PC Water Cooling

[MadManCK]

Removing the stock cooler from the Titan X turns out to be a real nightmare. Already removed a gazillion tiny little annoying screws and bolts and it still seems to be stuck. Also i do not have all the proper tools for the job. Who designs these things anyway.

I will have to do some research and order the proper tools. I did find my fancy tube cutter though. That will make cutting the flex tubes a lot easier. It is designed to cut garden hoses, so no troubles with the waterloop tubes there.

This will leave me with some time to do some test fitting of the rads today.

Edit; i remembered a video from Gamers Nexus, where they made a watercool mod to test the Titan X(P).



Now i really want that toolkit

[Beardroid91]

Yea careful with those tiny suckers, a ton of reviewer snapped the small screws easily, but you should have the iFixit toolkit for this type of projects, i love my iFixit toolkit it has everything you could ever need for tech repairs etc.

Btw. do remember to flush the radiator and give it a few good shacks to get the nasty flux out of it, or you'll have a very bad time later on.

[MadManCK]

That epic wooden boxed iFixit toolbox was not on their site*. But i ordered a more modest one

https://eustore.ifixit.com/en/Tools/Too ... r-Kit.html



Will take a few days before it arrives.
I went to an electronics shop today and they had some stuff but not what i wanted or needed. This iFixit has all the precision tools you ever need.

*Edit; i found it
And cheaper than i thought it would be. So i ordered this one

https://eustore.ifixit.com/en/Tools/Too ... t-Kit.html

[Beardroid91]

Cool, i have the old version of the that set, and another Protech toolkit set,

I love my ProTech toolkit alot when i do pc stuff as it has all the bits i need, plus i got a good deal on it as LinusTechTips had a campagn with them.

My Protech toolkit



BTW you did remember to use one of the offer codes for iFixit discounts right ?

[MadManCK]

What codes?

Already finished the deal*. And their online shop is cheaper than Conrad for example.
But i grabbed the wooden box as it is awesome.

*As it is still processed, i can change it. If i want to.

Edit, nevermind, i'm happy with my purchase. That toolbox is just awesome

Some pictures of my Titan demolition job

[MadManCK]

That pro set is still on their site. Plenty of cool tools from iFixit.

Today i finally managed to strip the Titan X naked. There must have been a 100 little screws and bolts holding that thing together. And that is not exaggerated at all.

After having scrutinized the stock cooler and backplate, i´m a little disappointed with the Nvidia reference design. The coolblock itself is not that big, it does have a vapor chamber, but insufficient cooling surface to cool a monster chip like this.
The back plate was just for esthetics. And we all know from EVGA that a non thermal conductive backplate acts like an insulator.

So, i´m happy i got rid of that.

I went further with modifying the case to see if i can fit the big fat 60mm rad in the belly. After removing various floor parts, it finally fits. But barely. I also found some mounting rails to create a structure to mount the rad on. That will be a tight fit, squeezing the rad with 4 fans on it in there. But i will give it a shot. After all, that was my original idea anyway.
That will leave me with a much more simple top mounted 30mm radiator. And it will allow me to replace the top cover, so you do not see anything from the outside, as i wanted.

But the top holes are drilled wrong. So i might have to drill new ones, or shift it to the next fan holes. But than it will not be mounted with 8 but just 4 bolts. As the rad is on top, that might not be an issue.

I have very little working space here now and parts are everywhere. Tomorrow it will be extremely hot with temps reaching 36 degrees.

So i might escape to cooler places with drinks

PS I used compressed air to blow out the radiators

[Beardroid91]

Good bit of progress

Nice you made it fit in the bottom, more radiators is always best.

Btw has the plexy door for the Cosmos come yet? If so how does that look and feel?

Also i'm inching to buy a block for my GTX 1070 FTW, but i just can't swallow the pricetag of it for it, but i do miss my GPU being watercooled here in the summer, and i clearly have the radiator space for it, but when is EK having a sale on them

36*C damn, here it is only 17-19*C so just a nice temp.

