Rig Pimpage IV : Revenge of the Blaquagate

[Electronic Punk]

Rig Pimpage:
http://www.coolermaster.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=47812&highlight=#47812

Rig Pimpage 2:
http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=80126

Well work has begun on what is most likely (and hopefully) that last rimpage on Iguana, my Preatorian based system. Why Blaquagate? Well the Aquagate only comes as silver, but after some careful dismantling it is now black and looking pretty damn nice.

A big thanks to Coolermaster (Bryant and Yolanda) for getting me the last few parts I needed, that were simply not available in the UK - so I picked them up from CES with a fair share of Tshirts, hats, caps, pens and bottleopeners as well as a few SATA cables that may well go in my other rig at some point (becuase they are red.. ?)

So what are we starting with?

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So a fairy basic system at the moment and pretty damn tidy if I do say so myself. Notice in shot one how the current CPU cooler is almost bulging out of the case only saved by a grill - it wouldn't fit otherwise and a little work had to be done to the side of the case to make sure it would all work out. Also notice that in shot 2 I still have a nasty cream DVD burner - something that just has to be fixed.

So what am I going to be doing over the next few days?

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The first shot shows the sprayed Aquagate and the replacement DVD writer both black of course to make the front look good. Only the front of the Aquagate has been sprayed (all parts were sprayed seperately and it is completely unblemished. I had previously taken it completely apart and cleaned what I could as well as replacing the fan. The second shot shows the 3 coolers I will be installing - from left to right: GPU cooler for my NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, a Northbridge cooler and an Aquaturtle to cool the hard drive. Lastly todays music selection, something that arrived from Germany today - the new Picotto double album. Gonna go with CD2 today which is more chilled out.

So lets get started with the graphics card...

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[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

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The courtesy before shot showing the current cooling solution - the Arctic Cooling NVSilencer 5 a damn nice cooler that is both quieter and cooler at both idle and loaded than the stock cooler that came with the 6800 - the cooling in the generation was much improved and infact similar to the Arctic Cooling method. And removed, showing the remnants of the Arctic Silver 5 and Ceramique on the GPU and memory respecively. So I cleaned that up a little and added the memory heatsyncs - fairly easy to mount. The screws fit to the heatsync nicely before they reach a certain distance locking the springs in place and it can be fitted by carefully lining up with the relevent holes. A similar routine with the GPU block and the GPU is ready to be refitted and have it's tubes connected (and secured using the supplied parts)

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The hard drive cooler was even easier to fit, although I thought there was going to be a few complications because of the Zalman cooler I have also fitted to it (which is also designed to reduce vibration noises) but it all came together with four screws to create what could become the most cooled IDE hard drive ever.

So thats part one, the fun parts are still to come with the northbridge cooler, fitting the Aquagate itself, the joy of tubes, adding and then hiding more cables inside my case, finding a nice place for the controller card and then figuring out how I can get it filled up easily.

Stay tuned!

 

[Steevo]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Nice. But a white drive?

They make paint. Really.

 

[falconguard]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

You seriously need a girlfriend....you uber-geek!:laugh:


Just to give you something else to spend you money on.

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Was thinking of spraying the drive (or even regretting *throwing away* the hot swappable black cover) but there are parts of it that are transparent and parts that are grey... its just too pretty to be sprayed, also has rubber on it so I am sure that would be a nitemare.

falconguard: yeah I know, maybe when I have done all the upgrades ever I will go outside.

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

I did a little more work which I was dreading, removing the motherboard and getting the northbridge cooler in place as well as a few of the tubes, didn't take any shots though as I am lazy.

Also managed to remove the white ended connectors that go into the Aquagate from the old tubes - those things really don't like being removed at all! Was so tired after that, couldn't go any further!

Today I have done quite alot, including getting all the tubes cut and fitted and reconnecting the minimal amount needed to test things.

When I was putting things back together, it became clear that there was not enough room to fit the hard drive with the additional Zalman cooler so sadly it came off, I also had to move the hard drive right to the top as I couldn't fit the Aquagate in properly because of the fan that sits at the top of the case. Was easily moved though and won't cause me any more problems.

Having just returned from Las Vegas I am obviously into the whole betting thing so I decided to do the leak test with all the hardware in place, paid off though! But obviously could have gone very wrong.

When I turned it on it made a hell of a noise as well as beeping and I was rather upset thinking I had done something rather wrong, but it could have just been a low liquid warning (does it have that?) because as I topped it up as liquid started passing around the system it soon went off. The gushing noise, that also had me quite concerned as well soon stopped and I was quite please at how quiet it was even with both sides removed.

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The internal view is still quite messy and ridden with finger prints and muck, but obviously not of too much concern at the moment as I can tidy that up once I am happy (and I am now happy) that things are working.

There are still quite a few pockets or air inside the system so I won't be closing it up until I have had the chance to "shake" the case a little and finish topping up the Aquagate. I decided to leave enough spare tubing so that I would have the ability to pull out the Aquagate without having to disconnect it, this seems to work quite well and gave me a little more room to hide tubes, for example pushed one around the behind the CPU cooler, which is fine.

The Aquagate took a bit of a bash at some point and a little paint has chipped off but I will be able to touch that up with no problems once I am closer to finishing up.

