Upgrade time!

[VoOdoO]

First part has arrived - a Core i5 750, which I plan to overclock of course. I'm hoping for at least 3.8GHz.

I've also ordered an MSI P55-GD65 and some Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 (12800) in red, with red LED's and underlighting.

For watercooling, I wanted to keep my existing kit as much as possible (for now anyway). So I'm modifying my venerable Asetek Waterchill Extreme kit with larger fittings (1/2"), ditching the CPU block in favour of an Aquacomputer Kryos (delrin top) waterblock and a red XSPC 500mm Passive Aluminium Reservoir. In case you hadn't guessed, I want a red theme, so also got some UV Red tubing coming and a couple of laser bright Red LEDs, as well as a UV LED to go with my existing UV CCFL's. This will all be in my Cosmos S. The interior will be sprayed satin black.

That should be the first phase. At a later date, when I get some more cash, I'll be modding the cabling, and probably upgrading the fans. I also hope to get some laser cut fan grills in the shape of the VL logo.

Anyway, ordered the parts last night and parcel tracking says they should be here tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have plenty to do at the weekend!

[Goldaar]

Nice, sounds awesome.

I finished sleeving my psu last weekend, and just lost all my energy after taking 6 hours to do that piece. Good luck to ya!

[VoOdoO]

Yeah, I've done sleeving before and not looking forward to it. I may actually try something different this time around, and instead of using sleeving, using small UV reactive PVC tubing instead.

Anyway, some of the bits have turned up, I'll get some pictures up in a little while ...

[VoOdoO]

So, the first of my items have arrived!

Got this the other day.


New m0b0. Not exactly the latest and greatest, but it's a damn good board, was a great price and has plenty of features!



And of course the ram, Ballistix Tracer Red (Red LED's, Cl8, 12800).





Really happy with the way they look. Pictures really don't do them justice. Sort of a hologram style red with the chrome surround, and of course the activity lights and underlighting when in use should be cool

Also got a 2TB Samsung F3 to replace one of the failing drives in my HTPC ... well, actually it's large enough that it's easily going to replace ALL the hard drives in my HTPC. Just as well really; the case is designed to accomodate 2 HDD's and an optical drive, full ATX desktop layout. But as I kept running out of room on one hard drive, I'd just add another drive anywhere there was space. That pretty much killed any air flow the case did have :p
So 3 dead power supplies in the past year, I've ran out of spare PSU's, lost 2 drives ... and finally done something about it

No sign of my watercooling items as yet and looking at the time here I'm guessing it's going to be a Monday delivery now. I'm currently moving all the media off my old hard drives onto the new 2 TB drive, but if the Watercooling items don't arrive today, I may leave off starting on my gaming rig until tomorrow. Plus I want to spray the interior black and the wind outside ... well, it's certainly kite flying weather

[VoOdoO]

Watercooling parts never turned up, so this weekend I got on with everything else that I could. This was also hampered by the fact my wife isn't well so I was doing things around the house, plus playing taxi, and 'helping' out every now and then when son or bro-in-law got stuck playing the new Prince of Persia game.

Because the wife was ill, it also meant that if I wanted to get started on my case, I'd have to strip out the PC parts, strip down the case and get everything put somewhere else other than the bed in case she wanted to lay down.

So this weekend, I took out all the PC parts and put them safely back in their boxes, mostly ready to go into son's PC (eventually). All of the (very) dusty fans were put into a big box, and the watercooling parts were stripped down too.

Then I moved onto the case. The Cosmos S is actually very easy to dismantle down to the bare interior aluminium metal so that was something in my favour at least. After that it was out with the dremel! I'd previously cut a hole in the m0b0 tray but it was cut for my specific motherboard, so I enlarged it to (hopefully) accomodate a larger range. I also cut out the mesh from the top 3x120 fan grills, hopefully to improve air flow through my radiator.

After this I scrubbed it down with soapy water and used a pressure washer to rinse it off, hung it on the line to dry in the sun.

In the meantime, I stripped down my watercooling parts. The Black Ice Radiator was litterally caked in dust, so after removing the push in fittings, I flushed it through with white vinegar solution and put it under the shower. My reservoir hadn't done too bad with only a minor build up around the bottom inside of it, which considering I hadn't cleaned it in ... 3? 4? years, I thought was pretty good. Again, removed all the push in fittings.

[VoOdoO]

I'll post a few pictures soon, but not as many photo's as I'd like due to being in a rush

Anyway, one item I was particularly worried about was my Asetek Extreme pump.




This is a pump with a USB software control and fan control built in. Asetek have since moved onto the OEM market so if I screwed it up ...



In the end it was very easy to dismantle. The front reservoir came away exposing the 1/2" threaded inlet and the top outlet also unscrewed as easily. I'd also had to buy the fittings 'blind' that would replace the push in fittings but looks like I got it right; hopefully they all turn up today .

At this point I went back out to the case. It was dry! Hammerite Satin Black, sprayed on all the areas that would be seen.

Eventually, I'm going to have to do this again, and I think that I may go for a powdercoat next time. But that said, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I've no idea why Cooler Master chose not to colour the interior black to begin with, all their other cases are, but the effect is really dramatic and it just looks so much better. Once again, hung out on the washing line to dry.
Back to the best job evah! Cleaning fans! I hate cleaning fans They never end up completely clean, so I'm never entirely happy with them, they take forever, they are fiddly .... Much boredom later I'd got them clean with a cloth, warm water and a toothbrush and a dry soft brush. Also cleaned the case fan filters while I was at it.

