right before the graphics card (the hottest component by far in the whole system), not just spliced into the loop willy-nilly for convenience sake.
Yesterday that didn't seem do-able because of bend limitations.

Then I realized my error...
I'm the one who mounted the rad with the barbs at the bottom and there was no reason they couldn't be at the top.
DOH!

This morning it took all of 30 minutes to redo the layout and achieve the ideal loop. Even shaved another 8" or so of tubing out of the system- that's a "good thing".

The new,logical layout now goes:
rez>pump>triple rad>HDDs>CPU>northbridge>single rad>GPU>rez.
Much better.

This is not as easy as it looks, kids.
The closer to completion one gets, the more constraints/obstructions there are to deal with.
Even in a case as voluminous as the Stacker I'm going to have to finesse the pump/reservoir placement to fit the technical and aesthetic requirements. I'll figure it out eventually but it's been harder to get to this stage than I imagined.
Humorously, I planned on 10 days...2 weeks at the outside, to pull off this entire transformation.

For anyone planning on going to watercooling, a bit of advice....use Tygon 3603 tubing. Most of the bends necessary to fit the loop would simply not have been possible with cheap, Home Depot vinyl hose. Lesser products tend to easily crimp and flatten thus limiting your design choices drastically.
If you're going to go high flow, large bore, Tygon is the only tube to use IMO.

My next project (WHAT!!?? You're already planning another one? Why not finish this one first, you moron?) will be a small bore/passive system and most of the tube routing issues do not apply there.
Should be a relief.

[clocker]

What a weird day.
Spent several hours machining a new reservoir then decided not to use it.

Went back to the little guy I'd had mounted before, despite misgivings about it's ability to bleed the loop. Well founded fears as it turns out.

Here's today's beauty shot...

This is after 2 hours of contortions convincing the air bubbles to come to the rez instead of hanging out with their buddies in obscure nooks and crannies.
Not easy and definitely no fun.

I think that subconsciously I was killing time with the rez instead of dealing with the front bezel, which I still haven't fully visualized. Can't decide whether or not I want to commit to having front USB/Firewire ports. Installing them properly will entail a lot of fiddly detail work and I'm just not in the mood.
Then again, I'm sure I'd appreciate them (especially the USB) if I did it.
It's really just a matter of flogging myself into starting.

Thankfully, DFI cleverly put On/Off/Reset buttons right on the motherboard so I can begin loading the OS without the front switchgear installed.
At least we'll get to see how the new, superduper cooling loop works...

[clocker]

Okay...this whole clusterfuck goes away tomorrow.
Not only do the aesthetics disappoint me but the loop is impossible to bleed.
The sound of air bubbles trapped in the big radiator is very distracting and this system needs to be as silent as possible.

In order to simplify things the HDD blocks go away as does the northbridge waterblock, leaving just the CPU and GPU in the loop.
The Thermochill 120.3 goes back to the casefloor and the pump mounts to the backplane in the stock 120mm fan hole.
I'm going to use the Lian-li HDD rack that I bought for the drives in the (soon to be) empty front bay.
Life will be much simpler.

Naturally, the entire case has to be disassembled and significantly rewired to accomplish this, but what the hey.

This might be a new record for me...a loop that was only in place for 24 hours.

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[sArA]

Okay...this whole clusterfuck goes away tomorrow.
Not only do the aesthetics disappoint me but the loop is impossible to bleed.
The sound of air bubbles trapped in the big radiator is very distracting and this system needs to be as silent as possible.
Naturally, the entire case has to be disassembled and significantly rewired to accomplish this, but what the hey.

This might be a new record for me...a loop that was only in place for 24 hours.

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Bugger.....


That said, as always...with curiosity and incredulity I await the next installment of 'Clocker, Sprocket and their amazing comp-modding adventures'.

[j2k4]

...I was troubled by the illogicality (is that even a word?) of the loop...

Illogic suffices, sir.

The only area I can help with...sorry.

[clocker]

Thanks, Spock.

[j2k4]

Thanks, Spock.

[clocker]

Well, as usual, the best laid plans of mice and yada, yada, yada...

