[Build Log] Ebony and Ivory

[monikernemo]

MONIKERNEMO'S BUILD LOG: EBONY AND IVORY​

1. PROLOGUE

Greetings

Thank you for taking your time and interest in reading this buildlog.

Forayed into DIY PCs not too long ago (start of this year to be exact) and found myself to be unsatisfied with my parts, resulting in me selling my parts and spending huge sums of money unnecessarily. This always resulted in my parents kp me (the usual, too much money anyhow spend but in mandarin: 你很多钱花horh?/你又买/卖了什么，乱花钱/有钱为什么没有省？ 诸如此类)

So I decided to make things a little harder to change in and out my parts; water cool them! So that the hassle of draining and filling them beats my urge to change my parts...

Before we embark on this buildlog, I would like to give a shoutout to Shadow84 and Royfrosty for providing me with helpful advice and experience on how to get cheaper WC stuff! Also used their guides to pre-empt myself of possible difficulties to come.

TIA to future advice/suggestions given! Also thanks (again) to you guys for reading this!

2. CONCEPT

As title suggests: Ebony and Ivory, I will be playing with colors black and white in my build. (Inserts artistic but necessary quote on how black and white are complementary and can be found in music,piano keys, literature and your housing/employment contract)

Always admired at the modders who would come out with Black and White themed builds for the Z97 SLI Krait motherboards from MSI and wanted a black and white build from the start. Unfortunately ended up with something else in my previous build hmm.. So this time round decided to work with the X99A SLI KRAIT Motherboard (to be purchased in due course) because of the cool looking IO shield and as well as the B&W Krait CMOS battery!!

3. PARTS LIST

PC Parts:




Purchased:
INTEL i7 - 5820k (Big thanks to avsquare!!)
CORSAIR 4*4GB DDR4 2133MHZ LPX MEMORY (pending delivery end June by Amazon)
MSI X99A SLI KRAIT

(carrying over from previous build)
ASUS GTX 780TI 3GB REF
CRUCIAL MX 100 256 GB SSD
WD RE 2TB HDD
SUPERFLOWER LEADEX GOLD 750W PSU
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN 750D (huge thanks to Mac)


WC (watercooling, not water closet) Parts:

(Purchased and arrived as of last week)
WATERCOOL HEATKILLER IV CPU BLOCK
EK-FC780 GTX TI NICKEL GPU BLOCK
EK-XTOP D5 and D5 PUMP
PHOBYA BALANCER 250 MATTE BLACK RESERVOIR
ALPHACOOL NexXxos UT60 240MM RADIATOR
ALPHACOOL NexXxos XT45 360MM RADIATOR
NOCTUA NF-F12 industrialPPC 3000 PWM X 5
SWIFTECH TruFlex 3/8" ID, 5/8" OD Tubing 2m Black
SWIFTECH TruFlex 3/8" ID, 5/8" OD Tubing 2m White

(TBC)
Fittings? (Compressions from Bitspower/Barrow)
Biocide/Killcoil?
Flow indicator?

Misc Parts:

(pending preparation and delivery from Mainframe Customs)
Custom PSU Cable Extensions (24 pin ATX, 8 pin CPU, 8 pin PCI-E *2, 6 pin PCI-E * 2

(TBC and added)
PWM Fan Controller/Hub
RGB/White LED Light strips
5.25 inch bay to 3.5/2.5 inch drive converters
Paint for cable management rubber grommets and Noctua fan anti vibration grommets?
Paint for 5.25 inch drive bay tool-less mechanism
Sticker over ugly MX100 SSD...

 

[monikernemo]

4. Mini-Unboxing

Just some poison
Will be updated in due course when I get more and more hoots!

GPU and CPU blocks:

Pre-unboxing

Heatkiller IV CPU Block!

The Dark and Light Nickel helps to create the pseudo black and white feel
Block with accessories:

May be a small piece of metal but it is really heavy!! Stated to be 450g!

EK Full Cover Block!

Accessories and block:

Shinier than my boots:

 

[monikernemo]

Alphacool NexXxos XT45:

Fancy some bubble wrap?

No more copper stickers!

TruFlex Tubings:

I have seen enough h**t** to see where this is going...

How many KKJ can this tube fit leh?

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3k PWM:

Famed fans but in black!

 

[monikernemo]

i7-5820k

Met up with Avsquare yesterday and bought this from him! Thanks bro!!!

Box and outer packaging:

Super duper shiny IHS!!

Malay(sian) Chip. Hopes this clocks well!

How the hell can this small pcb fit 2011 pins

X99A SLI KRAIT

Was rushing for time so approached only a few shops heheh. Thanks Clon22 for updating me promptly on the board's availability!

The outer box:

Snake :O

The full view of the board:

Black and white design

Audio Boost on left should light up when powered like all the other boards. Quite basic board like the Z97 Krait with more SATA ports, MSI OC Buttons, DDR4 Support, and a rear panel Clr Cmos?

Sadly no debug LED.... But I think can install on our own?

Installing CPU:

There we go...!

 

[monikernemo]

More closed up views of the motherboard:

Chipset heatsink:

The little diamond bumps reminds me of snake skin hahaha

Heatsinks for VRMS! Whopping 12 phase power design...
I think the motherboard could go for a little more white here, and maybe include an IO Cover? Hahaha

The ASUS X99 offerings had more white but felt that the MSI one was way cooler...

Installation of ram:
Just a side shot

Rear IO Shield:
Matte Black and white!

And I thought only ASUS Mobos had these! MSI have them too; introducing the M Connectors:

Felt that compared to ASUS (previous build was ASUS Mobo), MSI is a lot easier to build with. Ram snaps right into place, rear IO shield pops into place easily and the M Connectors also slide into the headers smoothly.