Checked the paint on the case, was still a little tacky but I brought it in anyway. Put the case back together ... wow, what a difference!




No doubt, some of the paint is going scratch off easily; no time for a clear coat, but for the next few months, it will do. I'm thinking a combination of black and red for the next time. But for now, the black interior is just brilliant.
After that, I carried on cleaning parts, did a few sleeves on fans, odd jobs basically. I'm now stuck till the watercooling parts arrive so I can lay it out and work everything else around it. My pictures are on my camera, but I'm posting this from my netbook and I really don't want to do the editing/resizing thing on that so piccies will have to wait
So far, I'm happy with the way things are going.

[Goldaar]

Sounds cool, can't wait to see the pics.

When you powder coat it, have you thought about red flecking? I think that is what I may do to the interior, use a black base powder with some blue flake to give it a nice look, almost like stars.

[VoOdoO]

I hadn't thought of red flecking no ... but now I seriously am
I freely admit my spraying this weekend wasn't the greatest; I've not even clear coated it, but for all that it's turned out well and will do until I'm ready to do it 'properly'. At which point ... yeah, I'm thinking red flecked black

So, no water-cooling parts, tracking says they will be here today ... but I couldn't wait any longer! So I put the minimal parts in the machine to get it going and install Windows. Naturally that then turned into a few more parts, but what the hey



One thing my wife was adamant on, was a way to turn off the lights, since I keep this in our bedroom. So yeah, she was really happy to see just how bright the activity lights on the ram are
They really are blindingly bright, and when the system is under load it looks like KITT on speed :p They do create a nice red glow in the case on there own which is nice, and the red Cooler Master fan that I've moved from the front to the back helps that. Hopefully, there will be a lot more pictures today, water cooling installation.

But last night I did play a little of the free Alien Swarm on here, everything A-OK

[VoOdoO]

At last!



2x Ultra Bright Red LEDs, 1x UV LED, 1x Phobya Rocker Switch (black), 6x Black Nickel 45 degree screw on compression fittings (revolvable), the adapters for my pump and of course ...



2 mts of Masterkleer UV Red PVC Hose and a Delrin topped Aquacomputer Kryos CPU waterblock.



The tube is a little on the orange side, but it's much better than my previous pale pink UV red tube





I think the block is pretty sharp looking, and while they do make these with copper and even solid silver, I prefer the black and silver colouring.



You can see that the inlet blast down directly onto the middle of the CPU area and goes through many rectangular channels in the copper base.

This will all be paired up with the aforementioned Asetek Extreme pump and an XSPC 250mm Red Passive Reservoir.



So, I'm off to start putting this all together!

[VoOdoO]

Most of the watercooling fittings I bought all had O-Rings which made things a lot easier to install; no need for teflon tape. Still had to use it on the pump inlet which is a barb fitting, but everything else was straight in and tighten.





I started by sorting out the pump first.



Not going to win any beauty contests, but for the most part the pump will be out of sight anyway.

The block on the other hand does look good, and I'm glad I went with the black nickel fittings for it.



Then it was the 3x120 rad's turn.



And finally the reservoir.

[VoOdoO]

At this point I set the parts out roughly in the case so I could cut the hose ready for a leak test.





After that I took it apart again, then reassembled it on the bathroom floor with an old PSU powering the pump.



Not a drop too be seen! I gave it a good 3 hours to be sure, then drained it, put it back in the machine and using the same old PSU, filled the system and got as much of the air out of the system as I could. I left it an hour so, just to be sure of no leaks and in the meantime started putting the fans into the top area above the radiator.





Tidying up time again, but even without the UV and with only a quick placement of the (not so) Ultra Bright Red LED's, it's looking pretty good, especially in the dark.



I guess I still have a few days work ahead of me, but the hard parts are over.

[VoOdoO]

And the first real issue appears! I've never had any trouble installing the software and drivers for the asetek pump, until today. Constantly getting "USB Device not recognized".

[VoOdoO]

Not had much time today, and a lot of it was spent trying to get the asetek pump driver installed, but it looks like no go :( I've used it through XP, Vista, Vista 64bit, Win 7 32bit and 64bit on many previous sytems ... but it just doesn't want to install on here.

I do have a couple of fan controllers, so they've been reinstalled. I also sprung a slow leak at the pump outlet. I did try tightening up the fitting a little more but in the end I had to drain the system, redo the teflon tape around the fitting and fill the system again; that was about 2 hours ago, and so far so good. I'm also running at a 170 Base CLK giving me a 3.4GHz clock on this i5 750. I also did a little tidying up. Not many pictures today as not much done, but I'll post what I have.

















Hopefully, I'll have time to get started on installing switches and wiring for UV CCFL's tho with all the red lighting currently, I'm wondering just how effective they will be ...

[ShetiPhian]

Looking Good man.
I'm gonna suggest Paint With Pearl's Apple Red metal flake.

I have used their products and have been very happy with them.
I haven't powder coated with them but they say you can.

[VoOdoO]

I like the look of that. That would just right I would think, thanks! Hopefully won't have to wait too long before we find out.

Managed to get my UV cathodes (and the UV LED to pick up the slack) installed, and a switch put into a spare front bay cover.

No UV


With UV


Looks quite pink in the pictures, but in real life it's brighter and more towards orange/pink. It's certainly a lot brighter than I hoped for so pleased about that.



Through the case side


With and Without UV