TJ-07 Black and White Watercooled

[Whilhelm]

Update, the rig as of June 16th 2011



Update, the rig as of January 12th 2009



Update, the rig as of November 12th 2008



Update, the rig as of September 10th 2008

Blue Water

Clear Water


It has been a while since I have been on here but I have been very busy while my Maximus was on RMA but now its back and I can get my rig back up and running.

I decided to go nuts and get the interior of my case powder coated gloss white and do a complete rebuild of my system. Right now I have none of the interior parts back yet so I have been doing work to some other parts of the system. I have painted a bunch of parts including I/O shields, PCI slot covers and the casings for the optical drives. I have also 'stealthed' the fronts of my optical drives. I have also painted a heap of hardware to match the case.

I will let the pictures show the rest, hope you like it







Painted and 'Stealthed' Optical Drives - Pioneer SATA DVD/RW 18x



White Slot Covers



Various Bracketry, Grommets and Painted Thumbscrews



Diamond 3870X2, soon to be replaced with a 4870X2, It was a decen't card and I will miss it like my old Radeon 9700Pro



Supreme FX II, Only using it to add bling to the rig as it's software is crap compared to my X-Fi.



Ah here it is, my X-Fi Extreme Music with a 3.5 to Coax adapter.



A pile of Ballistix Tracers with little Led Tinted windows



Of course the Maximus Formula



Everything on the board just for the heck of it



The bottom compartment of the TJ07 where My WC gear and PCP&C Silencer 750 reside



And finally a rather barren looking, fingerprint covered TJ07 just itching to get its guts back

[intel igent]

nice man! can't wait to see it come together

[Whilhelm]

Thanks, the parts should be back from the powdercoaters on tuesday so I will have this ready to go by mid next week.

[Maju]

Looking like it could be a nice build there whilhelm.

Is that two sound card you've got there? or to put it another way, what is the card with the adaptor jack in it?

Roll on tuesday.

[Cuzza]

How do you do what you did to the CD drives? Also I love that you painted the expansion card backplanes, great attention to detail there.

[Whilhelm]

The supreme FX came with the board and even though I don't use it, it still looks cool installed in the case. The one with the COAX adapter is an X-fi extreme music.

As for the stealthed optical drives, I took the two spare covers that came with my TJ07 and removed the side pieces that mount them too the case. Then I took off the stock face plate and used double sided mounting tape to put the new stealth face plate on. I also attached the open button to the plate so that now when you push the lower right corner of the drive it will open.



Thanks for the comments from you all. I am looking forward to getting teh parts back, it should look pretty neat when it is all done.

[oily_17]

Nice ideas you have going and love the black\white theme.Waiting on some parts for my TJ07 and then going to do a rebuild on it as well.

Will keep an eye on yours for some ideas

[Whilhelm]

Thanks, the theme won't be fully complete until I get my black 4870x2. I was also toying with the idea of getting some black dye for my water and maybe put white anti kink coils around my tubes.

[NeoCrisis]

Mad props on putting effort into detail and also having a TJ07, an AMAZING CASE.
You should check out my TJ07 in my sig. Its actually a bit out dated. Ive just installed my water cooling setup but waiting for another radiator in the mail.

[exo17]

The black dye and white anti-kink coils would be an awesome combination. Good luck, it seems like a nice project.

[steelkane]

nice project, I love the shit out of the TJ07. I'll be watching this build

[Silverel]

ditto. Project logs are good times. The voyeurism interests me... I'll be watching from the bushes with some nightvision goggles and a shammy.

[Whilhelm]

I have just noticed that one of the capacitors on my Motherboard is loose and it looks like the solder points are broken. I am not sure if I should be concerned about this or if it will be fine. Anybody have any ideas?



