[Build Log] The Phoenix

[SirKeldon]

Hello all, so after a couple of requests I decided to create a "Build Log" for this new rig

The story begins with my PowerMac G5 modded case creating really hot spots between PSU and GPU zone due to the GTX770 expelling a lot more heat than my old HD6850.

The old rig

Despite the nostalgy and all the work invested, I know I have to swap case to improve my cooling while focusing in a more silent rig. After a long search, I decided to get Thermaltake Core V51 (very nice similar lines to PowerMac G5, black, big window and WC ready!) and thought about a loop with new components too, thanks to @fullinfusion and @cadaveca I sorted it in terms of heat dissipation, thanks guys!

New loop design

I had to tour almost all EKWB Europe resellers' webs till I found a full block for my recently acquired GTX770 in Portugal, purchased it; as I didn't had luck finding any original compatible backplate I finally modded the original one to fit. Here's the result:

Then I ordered the rest: the case (TT Core V51), EK-DDC 3.2 combo res & pump, Tygon R-3603 tubing and compression fittings from EKWB and XSPC in black chrome:

And here comes the assembling ....

Let's go with tubing!

And now let's pour some Blue Magic on it (Heisenberg gave me his formula )

It's going well, no leaks at all, let's picture it from ant view

But shortly after I powered it up a short-circuit happened, resulting in not booting up or whatsoever. Swapped PSU, unplugged components, reset BIOS like 100 times but nothing. The day after after a last try the MoBo set on fire, still guessing why. Killed a lot of hardware with it, including CPU, PSU and 2 HDs.

Spoiler: The Disaster Story (Extended Version)

So after a 2-3 hours with water running, I decide to connect the remaining components and try to power it on. I do it and BOOM, lights blinking in the PSU, kind of short, then it powered off.

I tried several times to boot the machine w/o components that could lead to short, also swapped PSU but no luck, apparently my system didn't wanted to start, neither to give energy to MOLEX but yes powering board, weird. After a hard night I decide to go to sleep and think "tomorrow it will be a better day".

So here comes the Saturday, and myself totally decided to try it once. At the last attempt, it powered on, but shortly after that, the PSU started to blink all lights again and more important, the VRMs at the top of the MB started to smoke, then to FIRE. Had to power it off but it was too late. After doing an examination and mounting some components to my spare rig ... I had to say that PSU, CPU, MoBo and 2 hard drives were dead. Luckily GPU and RAM survived.

Nevertheless, this build was going to be called "The Phoenix" from the very first moment, and now it really came to a reason, it had to rebirth from its ashes, more powerful and ready for the future, so I went to the store and purchased a Core i7 4790K and a MSI Z97 Gaming 7, they had to gather the family.

Family Picture

There's no time for surrender, and I will mount the same way as planned ... and here's its complete execution with some kind of cable management

The Phoenix Internals

The Phoenix Full View

Bonus Picture

Hope you liked it, I know I didn't mod yet nothing ... but after the story I had, I will wait before touching anything
Kudos to all and thanks for watching and reading

PS: Some final words to thank @Knoxx29 and @CAPSLOCKSTUCK for moral support in the whole story!!! Also a big thanks to all the people that keeps posting in the thread "YOUR PC ATM" and continues to give ideas and inspiration to all of us, keep up the good work in old TPU style

 

[SirKeldon]

[ UPDATE February 2020 ]

Down below here and here you can find the february 2020 update with new components.

Thanks for viewing and specially for commenting and sharing your thoughts!!!

 

[15th Warlock]

Awesome build! I really like the cable management, it is obvious you have invested a lot of time in making it look so clean! Congrats and thanks for posting this very interesting project log

 

[SirKeldon]

Awesome build! I really like the cable management, it is obvious you have invested a lot of time in making it look so clean! Congrats and thanks for posting this very interesting project log

Maybe redoing the build 3 times helped hahahaha!! Thanks for your kind words Though that, i'm still not happy 100% with the final result, maybe I will try to improve it a lil bit more. Also thinking into get some kind of cover to hide the back ones from the remaining HD spaces, also accomodate maybe another light with a switch as the one I have now, thinking also to get sleeved extensions too ... A lot of pending things that will be done in the future, currently I went broke due to the components purchase lol!