Moving the radiator to the casefloor was a wee bit more difficult than I'd planned on.
Oh, everything fit- I'd carefully measured and knew what had to be trimmed and where exactly the rad had to be placed, the problem was that I'd taken these measurements with everything in place and I couldn't assemble the damn thing.
The rad is mounted to the plexi sub-floor, a fairly close fitting piece.
In order to install this assembly the motherboard/backplane must be removed.
No prob, thunk I.
And it wasn't.

Till I tried to reinstall the motherboard tray and just couldn't do it.
Coolermaster, in their infinite wisdom, doesn't just slide this unit into place...on noes.
It levers and pivots and if you hold your mouth just right, finally lines up with it's fifteen mounting screws. By way of comparison, the entire front suspension (struts, steering, et al) of my Z is attached with 10 bolts.
I guess that CM was concerned that the motherboard might try to escape the case or something.

I tried every possible contortion imaginable (all the while risking my virgin paintjob) trying to get the damn thing installed.
Finally gave up and tried a whole new, less elegant solution.

Put studs into the casefloor panel (required making a whole new piece) and now the radiator is the last part installed.
A royal PITA to do but it worked.

Can't wait to see what the next major roadblock will be.

Now there is another big decision to make...keep the northbridge waterblock or no?
It's inclusion makes the tube routing crankier (refer to earlier pics above) and almost certainly impacts the GPU temps, but nF4 northbridges tend to run hot and the block really did help.
Keeping it does mean running the vid card in PCI-e slot #2 though which causes a theoretical performance hit and also will cause crowding of the new X-Fi soundcard that arrives tomorrow.
Sigh.

On a happier note...I had decided to mount the HDDs in the Lian-li drive cage which was just sitting gathering dust. The brushed alloy front would look great in the Stacker and it has a 120mm fan for cooling, so what could be better?
Well, having the mounting holes line up with the Stacker drive bay would have been nice.
The LL bays have slotted screw mounts, so in a fit of whimsy they decided to use weird spacing...works perfectly with their case but not anyone else's.
Fortunately, I know how to drill and tap aluminum (imagine that!) so tthis issue was easily solved.

And finally...
Two days ago, after finally getting Sprocket up and running (remember that brief moment of triumph?), I had reinstalled Windows on the new 74GB Raptor.
Naturally, I neglected to first break the (old) RAID array, so the BIOS went limp trying to detect it.
Oh hell, think I, I'll just reset CMOS (say bye-bye to my hard won RAM settings), that'll solve the problem.
Which it did.
Windows goes in and all seems right with my world.

I wanted to install SP2 (which till now I've avoided cause it's so naggy) because Creative requires it for the X-Fi install (we're gonna see about that)...and that went well also. Till it ate my cursor.
Imagine that...Microsoft's Service Pack kills Microsoft's wireless mouse.
Quel surprise.
A PS2 mouse and a patch and all is good.
Ahhhh, almost.

When I reset CMOS it defaulted back to 1/1/2005 as the system date.
Normally I would have caught it but as you might imagine, I've been a bit frazzled.
So I changed it after I was in Windows.
Next time I booted the machine I was locked out- Windows thought I had exceeded the 30 day period to validate the OS and would I care to do so now?
NO!...I would NOT, thanking you very much.
I haven't been able to validate over the Internet for over a year...Sprocket has undergone so many changes that each validation requires the excruciating telephone procedure.
You know the one...you repeat your PID to a machine which inevitably responds that it can't help you and the entire process is repeated to a bored human being. Who gives you a new code to enter.
And there is a half hour of your life shot to hell.

So I get to do that after I conquer my hardware issues.

I'll be sure to post pics of me with an icepick in my eye...the best way of distracting myself from the agony of dealing with Microsoft.
We'll all share a good laugh.

[Virtualbody1234]

Argh! Just use the Corp Edition and be done with it already. I know you want to stick with the idea of using your "official" version but why make it hard on yourself? If ever they bother you saying that you don't have a real Windows then just show them the real one.




I noticed a clue...

By way of comparison, the entire front suspension (struts, steering, et al) of my Z is attached with 10 bolts.

[clocker]

A clue to what?