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Obviously the PCI card thinger isn't in yet, not sure what I am gonna do with it yet, fix it to a slot or remove the backplate and try and hide it? Either way it will look lovely when I am done! But it can just sit where it is for the time being, I don't think I am going to use the sensor to check any important temperatures - I can keep an eye on the system by looking at the water tank temperature and all seems to be well at the moment.

 

[Steevo]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Nice dog. When you are done there I need some water cooling for my system.

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Copied and edited for content from my blog at www.electronicpunk.com

It was going so well but then disaster struck. I think I gave my PC a bit of whiplash when trying to get the air out. I ordered a motherboard and CPU last week but didn't have a chance to get it all sorted. It had been so long since I saw Vista that I really have to make it a priority.

So I found a little time to do what I was dreading to do, take my old motherboard out and replace it with a new motherboard. I made this easy for myself by effectively making it an upgrade. 3400+ --> 3700+ stunning eh?

Obviously taking a motherboard out is not the most fun you can have on a Sunday evening, especially when the graphics card is attached to the nortbridge with a cooler, so I had to remove the cooler from the motherboard first while keeping the graphics card out while remember that both of those were attached to the hard drive and liquid cooling unit, respectively.

I managed to do it though with a little help. I then had to remount the Nortbridge cooler while the motherboard was still unattached while taking care of a loose 6800 Ultra that was left flapping around. All went well though and after carefully putting everything back into place... would it boot?

No. What did I expect? I bought the motherboard on eBay for £25 - it came in the wrong box and looked like the static package had been opened. But it had got further, it would actually power up! I removed the graphics card - twice and then eventually it posted - damage perhaps from the enormous cooler that it used to have (replaced now of course with the nice lightweight one) and it posted and booted into Windows Vista, awesome.

Work since the last shots obviously includes the new CPU and motherboard, I have also taken a little time to feed more wires around the back carefully and it is starting to look really nice indeed. I am still a little concerned that there is air inside the watercooling system, but I am not going to make the same mistake twice and shake it, I will just let it deal with the air itself and take a look at it now and then and properly fill the resovoir. The front of the LCU also managed to take a bit of damage but that can be easily sorted.

I also reconnected the CDROM and wired it into the motherboard with an additional IDE cable, but even then it still looks alot tidier than the most up to date screenshot on this site.

I will take a few more tonight, but I still have a bit of work to do, but from the open side it is starting to look fairly complete, the hardest part now is finding a way of connecting the power into the LCU itself to try and maintain the minimalist look I always strive for. I can either drill a hole in the backside and feed it throught there and make it completely invisible or find a way to feed it through the front, I think it is going to have to be the first option as it will make things alot tidier.

I will try and post some updated shots when I can and I just know you are looking forward to them! ;D

 

[Aprox]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

So EP I see you are cooling your CPU, GPU and looks like HD.. are you doing that all off the Cooler Master Aquagate? Or do you have additional radiators in the system at all?

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Straight from the Aquagate LCU no additional.
The CPU is not being cooled by the Aquagate, but the Northbridge is.

The CPU so cooled by a Hyper6+

 

[Aprox]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Oh ok, That just seems like it might be a stretch for the Aquagate to handle... both the GPU and the NB can get very hot. Are you doing any OC?

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

No complete stock, I know the GPU will get hot and that is the hottest thing I am sure.

I don't think the Northbridge will get too hot because it originally had passive cooling.

 

[Aprox]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Hmm, well good luck. I had the Aquagate myself, and it seemed its heat capacity was quite small... but its a lot hotter here in California then it is in the UK so that will work in your favor. Looking forward to your results

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

I am still waiting for any little air that might remain in there to collect in the LCU before I start applying a little pressure.

Quite happy so far.
Did get freaked out after I put the new motherboard in that it was running a little hotter than it should - but then realised thats because it was a newer CPU ;p

 

[ShepsCrook]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Well, I have to say, you need to work on the cable management. And it would appear as though you have a thing for Coolermaster...

Some nice work on the H20 setup.

 

[Electronic Punk]

Re: Rig Pimpage III : Blaquagate

Think Coolermaster are great ;D

Woo for bumping threads, but I finally managed to get some snaps done the other night while I was installing the last version of Vista so I could test something in Internet Explorer 7 iwthout having to install it on my main rig, anway...

I'd like to think that this:
http://www.electronicpunk.com/rigpimpage365/images/inside1.JPG
is slightly better than:
http://www.electronicpunk.com/rigpimpage2/17_Internal_View.jpg

Just noticed I need to throw in more of those tacky blue things, I took out the Audigy2 and smashed it. Was that wrong? Well it annoyed me, what can I say - would fail if my PC was ever and caused all kinds of problems.

Anyway, pretty please with how it all worked out even tho I was only supposed to have this as a test rig and not pimp it out at all, shame it has no sidewindow but I think how closely it fits together an the feign blue glow where the healtsync lets light escape works really well.

For more shots in funky slideshow format, check out:
http://www.electronicpunk.com
or http://www.electronicpunk.com/rigpimpage365/

Pics alone can be found at:
http://www.electronicpunk.com/rigpimpage365/images/

Once again thanks to Bryant and co. for bringing me the parts to CES, otherwise it would have just been another boring PC.

 

[Khayman]

how much did it all cost

 

[kcnychief]

Are those actually slot covers on un-used PCI slots? That's pretty damn cool!

 

[madmatt]

EP, beautiful setup. Absolutely B-E-A-UTIFUL.