 

[15th Warlock]

Maybe redoing the build 3 times helped hahahaha!! Thanks for your kind words Though that, i'm still not happy 100% with the final result, maybe I will try to improve it a lil bit more. Also thinking into get some kind of cover to hide the back ones from the remaining HD spaces, also accomodate maybe another light with a switch as the one I have now, thinking also to get sleeved extensions too ... A lot of pending things that will be done in the future, currently I went broke due to the components purchase lol!

You've done a fantastic job so far, but I get what you mean, our rigs are never completely done, there's always a next step in our minds haha!

Please keep us posted on any updates you make to your rig!

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The Pheonix Rises.

A superb build Dude....i love it.
An excellent write up and pics as well. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do such a comprehensive log.

 

[SirKeldon]

Thanks for your kind words guys, they truly mean a lot, specially coming from PC enthusiasts as we all are =)

I would accept any ideas for modding this case, though it doesn't need too many IMHO. I'd like to add a small panel to cover the switches are, and personalizing it in that precise point, but still unsure how. I hope a friend can find his Cooler Master HAF PSU Cover and profit it too to add some personal touches.

@15th Warlock you're right, our builds are never complete, I was just refering to the cable management, I'd like to improve it a bit and add some sleeved blue cables but I went out of money for now, any sponsor is welcome!

I'd like to go rigid tubing and replace the single 120mm with a dual 240mm for next months to improve temps in case of OC ... but we'll see.
Thanks again to all

 

[fullinfusion]

Thanks Angel and very very nice looking rig man! My hat goes off to you sir!

 

[jaggerwild]

That gigabyte board, looks like the compound under the heat sink leaked out onto the near by components and shorted them out. Are you gonna RMA, or toss it? Great build sorry for your short circuit!!!!!

 

[SirKeldon]

Thanks Angel and very very nice looking rig man! My hat goes off to you sir!

Thanks a lot Brad!!! You know it means a lot coming from you

That gigabyte board, looks like the compound under the heat sink leaked out onto the near by components and shorted them out. Are you gonna RMA, or toss it? Great build sorry for your short circuit!!!!!

Well, to be honest, I find interesting your comment, but wouldn't this scenario be more possible when the MoBo was inverted and the gravity acting on that compound? It spent 3 years inverted and after I finally move it to its "natural" position the disaster happened, kind of "inverted gravity" work lol. Despite that, I can't RMA, warranty is over for PSU as well as for MoBo, that's why I moved fast to get new CPU and MoBo and profit the PSU from the spare rig. Glad you liked it!!!

Still thinking what to improve when I have money again.

 

[jaggerwild]

Sorry you had issue's man!
But you do learn(if it was a spill)I use a devoted PSU for water leak testing. that's all i use it for, or to test with.

 

[peche]

un truly sorry about your loss, pretty nice build, I do really love that Core V51, unfortunately is not available here in my country, so I will have to move on to a chaser A31 Black in a couple of months,

what about your Mac G5 case? what are you going to do with that old guy?

Regards,

 

[SirKeldon]

Well, first of all, apologies for bringing up an old thread, but it's still the one that it belongs, I reserved the 2nd post for future updates but that option is no longer available. So i'll have to do it here. Second thing, I'll be back around for some weeks, before and after I upgrade new components I always come back to TPU, it's nice

I had the itch to upgrade since past year but postponed it too much, after 5 years of intense use with my old system, I faced really big problems regarding the CPU (it was really overheating, 4790K reached 80-85º sometimes and it reset a couple of times) that may be caused due to a pump that really did a good job but after that long period of work said "no more", not to mention all the liquid colorant was now pure solidified blue waste, Cryofuel didn't even last a year and a half. Summarizing, so many hours of use in all the components, including also PSU and RAM that have been rocking for 8-9 years really beyond the base start 5. If you want to take a look of how disgusting it was, take a look at the dirty old Phoenix:

