Step 3: Connect the hardware and fill the system:
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While I had the motherboard tray removed (to mount the water pump power connector.) I took a moment to install an engineering sample of the new Tweakmonster Northbridge Cooler to do some testing. It fits on the EPoX 8K3A+ perfectly, and looks darn good also. The Danger Den Maze3 water block can also be seen here sitting atop the AMD Athlon MP 1800+ chip that I am running @ 1800mhz. This Danger Den water block performs very well, and looks very nice at the same time. The second picture from the left shows the backing plate that I fabricated to go behind the ZIF socket and reinforce the CPU area of the motherboard, as the pressure from the water block mounting springs can sometimes warp the board in this area. This simple device prevents that from happening while also allowing me to exert more pressure onto the top of the CPU. Why would I want to do that? In my experience, I have found that I can get lower CPU temps if I apply more pressure to the waterblock/CPU interface. Pressure that would otherwise severely warp the motherboard, and so the backing plate is necessary. You must be very careful when doing this, though, and I highly recommend the use of a CPU Spacer for added protection from breaking your processor by accident.
With everything in place, it's time to connect everything with hose and check the system for leaks!
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The coolant hose I chose was also supplied to me by Cooltechnica. It is called ClearFlex 60 Premium Tubing, and is supposedly just as good as it's more expensive counterpart TYGON R-3603. I was impressed with it's thick-walled construction and it's ease to bend and shape without kinking. Very nice stuff. The plastic hose clamps I used are easily installed and removed without the need for a screwdriver and work well to keep everything held together.
After all the hoses were connected, the system was filled for a 'test-run' and deemed leak-free after running non-stop for 24 hours. I then drained the plain water and filled the system with a mixture of distilled water, Zerex Racing Super Coolant, and some UV dye which gave the coolant the crazy looking color you can see in the far right picture.
I then reinstalled all the drives and reconnected the power cables, but I was not finished yet...there were a couple other cosmetic additions I wanted to make!
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I like my rig to look good just like the next guy does, and so to add the finishing touches, I contacted my buddy Jimmy over at Casecooler and had him send me some kick-ass LED case fans, but this was just not enough...no sir!
I had also been wanting to play around with some UV cold cathodes, and so I contacted Paul over at PC-Pitstop and had him send me over a couple to toss into the mix.
I then took a trip down to my local plexiglass shop and had them make me a custom replacement side window with a 80mm fan hole precut in it to replace the plain old stock Lian Li window which comes from the factory installed in the side of the PC-65 case. This will allow me to blow cool air directly over the Tweakmonster RAMsinks that are attached to the Danger Den waterblock cooled Visiontek GeForce4 Ti4600 that resides in this machine, and will also add some nice eye candy with some shiney chrome fan grills.
I put two blue LED fans in the front intake of the case, and two dual blue/red LED fans in the rear of the case and in the side window blow hole. I then attached the two UV cathodes to the inside of the case cover, and then wired everything into the Digital Doc 5 so that I could control them any way I like.
And there you have it. Check out the results:
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All I can say is pictures never do a case justice. Either that, or my camera sucks. Probably the latter. Anyhow, all said and done I had a blast putting it all together, and I got the chance to try out some new products at the same time that were just not available the first time I put together a water cooled rig. That, in my opinion, makes it all worthwhile any day of the week. The drop in case temperature, as well as all around noise, just puts the icing on the cake.
I'd like to send out a Thanks to all my retailers that helped me to make this article possible. You all know who you are, but for the rest of you, I'm going to let you know who they are once again so that the next time you go looking for top quality service and gear for your next computer mod, you can pay them a visit and tell them the Tweakmonster sent ya!
I hope you enjoyed this article, and hopefully walked away wanting to begin creating your own watercooling project. With the right parts, a little patience and a bit of know-how, water cooling can be a very hassle-free and rewarding way of cooling your PC that will demand attention anywhere it is showcased.