[WORKLOG] Another first timer, another Prodigy *UPDATE* Now with LESSRAD

After reading countless water cooling build logs over the last 18 months I decided it was about time I got wet myself and water cool my Prodigy gaming rig. I was going to put up a post so you guy's would tell me what to buy but decided against it. I'd rather jump in the deep end and learn the hard way! . And this heat wave we are having in Melbourne has been a great excuse to stay inside and build it this week.

Specs are:
i5 4670k
Asrock Z87E-ITX
2x 4GB Corsair Vengance
Sapphire R9 290
Silverstone Strider 550w
Samsung 840 256GB SSD


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My main reason for watercooling is to give me more gear to thinker with... and I really want to keep that 290 quiet, such a loud bastard when playing BF4.

Last week I went ahead and order the following gear from PCCG:
XSPC Raystrom CPU Block
XSPC Razor 290x/290 Block
XSPC AX240 Rad White
XSPC AX120 Rad White
XSPC Acrylic Res for D5
Alphacool VPP655 Single
Primochill PrimoFlex 3/8 5/8 White

Also got some Bistpower compressions off the forums.

There's probably a bit too much XSPC on that list for some people's tastes, I didn't set out intending to use all their stuff. I liked the plain black style of their blocks and thought the white rads would look good in contrast to all the black in the case. I wanted a res that fit a D5 but didn't want a bay or tube res so that one was about it.


Box 'o' goodies arrived Monday:

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First thing I did was strip out the case, gotta love how easy it is to pull the Prodigy apart:

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Drilled some holes in the bottom of the case to mount the reservoir, the ridge where the HDD cage mounts was in the way so I cut some rubber for the base of the res so it sits even:

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Click to view full size!


Got the res and rads mounted up. Played around with a few different spots for the rads but decided to put the 240 up front and the 120 in back. It'll mean I can keep positive pressure in the case and I have a plan for the top of the case... more on that to come. I just installed some Fractal Designs fans for the time being, still can't decide what fans to buy, these will probably be crap for the rads but atleast they're quiet.

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Mounted up both the blocks. The GPU block was pretty fiddly for a first timer, hope I have it mounted well, don't fancy pulling everything apart to remount.

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Put the mobo and gpu in and decided I wanted to test my 24 pin PSU jumper so plugged in all the LEDs that came with the XSPC gear. Still undecided on whether I'll keep those, might be a bit too much bling.

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Ran all the tubing this morning. Pretty stoked with how the white tubing and rads look in the black case. The loop that joins the CPU block with the 120mm rad is a bit dumb but I couldn't figure out a better way to do it without kinking the tube. Might replace it with a stack of fittings eventually.

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So next up is filling and leak testing, might have a crack tomorrow, kinda shitting myself about that part, fingers crossed no leaks!

 

There is nothing wrong with the way you have run those tubes, I would not change a thing. Its awesome looking too.

 

Aww fuck yeah man, looks great!

 

No mate, those tubes look gorgeous, I really like the straight lines And I usually can't stand them, that looks really nice

 

f##k that man, if you like it that's all that matters

you'll be sweet fill her up


White rads look great, nice work

 

^Thanks for the kind words guys.


Filled her up today (that sounds dirty). Was alot easier than I expected, just needed a very tall funnel to reach the res. Glad I invested the $3 in a 24 pin jumper, made starting and stopping the pump while filling easy as.

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Running a bit of a leak test, (was out of paper towel so using TP instead). No leaks so far.

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Very pleasantly surprised with how quiet the D5 pump is, even on higher speeds. I got a little fright before, after leaving the room for a while I returned and thought the pump had died! It had just pushed out all the air from the impeller and was running whisper quiet.

I'll let it run for a couple of hours and see how it's looking. Itching to get everything cabled back up and fired up for some temp testing!

 

Anyone else not able to view the images? -edit: Working now

What's the $3 jumper you talk about? About to order my 1st set of kit so very interested int he little hints and tricks that might help

 

working for me =3

nice build!

 

It's this:
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=23906&zenid=3c14b1b0863f25814f5cadabec1bb8d9

When it's plugged into the 24 pin cable on your PSU it will start it up without it having to be plugged into the motherboard. Means you can run the pump without anything else plugged into the PSU.

 

would have been better to have a toggle switch instead of just a bridging wire.... sometimes plastic clips can be a bitch...

 

Looking good. Interesting that you didn't put the 240 in the roof.

May I suggest that you cap the res fill point and tilt the case about to get any air trapped in the top of the radiators before you finish.

 

You just grab a paper clip and stick one end of it into the green wire on the 24 pin and any of the black wires also on the 24 pin and you do the same job but for free.. Assuming you have a paperclip haha

 

So after getting sick of using external HDD, I decided to pull apart my rig to get the hard drive cage back in my Prodigy. This meant moving the 240mm rad to the top and ditching the 120mm. Currently leak testing, will be interesting to see the temp differences once I have it all back together. I don't think the extra 120mm was doing too much and I haven't got anyting overclocked so I'm hoping I'll be right.


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Click to view full size!


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Was a bugger running the tubing this time, alot tighter, the joys of a m-itx case I guess.

I'll post up some temps when I'm up and running again, I ran some benchmarks with the previous set up so it will be interesting to compare minus 120mm if rad area.

 

Looks good.

Keen to know the difference in temps.