[MadManCK]

Anything over 30 is already exceptional here. So tomorrow will be extremely hot. And Netherlands is also humid.

I got the plexiglass door a while back. And machined, black anodized aluminum rings to fit on them.These pro-modders are just crazy. Also some combs made from real carbon fibre. The plastic combs tend to break easy. But the carbon fibre ones are just awesome. I must have plenty of parts laying around, i do not even remember. But it is all there.
The door will be the very final piece to do.

Right now i have to figure out an easy way to improve airflow in the case. I might just simply turn around the rear case exit fan to an intake. I might have another 14cm fan somewhere. If not, i keep the black one. Or i will manually reduce the speed of the exit fan. Airflow might be just balanced as it is. 1x200mm intake, 2x120mm through the radiator above and one 140mm rear exit fan.
Cool part about the bottom section is that it is a separate chamber. And i will do directional airflow through it. That will not affect the rest of the case.

I will definitely skip the rear exit fan mounted radiator, as it will be above the motherboard and i like the looks of the motherboard. In addition to that, it would make maintenance on the board, plugging in wires and cleaning a lot more difficult. And tube management would look sloppy due to crossing tubes.

I need to figure the best way to mount the reservoir too.

But the project is coming along nicely.

[MadManCK]

Temps seem to hold for now, not exceeding the 30. Other parts of the country suffer from 36 tropical temps.

I continued with pre-mounting the rads and mounting rails. Immediately confronted with not enough mounting materials. I mean, come on. Only 8 bolts for fan mounting and another 8 for mounting the radiator are included with the HW Labs 240/60mm.
They even advertise themselves to do push pull with the Black Ice Extreme. So i nicked the bolts from another radiator.

These provided bolts are also on the short side. Obviously to prevent damaging the channels and fins of the radiator. But if you want to add noise dampeners or, in my case, mounting materials, you end up with a very short bolt end.

I was not impressed with the build quality of the highly acclaimed Vardar fans. I have 4 of them, but will be using the much higher quality BitFenix fans instead. These have a hard rubber mount on each corner, preventing vibrations and also enough flex to mount my rails. So i will use these in P/P in the belly. With the green leds active it will look nice as well.

The top section with the Motherboard will be completed with one of my large 200mm blue led fans. The rest will be RGB from the motherboard. Blue leds always look cool in a case, despite the green and RGB theme of the rest. It will also move a lot of air from the motherboard and through the 240/30 radiator on top. The 120mm pre-drilled openings of the case will act as a shroud, pushing all the air from the big fan through the radiator on top. And i can always add additional 2x120mm fans on top of that radiator, turning it into a P/P setup as well. But that is not really needed, as the Black Ice Nemesis is optimized for push configurations.
The 200mm fan will balance the airflow best, as the front intake is also 200mm. And i can use the 14cm exit fan to remove more air or push more inside if needed by turning it around.
Airflow management in a big case like this is very important. These huge fans move a lot of air at slow speeds and are never as noisy as the smaller ones

Pics later.

PS i came along this RGB led strip...
https://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/prod ... ic-rgb-led

[Beardroid91]

Hehe yea fan screws are super annoying they are always to long or to short.

And yes the Vardar fans is not the best but they get the job done well enough, but my 140mm 1800 rpm fans just vibrates alot at around the 1100 rpm mark, but they do push alot of fan through the radiator. But lol more fans / higher RPM means more dust build up, and i haven't cleaned my 420 rad since i put it in, and my pc is also dust as hell, but my pc is just so damn heavy to move around, but needs to be cleaned soon - so time to break my bag lifting it around.

But i think i'll go for a nice bike ride as it is a nice and chilly 17*c today, but with a high chance of heavy rain later on today.

Nice to see your build move in the right direction, i guess now you know why i planned everything out in my build before i made it, as stuff always pops up unexpected.

edit.
I actually have a RGB LED strip but now got around to mounting it, as i would need to wire it to PC power, but would be cool to change the lights color or just turn them off with the remote, might be my next project after i have cleaned it.