Watercooling a Thermaltake Armor

[gotdamojo06]

With the start of the new year, I wanted to kick it off with a new computer that takes advantage of a more active cooling solution than the traditional air cooling, I decided to go with a liquid cooling setup. Due to the fact that this is the first time that I have played with water inside of a computer case, I will have fun and learn a lot of things, which others possibly could learn from this as well.

 

System Build:

*Thermaltake Armor Extreme Edition

*Petra's TEch CoolKit Elite revision 2

*D-TEK FuZion CPU Waterblock

*Laing DDC 3.2 Pump

*Switftech Tripple 120mm Radiator

*10 feet 7/16 ID 1/2 OD tubing

*3 Yate Loon low speed fans

*Pentosin G11 Coolant Additive (UV Blue)

*Long Life Red Coolant Additive (Red)

*Intel E6850 (SLA9U G0 stepping)

*Asus Maximus Extreme

*SupremeFX II

*2GB (1x2GB) G. Skill DDR3 1333HK kit

*VisionTek HD3850

*Western Digital Caviar WD5000AAKS 5800GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0GB/s

*OCZ GameXStream 850W

 

The first thing that I attempted to do was to decide where everything is going to be placed. The only place that I could mount the 3x120mm Rad was in the front where the 5.25" drive bays are. There was a little bit of a problem here though, there is nothing to mount the rad to, so I decided to get some strips of brass from the local hardware store and make some sort of mounting bracket.

 

There was only one problem with placing the Rad here, it left me with only 2 spots to place 5.25" devices, which is not that big of a problem as I am only using 1 DVD+RW drive and the power button/HDD holder that came with the case. The thing that I needed to mount was the fillport, after careful thinking about where this needed/could go, I decided that under the cap on the top of the case where the USB/Firewire/microphone/speaker ports were mounted was a good place, especially since when I first got this case I took those out to save room inside of the case. This process was fairly easy, took a drill and drilled a few holes outlining where the hole needed to be cut, then took a 1" hole drill bit and cut through and used the Dremel tool to smoothen the edges.

 

I then mounted the pump where I knew that it needed to go.

 

The next step in getting this rig up and running was to lap the E6850 and the waterblock. When I examined the waterblock however, it did not need to be lapped, so I skipped that one and went on to just do the processor's IHS.

 

I decided to use 180grit, 400grit, 600grit, 800grit, 1000grit, and 1500grit sandpaper that I picked up for under $25 from the local AutoZone. This process was very easy and was only time consuming, however it is worth doing because it can drop your temps a significant amount, and I know that I personally will do just about anything for lower temps.

 

Before............................................After

 

180grit

400grit

600grit

800grit

1000grit

1500grit

 

 

Once this was done, I went a head and connected all of the watercooling components with the tubing and using worm hole screws to make sure that the connections were tight enough to keep any liquid from escaping. Once this was done, I added the fluid which is a 1:9 mixture of Long Life Red Coolant Additive:Distilled Water. I was disappointed when I added the fluid to the system because the "Red" color was now a light pink, however I now know to add less water the mixture.

 

After I let the setup pump for about 24 hours to get the air out with out having the rest of the system on, I went a head and installed a full copy of Windows Vista Ultimate on this rig, here is a nice little picture of my desk setup.

 

Check the Socket 775 competition thread to see how far I can get this E6850.

[Andrewr05]

Looks really nice dude, hopefully everything works out good and you get a good OC.

[gotdamojo06]

thanks, its sitting at 3920MHz right now

[kingdingeling]

Good stuff

[Verran]

Wow nice work! I really like the rad up front like that

[gotdamojo06]

thanks guys, i appreciate it

 

let me know if you guys want any other pictures to help explain what I did better

[exeter_acres]

just above the pump, there is a "T" with tubing going up??

 

what is that?

 

I hate "T"s really screws with flow....

[j2t]

just above the pump, there is a "T" with tubing going up??

 

what is that?

 

I hate "T"s really screws with flow....

 

I think thats going to the fillport isn't it?

[exeter_acres]

thats what I was assuming....

[gotdamojo06]

yeah its a T line so that I can add the fillport, I needed to have a fillport due to the fact that there is no res in my setup

[Bleeble]

Looks good. :thumbs-up: The only thing I would have done differently is the T-line. I would have put the CPU > pump flow along a straight line instead of forcing it to go through a 90 degree turn. I'm curious, does your setup force water out the top if you open the fillport while the pump is running?

[road-runner]

Looks good. :thumbs-up: The only thing I would have done differently is the T-line. I would have put the CPU > pump flow along a straight line instead of forcing it to go through a 90 degree turn. I'm curious, does your setup force water out the top if you open the fillport while the pump is running?

I was just looking at that also, it will flow a lot better if you change it...