So I thought it was really the time to upgrade and decided to renew everything but the GPU, CPU Block and the case, so I did it, went crazy with:

• CPU: i9-9900K (that turned to be R0 stepping and manufactured later June so great chance of being a beast)
• RAM: 32GB (2x16) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance Pro RGB @ 3000Mhz CL15
• MOBO: Asus TUF Z390 Pro-Gaming
• STORAGE: 2xM.2 NVMe Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB and 1xHDD 4TB Toshiba X3@7.2K
• PSU: Corsair RM750W
• LIQUID COOLING:
  • PUMP: EK TBE 200 D5 Quantum Kinetic D-RGB Plexi
  • RADIATOR: Corsair HydroX XR5 240mm
  • TUBING: Primochill Advanced LRT 13/19mm
  • LIQUID: Mayhems X1 ECO Clear
• PREVIOUSLY OWNED:
  • GPU: MSI Seahawk EK X 1080
  • CPU BLOCK: Swiftech Apogee XT
  • Case: Thermaltake Core V51

And many hours later and with the unpayable help of my brother-in-law that helped me draining the circuit and cleaning all the dirtyness in cables and fans, here's the amazing result after the first mounting:

Showing off a little bit of colours:

Alone in the dark to emphasyze the tubing UV effect

Just pending to arrive some PWM extensors and splitters to avoid laying down fan cables up the motherboard as well as a M2 heatsink for the one above the GFX, some more cable management if possible (i'm getting old and lazy) and it will be done.
But after this, it's been reborn and deserves "The Phoenix" title again, rise and shine!!!

Keep it on and alive

 

[infrared]

Ahh, I wish I could see that in person, I love tidy UV reactive builds

I unlocked the edit time on the first two posts

 

[SirKeldon]

Ahh, I wish I could see that in person, I love tidy UV reactive builds

I unlocked the edit time on the first two posts

We don't live that far away, if you pass by Barcelona feel free to tell me and I'll show you

At first I thought to go with clean tubing (as I always did) but instead I decided to go fully clear water (to prevent the gunk I've always suffered in the past 12 years using coloured liquids) and give a try at coloured tubing, orange UV (I love UV as well, in the past I used several UV reactive liquids as well) fitted perfectly as the MoBo has tiny orange details all around it, and since i didn't went full RGB (didn't want to) clear tubing maybe wasn't that appealing so I went old-school in this part

Do you really think it's tidy enough? Besides the two obvious cables that cross around the MoBo (PWM extenders for this and m2 heatsink should arrive on Monday) I think I have to work a lil bit more on cable management to hide even more lil spots, you people tell me ... so a huge thank you to unlock the second post so I can leave the update pictures there once it's finished, will the notifications work the same when I edit something in the old one? Or should I post a new one?

Thanks for everything and cheers

 

[infrared]

Thanks lol, I'll keep it in mind

Hmm, I need to start using just clear fluid and nice tubing myself, you're right, gunk and staining is no fun.

Cable management is looking great from this side, if you're looking for suggestions the only small detail I'd change is to run the GPU power closer to the card and through the same cable hole as the 24pin so it's not drooping down so much.

edit - I think people will get notifications if you edit post 2, but might be worth bumping the thread with a new post just to be sure

 

[SirKeldon]

Hello there again!

The PWM extensors and splitters and the EK M2 heatsink arrived, worked a lil bit more on the cable management and here's close to its final aspect:

The Phoenix rises again

small detail I'd change is to run the GPU power closer to the card and through the same cable hole as the 24pin so it's not drooping down so much.

I thought about it, and tried to avoid dropping a lil bit as you can see, but if I run that one through the 24pin hole, it will expose two lil ones that right now are camouflaged by the PCIe ones, maybe i'll try to rise them a lil bit more through the back. I'll see, thanks for the input though

Still wanna hear your thoughts, what will you change/improve?
Cheers ppl!