Verran's Armor / Water Cooling Worklog

[ir_cow]

i'm on my 3rd DFI NF4, still haven't found one that works very well. the one im using right now sits with 4 reds lights for about 5 minutes than boots and other ones did similar things. anyways DFI = crap but WC = heaven! just my thoughts on "the best board" keep those pictures coming!

Edited July 23, 2009 by hornybluecow

[kingdingeling]

DFI nF4 boards were the

[Crazy_Nate]

My three 939 lanparty's have all worked flawlessly (Expert and 2 SLI-Ds). They're still being used. I've always used quality components and never had a problem.

[ccokeman]

Hmm...opteron, lanparty, armor case...why does that sound familiar?

 

Keep it coming

 

I have to wonder how many of us had that combo!

 

My three 939 lanparty's have all worked flawlessly (Expert and 2 SLI-Ds). They're still being used. I've always used quality components and never had a problem.

 

Same here not one failure that I remember. They all worked fine until the day they left my home to someone else!

[Guest ajmatson]

Nice Verran. Worklogs rule:)

[Puck]

Good times! I loved my 939 opteron <3. Mine was a CAB9E stepping IIRC and it topped out at 2.9ghz 24/7 and benched at 3.1 on air on a volt-modded, vdimm modded, and vdroop modded NF3 Epox 9NDA3+ .

 

Good clocks for back in the day, Intel had nothing to keep up till Conroe!

 

Very cool thread Verran, thanks for the (re)post

[hardnrg]

I'm glad you blame me lol... where there's a blame there's a claim?

 

I've wanted to redo my worklog for ages, but when I think about how long it would take, I cry a little inside lol

 

My case is finished now, complete with handles and a pump shelf... but man... I have to wait for my X58/DDR3 to arrive, and then buy an i7 and a couple GTX200 series cards... maybe GTX260 SLI

 

(I actually just facepalmed at the thought... of my 5-year worklog )

[Andrewr05]

I'm glad you blame me lol... where there's a blame there's a claim?

 

I've wanted to redo my worklog for ages, but when I think about how long it would take, I cry a little inside lol

 

My case is finished now, complete with handles and a pump shelf... but man... I have to wait for my X58/DDR3 to arrive, and then buy an i7 and a couple GTX200 series cards... maybe GTX260 SLI

 

(I actually just facepalmed at the thought... of my 5-year worklog )

Thats what sucks, if you don't bang out a mod within a year then your stuck with somewhat obsolete hardware.

 

Then that changes your hardware which potential changes your nonPC components there fore changing your design which makes it take even longer.

 

[Verran]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was hoping people would enjoy a new (old) worklog.

 

You may have had the CABNE 0528, which was a bloody golden one compared to my KABYE 0540 Athlon 3700+, but I had those G.Skill HZ 2x1GB sticks you could only dream of

Yeah, that actually reminds me of another one of my big threads that was lost in the crash. The DDR1 OC Competition. Your HZ sticks were one of the few sets that could top my OCZ Gold.

 

My three 939 lanparty's have all worked flawlessly (Expert and 2 SLI-Ds). They're still being used. I've always used quality components and never had a problem.

Yup, I've got my SLI-DR and two Infinity nf4 boards running strong still. Great boards, plain and simple.

 

I'm glad you blame me lol... where there's a blame there's a claim?

I thought you'd get a kick out of that

 

I've wanted to redo my worklog for ages, but when I think about how long it would take, I cry a little inside lol

Your worklog would be epic, but I don't envy you in redoing it. Mine is going to be MUCH shorter than yours would and it still took me forever to rally up the motivation to do it.

[Verran]

Stage 08 – Paint

 

So we've got a few more steps that missed the photo process here. Apologies on that I cut the holes for the radiator barbs and they dive WAY down into expansion slot territory, but luckily the video card doesn't mount in the top slot. So the cuts don't affect the way my video card mounts, and now there's plenty of room to get some 1/2” tubing and a hose clamp in there!

 

So after the final cutting, I taped off the pieces that wouldn't be receiving paint and dove in. I started with a few coats of burgundy-ish primer and then the black went on. I went with semi-gloss, but it ended up a LOT glossier than I had really planned. I'm fine with it, but if I had it to do over, I'd certainly go with a flat black.

 

Stage 09 – Leak Test

 

So now that everything's painted, it's time to mount up all the watercooling stuff and make sure we don't have any leaks. You may be wondering how I tested it without a PSU, but keep in mind my Eheim 1250 is AC powered. I let this setup run for a few days just to be sure there were no leaks.

 

Stage 10 – Motherboard Fit Test

 

So now the water system's run a few days in the exact configuration it'll be in when all's said and done, but I still wanted to be cautious. I needed to see just a bit more testing (first time watercooling, can you blame me?). So this time I put the motherboard and chip in place so everything was just as it would be and ran a few more days. Definitely an overkill test, but better safe than sorry, IMO.

 

So after this final leak test, it would seem that everything's ready for final assembly and completion. But it would turn out, there was one more item on the agenda. More on that next time, but again, I blame hardnrg ...

[hardnrg]

what you blamin me for this time?

[Verran]

Stage 11