ASUS one must tyco then can install properly... or at least in my own experience...

Installed everything into place already, wanted to do a run using AIO coolers to check that everything is working before placing waterblocks on them. Only after that realised that I lost one of the standoff screws for the H100i cooler

so, decided to postpone 'dry' testing to another day hmm..

Anw, Cable Management now in a mess, awaiting for sleeved extensions from Mainframe (Formerly Lutro0) Customs, and decide on fittings! Getting late will update a photo tmr with most of the things in place...

 

[monikernemo]

5.LOOPPLANNING

Not too sure what type of fittings to get, decided to test out the clearance and space for 240mm radiator, pump and reservoir:

Very tight between reservoir and radiator hmm..

Maybe:
1: install radiator upside down
2: link reservoir to bottom of radiator
3: hackcare and install angled fittings.

Had to remove grommets to install the mounts properly. Maybe can take his opportunity to paint the grommets white, along side the noctua fan grommets. Maybe would consider trimming the grommets...

Weird that the 750D don't have holes in between grommets makes it more suitable for reservoir mounting.

Decided to install on far right set of holes so as to avoid clearance issue with GPU.

Have a few (how many can one have) loop orders in mind already, but primarily, drain port will be installed at pump inlet - reservoir/radiator(240) connection using T connector.

1. Pump> radiator (360) > CPU > GPU->radiator (240)/reservoir->reservoir/radiator> pump

2 Pump>GPU>CPU/radiator 360>radiator 360/CPU> radiator 240>reservoir>pump

Gonna use both black and white tubings together. Black tubes goes with white/chrome fittings, and white tubes goes with black fittings. Will update these with fittings selections in due course.

Update:

Gonna go with this loop order:
Pump out (situated on the top of pump, via 45 degree rotary fitting with white tubes)-->
(using outer channel, left side of case, straight fittings) 360 Radiator (using inner channel, 45 degree rotary fittings, black tubings)-->
(using inlet placed on the right, 45 degree rotary fittings) CPU Block (straight fittings white tubings) -->
(straight fittings, left side) GPU Block (45 degree rotary fittings, white tubings) -->
(45 degree rotary fittings, outer port) 240 radiator, orientation reversed of pictured (straight fittings, black tubing)-->
(45 degree rotary fittings, bottom right port) Reservoir (straight fittings, black tubing) -->
(45 degree rotary fittings, T adaptor, and drain port, inlet front of pump housing) Pump

TD;DR Version:

Hmm considering whether if should alternate colored fittings (chrome/white fittings for black tubings, save for CPU block section, white tubings with black fittings). Or maybe just go with full black fittings. Also considering if I should add a flow indicator between pump out and radiator.

Any opinions on set up and choice of fittings?

 

[monikernemo]

(watch this space)

reserved 6

 

[monikernemo]

(watch this space)

reserved 7

 

[monikernemo]

(watch this space)

reserved last...

 

[ondooy]

nice, can't wait for your final build...

 

[shadow84]

Golden rule that i learnt....

Res -> pump -> your loop in any order -> res.

Do include silver coil, u will never go wrong wit it.

 

[monikernemo]

nice, can't wait for your final build...

Thanks for viewing!!

Can't wait also.But prolly gonna eat grass for these few months...

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

 

[monikernemo]

Golden rule that i learnt....

Res -> pump -> your loop in any order -> res.

Do include silver coil, u will never go wrong wit it.

Got hear scare story that silver coil will go through reservoir and into the loop..



But still reading up. Scared that the metal ions in the biocide corrode the other metals due to displacement/difference electronegativity ...

Gonna aska stewpid question: Where chiu get your distilled water uh? Petrol kiosk? Or supermarket? Pharmacies like guardian and Watson's leh?

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

 

[shadow84]

Got hear scare story that silver coil will go through reservoir and into the loop..



But still reading up. Scared that the metal ions in the biocide corrode the other metals due to displacement/difference electronegativity ...

Gonna aska stewpid question: Where chiu get your distilled water uh? Petrol kiosk? Or supermarket? Pharmacies like guardian and Watson's leh?

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

Wun enter tube de la, at most put it nicely inside ur reservoir first den put ur water/coolant in.

I use aqc coolant. If u use distilled water, u need silver coil and biocide.

If possible, dun mix metals. If 1 is copper, all copper. Dun have something like copper rad, nickel plated copper gpu/cpu, etc....

U can get distilled water frm petrol kiosk or ntuc, etc.

 

[monikernemo]

Wun enter tube de la, at most put it nicely inside ur reservoir first den put ur water/coolant in.

I use aqc coolant. If u use distilled water, u need silver coil and biocide.

If possible, dun mix metals. If 1 is copper, all copper. Dun have something like copper rad, nickel plated copper gpu/cpu, etc....

U can get distilled water frm petrol kiosk or ntuc, etc.

Okay gamxia ^^

Got mixed opinions on nickel+copper hmm; some say okay others say not okay.

Most said avoid aluminum and copper (and aluminum is very reactive)
But see how it goes bah before I make any decision..

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

 

[shadow84]

Go buy 1 more 780ti... now cheaper le... lol.

 

[monikernemo]

780Ti have ma.. Overkill for 1080p though...

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

 

[shadow84]

780Ti have ma.. Overkill for 1080p though...

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

Then change to 1440p lor... hahah

 

[monikernemo]

Then change to 1440p lor... hahah

Boh lui

Then I think my PSU will up lorry also

Next time bah hahaha

Sent from microwave oven using GAGT

 

[gaoxing84]

cannot next time, next time means upgrade all together.
change parts and change block, change everything.

sell 780ti, buy 980ti sli, then build WC.
can last few at least 2-3 years without changing.