External Watercooling, SFF computer in two parts.

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darksable

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2015
Messages
431
Hey guys!

So, I have a couple questions that I think will be best answered here.

Here's what I'm trying to do. I love small form factor builds, and have been seeking ever-smaller builds ever since my first rig that I built with my dad. (Except for one mistake with a Caselabs case. Wonderful case, but freaking huge.)

So, here are my priorities for what I'm looking for:

1) Size, to an extent. Past a certain point, I don't care about it being much smaller, and it has to have room to route watercooling tubes to and from the CPU and GPU. I would prefer room for a 3.5" drive or two, but not if it makes the entire thing larger - I can buy 2.5" hard drives.

I prefer steam-machine style cases because they're easier to throw into a backpack... I think. The smallest rig I've built in so far was 19L, and bulky at that. I'll most likely be using a SX500-LG with a custom fan for silence.

2) Silence. On that note, you'll notice that I needed room for watercooling tubes in the case... but I do not need room for a pump, radiator, or reservoir. They will be housed in a separate construction, connected only with power cables and watercooling, both on quick disconnects.

So now we get to my actual questions. First of all, any suggestions on cases? Originally I was building my own out of wood, using rubber bands (replacements for an actual system) and eye-bolts to suspend the hard drives for silence... I love this design because it would be open and flashy and show off my components, but the downside to that it is kills all notion of portability. So then I started looking at other options.

I was ridiculously excited for the NCASE LRPC, but now that it's been canceled, I'm very sad. I love the M1, but it's both pricey and actually too large for what I'm looking for, I think - I don't need room for the radiator nor optical drive. (Though I suppose I could buy an adapter for the slim ODD bay and put another 2.5" drive in there.) All I need room for is the mini-itx motherboard, gtx 670 with waterblock, SFX-L power supply, a SSD (possibly using an mSATA or M.2) and either one 3.5" or two 2.5" drives.


Here's my second question: What's the smallest shape that I can build as an external RadBox that will let me mount two 2x140mm radiators, a pump, and reservoir in, plus one side with 2 x 140mm exhaust fans?

The guts fit into the profile of the radiators, so the simplest design is a square tower with the radiators opposite each other and the fans blowing out on one of the perpendicular faces, but I was worried both about having the radiator fans opposing each other, and about airflow being stifled with the pump and reservoir in a column in the center, blocking airflow.

So now I'm thinking about a triangle with the corners flattened for space - using each of the three large faces as inputs with the single output. I like this design much more, and think that it would look very stylish... but I'm stuck as to how to build it. Even if I could source the aluminum, bend it, and weld it on, it won't be very structurally sound unless I make the thing big enough to have actual side panels that the radiators then mount to. Thoughts?

Thanks for helping me think this through, guys, I appreciate any input you've got.
 
Is there any other reason other than "because you can" to do this? A backpack friendly PC isn't worth much once you reach your destination unless you drag along the Water Cooling Suitcase as well.

As for your tower, I'd rather go with a 60 or 80mm 3x120 rad with push/pull fan config and a D5 pump/tube res on the side of it that would make for a more quiet setup as the fan simply passes through. Opposing rads will work but the airflow itself would probably get noisy due to turbulence.
 
Hey, thanks for the response!

Yes, there is. My friend's computers, in their apartment, the only place I would ever take this rig to, are hooked up to a single cooling tower, using the same tubing quicklinks as I have. This tower has more than enough extra cooling capacity to include my rig, and was in fact designed to do so for LAN parties. If I ever do take it somewhere else, two smaller units would be easier to transport than one larger unit.

Unfortunately, and I might have failed to mention this, I already have all the hardware parts, including both radiators and a very good quality PCIe cable. My rig originally used the single 2x140mm rad with an Apogee Drive II, and then I added in the GPU, the second rad, and a quieter pump due to noise concerns.

You do make a very good point about opposing rads, though... what if I used mono-directional airflow, with one rad in push and one in pull? That would allow me to totally ignore the exhaust fans, which would make the radbox more stable, since I would have two solid walls. (Though I do love the concept and looks of the triangular one; it's just proven nigh-impossible to build without specialized tools.)