On a different note I have noticed that I can mount an MCW30 on my Southbridge if I move my video card to the bottom PCI-E slot. I don't know if the Southbridge gets hot enough to warrant a waterblock but I may put one there anyway because I can move my current MCW30 from the Northbridge and get an EK Maximus block for it. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Fitseries3]

what i sick idea man!!!!! painting the rear panel deallys white... genious!

you need a EK NB block on that bad boy. get one from PTS along with whatever else you may need. i reccomend a EK 250mm res as well over the Swiftech. dont run water on the SB. it's a waste of time and effort. you can use something like this....



thats an enzotech HS if you need to know.

i also recommend clearflex 60 over any other type of tubing. it's cheaper than tygon and i like it better than any tubing i have seen to date... and i've been building watercooling rigs for a long time now.

EDIT: forgot to mention... you should get your mid divider cut like mine. it allows you to install/remove the water loop without draining/dismantling the loop.

[Whilhelm]

Thanks for the tips, I am running 7/16 Masterclear and it seems to be pretty decent. As for the Waterblock dilemma, I currently have an MCW30 on the Northbridge and if i get an EK block for my Northbridge I may as well loop the MCW30 to the Southbridge. I currently have an old aluminum heatsink on the soutbridge that came from the southbridge on my last board. It has the exact same hole pattern as the stock block so I decided to use it.





As for the divider plate, I have already made some modifications to it and it, along with the rest of the chassis will be back from the powdercoaters very soon.

One more question, how do you link the pics so that they appear in the thread like you did?

[Fitseries3]

this
[img]PIC LOCATION[/img]

that SB sink looks nice. i wouldn't change it at all. it's a total pain in the ass to put water on the SB and totally unnecessary. you could leave the SB bare and it would be fine.

[Whilhelm]

Haha, thanks for the advice, I may just keep it there, and I don't really know If I need the EK block for the NB because the MCW30 isn't too bad and is very unrestrictive.

Here is a little more on the Ballistix Tracer LED covers. Made out of clear plastic packaging folded to shape and colored with a permanent marker. Really simple, free and your eyes will thank you.

[Whilhelm]

A little update on the Southbridge. The heatsink came from an ASUS A8R-MVP and I put the ROG badge on it so I think it now it looks more official.





Here is the Front panel audio and USB box painted. I also drilled a 1" hole to accommodate the wiring and finished it off with a grommet.

[steelkane]

Nice little detailing, Keeping it clean is the hardest to achieve.

[Whilhelm]

Update, a switch box for my cathodes, painted white with a cover plate made for it. This was originally a pci slot mounted switch, it will now reside above my optical drives





Its not perfect but it will do until I get a couple of nice switches to front mount.

[Whilhelm]

A lot of Good news and then all of a sudden, Bad News

I got my parts back from the Powdercoaters. Many thanks to my friend and http://afterburnercoatings.com/ They look great and the coating is pretty decent. The fan grilles and motherboard tray especially.









So I began, I started by installing the floor and reservoir,



Sorry bout the blurry pic.



followed by the upper rail and then the motherboard tray.



Once this was done all the fans and grilles were installed and massive wire management work began, using grommets and cable clamps to hold everything tidy and together. I will probably sleeve all the cables eventually but time will tell.





Then the hardware was installed.



Once everything was in the pump was turned on to bleed the majority of bubbles that had accumulated from disuse.





Some Finished Pre-first boot pictures.









And then.... Pow Right in The Kisser... DET DRAM error



The very reason I RMAd my motherboard in the first place. ASUS is gonna get a phone call tomorrow.

And that's all for now folks... Another month of waiting to get this thing going.

[Odin Eidolon]

lovely

[Cuzza]

Sweet, the white on the inside makes it look really clean like a chip fab clean-room or something. Or actually, reminds me of various spacecraft out of sci-fi movies.

[Whilhelm]

The clean room was the look I was going for.

Good news is I got it to post but the badnews is that there is somthing wrong with the ballistix and I am not sure which stick is at fault

[Fitseries3]

my ballistix did that on the maximus. i had to take 2 sticks out. i ended up selling both and getting Gskill HZ's.

EDIT: it didnt like 2x2gig's of red ballistix tracers either.