Worklog: Massively (Update #65, 29th Nov – Final Pics + Aussie copper pipe fittings!)

This will be my first worklog, and my first time doing any modding! The extreme nature of the build and my lack of experience make the name 'MASSIVELY' appropriate I think

In my WoW days I ran a blog called Massively Obsessed (www.saate.net) covering similar crazy/obsessive achievements. This build will hopefully follow in a similiar obsessive fashion There's something really comforting about throwing myself into the research and reading for projects like this.

Everything you'll see in this log is a first for me. No compromises though! If I'm not happy with the result I'll rework it until I am Feedback and idea sharing as I go would be great.

I'm some way into the build already with around 180 pics taken. If you want more pictures of any particular parts let me know - chances are I'll have plenty

​

Project Scope:

I'm a big fan of space so will be using the Corsair 800D case as the base for this mod. The system will be water cooled with the top of the case modified to fit a 480mm radiator and the single loop flow will be hard copper piped.

The 5.25" optical drive bay will be removed or modified, I've developed an overstated hatred of it that I can't quite explain The hot swap bay is also on the chopping block, it'll either be removed completely or modded and relocated.

The system will be powered by a Corsair AX1200 with customised cable lengths and MDPC sleeving (remember, no compromises!). I'll also be designing my own 'Massively' branded stickers to replace all the stock ones on the fans, power supply and memory to give the finished build a unified feel.

Equipment:

Case: Corsair 800D
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Z
CPU: i7 2700K
Memory: Corsair Dominator CMP32GX3M4X1600C10 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3
HDD: Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD (Main/OS Drive) plus 3TB and 2TB internals for storage
GPU: 2 x Inno3D GTX680 cards with Heatkiller waterblocks
PSU: Corsair AX1200 (100% Modular)

Cooling Components

Pump: Koolance PMP-450 (variable/tach wire) with silver housing
Reservoir: Phobya Balancer 150 + Balancer 250
Radiator: Black Ice SR1 480mm
Fans: Enermax Magma Batwing 120mm
CPU Waterblock: Koolance CPU-370 CPU Waterblock
GPU Waterblocks: Heatkiller BN 680 blocks.
Fan Controller: <undecided> Suggestions?

Direct links to updates so far

29/3/2012 - AX1200 Power Supply


30/3/2012 - Cable sleeving



30/3/2012 - Copper pipe preview


2/4/2012 - 120mm Fans, Custom Stickers and Sleeving


5/4/2012 - First look at the Corsair 800D Case


8/4/2012 - 240V Cable Sleeving


10/4/2012 - Water Cooling Fittings, Reservoirs, CPU Block


14/4/2012 - Reddit traffic, Pump housing and 480mm Radiator


16/4/2012 - 7680x1440 WoW Screenshots, 480mm Radiator Mod


17/4/2012 - 480mm Radiator Mod Continued


19/4/2012 - MDPC Sleeving Supplies


19/4/2012 - Pics of cable extensions I've made


29/4/2012 - The great copper pipe chase


29/4/2012 - Corsair 800D Deconstruction


7/5/2012 - Reservoir Mounts


9/5/2012 - Reservoir Mount Designs


11/5/2012 - 480mm Radiator Placement


16/05/2012 - Dremel Cutoff Wheels


19/05/2012 - Parts Delivery


20/05/2012 - Testbenching for Measurements


23/05/2012 - RAM Sticker Drafts


28/05/2012 - Midplate Design


05/06/2012 - CPU Shots and Midplate Sketch


06/06/2012 - Reservoir Mount Designs


12/06/2012 - Midplate Removal


19/06/2012 - Slimline DVD Mount


01/07/2012 - Acrylic and Midplate Work


02/07/2012 - Hotswap Bay


3/7/2012 - Hotswap bay cuts


12/7/2012 - Copper Pipe Teasers


16/7/2012 - Loop Design


26/7/2012 - First GTX680 Waterblock


29/7/2012 - Acrylic Work


30/7/2012 - More Acrylic Work


12/8/2012 - Early reservoir mount concepts


14/8/2012 - Second GPU Waterblock Arrives


27/8/2012 - More Casework


12/9/2012 - ROG Logo Mod


13/9/2012 - Midplate Hole Cuts


26/9/2012 - Midplate, Build test and loop design


22/10/12 - RAM Heatsinks


28/10/12 - DVD Mount Work


31/10/12 - DVD Mount continued


12/11/12 – DVD Mount Finished and some shots of RAM Heatsinks


2/12/12 – Putting it all together / Loop work


9/12/12 – More copper work


15/12/12 – More copper work / SLI bridge shots


4/1/13 – Pipe bending #268 (give or take)