As for the hardware parts that I have to work with:

- mini ITX motherboard with an i5-3570k, hopefully overclocked as far as I can push it, with a CPU waterblock.
- GTX 670 FTW with a full-cover waterblock.
- Assorted hard drives and SSDs (and there's room to get what I need if 3.5" drives don't cut it.)
- Swiftech PWM D5 variant.
- 2x Black Ice GT Stealth 280mm radiators, 30mm thick, equipped with Noctua 140mm PWM fans.
- All cabling and tubing required to hook all of the above to itself and the radbox externally.
- Two options for PSU, either from the current rig or the HTPC: a SeaSonic x-650 Gold, and a Silverstone SX500-LG SFX-L.
 
darksable said:
Yes, there is. My friend's computers, in their apartment, the only place I would ever take this rig to, are hooked up to a single cooling tower, using the same tubing quicklinks as I have. This tower has more than enough extra cooling capacity to include my rig, and was in fact designed to do so for LAN parties. If I ever do take it somewhere else, two smaller units would be easier to transport than one larger unit.
Click to expand...

I see. Interesting idea to have a cooling solution that facilitates more than one computer.

darksable said:
Unfortunately, and I might have failed to mention this, I already have all the hardware parts, including both radiators and a very good quality PCIe cable. My rig originally used the single 2x140mm rad with an Apogee Drive II, and then I added in the GPU, the second rad, and a quieter pump due to noise concerns.
Click to expand...

What type of GPU block do you have. If it is space efficient enough you might be able to cram some tubing into Dondans A4. Haven't looked at any measurements, so it might be impossible, but might be worth checking out as there really are no good competition to the Ncase LRPC avalable now. There are of course many projects going on here but none are as close to actually being realized as the A4.

darksable said:
You do make a very good point about opposing rads, though... what if I used mono-directional airflow, with one rad in push and one in pull? That would allow me to totally ignore the exhaust fans, which would make the radbox more stable, since I would have two solid walls. (Though I do love the concept and looks of the triangular one; it's just proven nigh-impossible to build without specialized tools.)
Click to expand...

Take a look at this article: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?220874-More-Radiator-Sandwich-testing. What you are purposing is basically sandwitching two rads. As you can see here it isn't really ideal. I would stack them either vertically side by side, horizontally on top of each other, horizontally side by side, or vertically on top of each other. That gives you a fan matrix of 2x2 or 1x4. It really depends on placement, vertical height constraints and desk realestate, but i think if you are after the best results possible, the rads should all be in one plane. Given the amount of work involved in this project you could also consider trying to sell the rads you have now and get a new one

To be clear. I am sure your triangle idea will work well. It's just not optimal. And if you do go for it, you sure as hell don't need exhaust fans. There will be enough air pressure in there to get rid of the air anyway. If sleek looks are important, you could, at the expense of some airflow, experiment with wooden structure covered in speaker fabric.
 
Yeah, it's a funny setup, but it works quite well for them, and makes use of a heavily-silenced aquarium pump.

The GPU block is a Heatkiller GPU X^3 GTX 680 full-cover block. (This is the EVGA FTW 670, so it's on the stock 680 PCB.) That means it's 10 inches long, and with the waterblock, ~ 5.1 or 5.2 inches high. I actually hadn't thought about the A4 - it looks like the GPU will fit. Three 2.5" drives could actually be made to work, but if I wanted to use the SFX-L power supply, I'd be limited to just one 2.5" drive, which is bloody painful. I wonder if there's a workaround for that...

That was actually a fascinating read, thank you for linking that. Few points of note, though. Although my rads are super high FPI, they're much thinner fins than normal, and take a noticeably lower pressure than any 'regular' slim radiator I've worked with have. Combine that with the fact that they would have a significant gap between them (at bare minimum, 85mm of air), I think I would be okay? That's definitely worth testing, though.

I don't want to use a sandwiched radiator setup, just for aesthetics and noise - the reason I have such overkill radspace for my rig is so that it can run at or below ambient noise in the room. I know that's a silly thing to ask of a small form factor rig, but I'm also an audiophile, sooo... :rolleyes:

I do like the thought of putting the rads in one plane, though - that does make more sense both in terms of footprint and performance. Now I just have to decide if I want it to be one tower or more of a fin-design... which would match better with a case like the RVZ02, when it comes out. (Or, really, the ML02, since the styling of the RVZ02 makes me want to retch.)

I had also thought about covering everything in speaker fabric, actually, but I live in Reno, NV. If you've never visited, what that means is dust, a lot of it, that acts more like silt... so instead of a cover like speaker fabric, I'm just going to get custom fan filters from DEMCiflex.

The biggest issue with the triangle idea is that it would be bloody hard to build the structure, without having access to acrylic working tools. (Aluminium, unfortunately, is even further out of reach for me - I'm mostly working in wood unless there's another medium that's easily workable and strong.)

Thanks for helping me brainstorm, mate - I do appreciate all this.
 
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