Show Us Your Rig [4]

@ Lady Fitzgerald, your rig is looking great! You'll get the bugs sorted out in no time. Really nice job, I like it a lot.

@Zalith, looks like an excellent rig. Enjoy it!

Cheers,

J

Bungee18 said:

Very nice addition!
Every gaming rigs deserves mek keys.
Enjoy!
Cheers,

J

I now find myself looking for any legit reason to type now.

And I can't believe I haven't said anything yet, but Lady, your great looking rig is coming along fantastically!

Hey guys,
Haven't been on much lately, looks like I missed a lot.
I'm utterly impressed by Lady Fitzgerald's build. The neatness, or should I say perfection, of every single detail never ceases to amaze me.

On a different note, you asked for pics, so here you are.
So far so good, no leaks or any problems with the loop. Been running for about two hours now.
Steve, Alsisgevat, thanks a lot. Your advice and help made it a lot easier.

A couple more questions though:
1) Does the coolant level in the reservoir look OK or should I add some more? The thing has no markings whatsoever and the instructions say nothing about how to fill it.
2) How long should I keep it running before I plug everything in?
3) Does the way I've set up the loop make sense? I'd rather make changes now than after everything is done!

The only bummer was that my new Seasonic Platinum 1000W was DOA. The dealer was kind enough as to give me a Corsair TX850 as a loaner till they receive a new shipment of Seasonics. Will have to make do for a month or so. A bit dissapointed with the Seasonic. Was my favorite piece of new hardware till I tried to switch it on. I guess it was just bad luck, as they seem to be as close to the perfect PSU as you can get.

Full cover blocks will arrive at about the same time than the replacement PSU, so I'll do a semi-rebuild then.

I remember Steve and Lady Fitzgerald discussing messy builds a few days ago, so I uploaded a pic of what the coffee table in my then looked like. I believe it cannot get any worse than that!

Here are the pics. Will post some more when I'm done.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Bungee18 said:

...
1) Does the coolant level in the reservoir look OK or should I add some more? The thing has no markings whatsoever and the instructions say nothing about how to fill it...

I would say treat it like a car's cooling system. Run the pump continously for some time to help purge air out of the system. Watch the level in the reservoir when you have everything up and running to see how heat affects the coolant level; you don't want the reservoir to overflow when the coolant gets hot but you want enough reserve to avoid running the reservoir dry due to coolant evaporation, letting the system suck air. Over time, you will be able to figure out how full you can keep it.

Would heat affect the coolant level? As far as I remember liquids do not expand or contract. They either turn into vapor or solids, but as liquid they do not change volume.
On the other hand, the hoses and reservoir will dilate some under heat, so coolant level might go down, you are right on that one.

Thanks,

J

Bungee18 said:

A couple more questions though:
1) Does the coolant level in the reservoir look OK or should I add some more? The thing has no markings whatsoever and the instructions say nothing about how to fill it.
2) How long should I keep it running before I plug everything in?
3) Does the way I've set up the loop make sense? I'd rather make changes now than after everything is done!

1. You should top it off a bit more.
2. It's really up to you. Some people say a couple of hours, some suggest a full-on 24 hour test run... but the fact of the matter is this: the parts are going to contract because of heat and wear, so for all intents and purposes the entire time you're running the system it's basically a constant leak test anyway.

If you haven't found any weak spots in an hour or so you're unlikely to come across one the second you hook things up unless, say, the clamps on the waterblock aren't secure enough and it leaks that way. Other than that you're perfectly fine.

3. Looks good to me: pump > reservoir > block > radiator > back to pump.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Thanks, Bungee and Terronium!

I have a Logitech G110 Gaming keyboard for my new rig. I'm not a gamer (my idea of a fast game is XP's Pinball); the reason I got that keyboard is the character decals on the keys of previous keyboards would wear out fairly quickly, no matter how good the keyboard was. I'm hoping a keyboard with illuminated keys will last me longer since the characters are embedded in the keys. I would have preferred a Logitech wireless illuminated keyboard since they can share a receiver with a mouse (actually, their Unifying system allows up to six devices on a single receiver) but everyone they have has built in batteries one has to rechage through a USB cord. If I was going to have to horse around with a USN cord, then I might as well get a wired keyboard (which I did) that, at least, can use a rear USB port to keep the cable more or less out of the way (at least it has a single port USB hub built in that I can plug the receiver for the wireless mouse into so I'm not out any more USB ports. This board also has 36 macro keys (12 physical keys the holds three macros per key). I can see myself using only, maybe, three or four. It's overkill for my needs but the board was on sale for less than a simpler board would have cost. One handy feature are audio controls, including a volume control wheel.

What you want is laser-etching, which the G110 has for each of the key markings. :)

Very nice job Lady Fitzgerald. Nothing wrong with being a perfectionist :) You should get on great the G110. The G110 was my first gaming board and i couldn't fault it. Great board!

Looking good Bungee

Thank you Michael.
I'll keep an eye on the level and top it off if the level doesn't rise too much under load.
Regarding the loop order, it is the other way around than what you just described.
The way I have it set up is as follows: Res>Pump>Rad>Rad>Block>Res.
I read in several places that this way it got you a bit extra performance. Should I turn it around?
Actually the manual said that it was almost the same, to just run it the way you got shorter hose runs.
Advice?
Cheers,

J