22/01/2013 – Aluminium Midplate Work


4/2/2013 – Midplate Work Continued


26/2/2013 - Custom HDD Bay


4/3/2013 - Custom HDD Bay Continued


13/3/2013 – HDD Bay and Midplate Stands


19/3/2013 – Custom HDD Bay Continued


9/4/13 – Midplate and Drive Bay Installation


12/4/13 – Drive Fixing


30/4/13 – Assembly


10/5/13 – Frustrating Loop Work


17/5/13 - Polishing pipes, if you know what I mean (...I mean polishing pipes)


5/6/13 - Loop looping and securing top hdd bay piece


20/6/13 - Side panel mod and cabling


5/7/13 - Pump stand


8/8/13 - The PC is running! Some thoughts and links while I wait for final photos



Vengeful Disapproving Girlfriend

To celebrate 150,000 views on the worklog we enlisted the talents of Mike Perry to bring to life the vengeful disapproving girlfriend through a weekly comic. Those interested in some background on how this came to be can get some backstory by reading the thread from around page 29 onwards.



Episode List

Episode 1 – The Worklog (featuring Agg)
Episode 2 – Creekbone (featuring Creekin and Wishbone17)
Episode 3 – Photoshop of Horrors (featuring m3k and f3l1x)
Episode 4 – Infiltration (featuring Kommandant33)
Episode 5 – Security (featuring Dingostolemyghz)
Episode 6 – Triple Threat (featuring 3Coopers)
Episode 7 – Final Battle? (featuring pieceofchance and HuggyBear64)
Episode 8 – Enter Moptimus (featuring Moptimus)
Episode 9 – More than meets the eye (featuring pieceofchance and Moptimus)
Episode 10 – Powerup (featuring pieceofchance and Moptimus)
Episode 11 – Hypnotized (featuring pieceofchance and Moptimus)
Episode 12 – Dancing Queen (featuring pieceofchance and mrs pieceofchance)
Episode 13 – Epilogue, Part 1 (featuring a much quieter pieceofchance)
Episode 14 – Epilogue, Part 2 (featuring Saate!)
Episode 15 – See you next time!


This is my current desktop setup the new PC will eventually be driving, triple U2711 screens running at 7680x1440 res:


My cable sleeving tools:




Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions! Will post up AX1200 and the start of sleeving shots next round.

 

I just had to post to say I absolutely love your desktop setup with the dual mouse pads and all.

I'm a sucker for symmetry!

 

Haha thanks, yeah I've had a few non-ocd people get confused over the dual mousepads. They don't understand that everything MUST be symmetrical!

Some more pics - getting stuck into the AX1200

The Corsair AX1200!




The power supply itself, wrapped in plastic and comes inside this soft velvet bag. Fancy!



All the AX1200 cables out of the bag:


One of the AX1200's 8-pin PCIE cables out of the box. They're already pretty well presented so its almost a shame to be depinning and resleeving them

 

SLEEVING UPDATE!

Okay first things first! So people don't think I'm crazy I feel like I should probably provide a little disclaimer When I was originally thinking of starting this build I found myself putting together a big list of parts and prices, lots of prices and lots of dollars!

I didnt trust myself to do a good enough job, fast enough, if I had all this kit around gathering dust. Thats why I made a deal with myself - I'd buy some MDPC sleeving and if I had the patience to sleeve some random extensions and cables properly I'd step it up a notch.

So I did my first MDPC order - a starter kit of sleeving and a depinning tool. Then ordered a couple of dodgy $2 24-pin atx extension cables from eBay. There were newbie sleever dramas of course - the difficulty depinning cables at first and not knowing how hard you should pull, being worried you're going to break the pin or the depinner. Also initially cut my headshrink way too long which I tend to see a lot of people do - around 14mm is perfect!

So then did another few MDPC orders including more sleeve than I'll ever need for future mods Also grabbed a crimper so I can make custom length cables and lots of pins for it.

Here you can see the packages and the cool package-sketches Nils does each time which I've cut out and saved:







Sorry for the dodgy light on these next few, these shots are the AX1200's 24-pin ATX cable being depinned and me slowly figuring out how to 'remember' where everythings supposed to go back!






Dodgy 'figuring it out as I go' pinout included for your hassling pleasure



I decided to depin the cable completely, measure sleeving in bulk, then heatshrink and repin. I think it helped me feel less overwhelmed with how many hours it took





All 24 cables with sleeving measured, now onto heatshrinking and repinning!



The finished 24-pin atx cable. Pretty happy with the result, some heatshrink is not 100% aligned so will probably (when I have the stomach for it again) go back and redo those cables.





I like this shot, makes me think of a snake protectively coiled over eggs or something



One of the 8-pin cables done! I find these a lot less daunting to do and even enjoy sitting watching tv and zoning out while sleeving.



More 8-pin cables, the cable ties are just on there temporarily until the wires 'remember' they bunch together. After that I cut them off and stretch them out to full length until I need them in the build.

 

Nice already. Looking forward to this one. I miss my 800D sooo much

 

nice...

on a side note, what are the ingots for?

 

Thanks, yeah it's definitely a nice case to work with. I've got to admit to being a little terrified at taking it apart for the more serious mods planned, really would suck to screw it up! On the flip side it won't ever be a good enough mod if I don't so full steam ahead

They're zinc, I've got them sitting around for potential future hobby casting stuff. Thought they'd add a nice contrast with the sleeved cables to make them a bit more interesting

 

I was always too scared to mod mine because of how much the thing costs. Think ill do a Bitfenix mod or something else nice n cheap

 

bitfenix extenders is not a mod, its a cop out!

sleeving looks great mate. hope mine turns out half as good.

 

This is gonna be awesome

Quick question though.. Your desk? Where did you get it I'm looking for something similar and keep finding shitty ones

 

Yea i know the extensions are not a mod..LOL i was implying that i didnt want to mod my old 800D case as IT was too expensive..And i may MOD a bitfenix CASE because they are CHEAPER lol.

 

Thanks I reckon if I can get the hang of it anyone can, just takes a bit of practice at first and the willpower to not throw the lot through the window when you heatshrink a millimeter too far and it wont fit in the connector

Haha man, tell me about it! When I upgraded to the triple 27" screens I'd calculated well enough and knew they'd *fit* on my old ikea desk but didnt realise how awkward it'd be. I've only got one crappy photo of how it looked at the time (because it wasnt pretty!) but here you go:



The angle was too extreme and the screens were much too close. I went everywhere looking for desks - ex government auctions, furniture places around canberra, online stores etc. Officeworks had a lot of different desks in store but every time there was something not quite good enough about it. I just wanted a single solid workspace and nothing was doing it - the closest I came was a conference table! I was even starting to eye off doors hanging in their frames thinking to myself "I bet you'd make a nice desk!"

Ended up going to a local furniture factory and told them exactly what I wanted and they made it for me! Cost $537 with delivery and assembly (and I would have paid a lot more out of desperation! ). The size is 1800x900 and its basically just a flat surface. The only slightly computerish thing was I had cable holes/ports added in the rear left and rear right corners for easier cable management.

Couple more shots of the cable ports and a different angle:

I actually got pretty lucky with my 800D - Got it second hand (but unused) for $125 off a mate, Brett, who will no doubt find his way into this thread sooner or later He kept the windowed side panel and gave it to me with the solid panel from his 700D which was actually perfect - when I mod the side panels later I'll be able to decide if I want to show the lower psu spot or not. Probably planning to do dual windowed side panels on this mod too - no hiding anything!!!

 

Ah win. I originally planned to get a 700D panel aswell. Im not a huge fan of the fact that the 800D window goes a few cm's past the Mobo compartment floor. Looking forward to you 480rad mod!!

Edit Q... Will you be watercooling the gpus ?

 

Yeah my thoughts are the lower section should be either fully visible or fully concealed, not half half For me depends on what solution I can come up with to fit the PMP450 pump down there, it doesn't fit properly standing upright so will need to be creative.

...and yeah definitely water cooling the GPU's

 

thread is lacking copper pipes...

 

haha yeah been having soo many problems getting something big enough and good enough to... May have to talk to a cabinet maker mate of mine see if he can knock something up

Thanks bro

 

Don't get me started on copper pipes, that's a whole story for another day Having all sorts of trouble sourcing EN 1057 (european standard) 12mm OD pipe, I think I'll end up having to pay a fortune to get some sent from overseas

...and because you asked, heres a shot of the 12.7mm aussie stuff I've got at the moment:

 

What is the difference, aside from .7 mm

 

The 12.7mm pipe won't fit the bitspower sli fittings that ive got to do the copper hardline loop with. A little frustrating but I'll source the right stuff sooner or later, it won't block the build.

 

so you are set on using the copper? Should look rad mate ! Are you going to coat them or sleave them or leave the bare copper? Will it clash with the color of any components ?

Also noob question. Will you put any silver in the loop? And is there anything you CAN NOT include in the loop they may react with copper ?