Project: Nutman

Project: Nutman

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First of all: I'm from Denmark, so english is not my native tongue. Yada-yada-yada... bear over with me, if... Yada-yada-yada... Oh, and I'm also linking to some danish and german suppliers AND I use the metric system! Uh oh! ;)

Well, here we go:

In march 2008 I was playing with the thought of trying to watercool my computer (Socket 478, 2.8 GHz P4, etc.).

I got hold of a Thermaltake BigWater 735 kit and was about to build it into my oooold casemod (see pictures here and here).

I had already made 120mm holes in my Codegen iron-case, when someone offered me a cheap, more modern computer in a black Lian-Li PC6070 case.

I quickly decided to sell the old rig and start with the new computer instead... ;)

The idea of watercooling was dropped for the time being, as I really didn't have the money.

There was no strict plan for the project to begin with - all I knew was that I wanted to make it quiet, efficiently cooled and styled nicely - which meant mounting my harddrive using rubber bands for clothing (like in my old case), silent fans were to be purchased (mounted using antivibration bolts), UV cathodes and powerful LEDs plus LED mounting gear was going to be purchased, etc.....

Anyway, I didn't really plan to make a worklog, but after a while I thought I had been spending so much time on the project that it would be a shame not to have documented it. That's why there are no pictures from the very beginning of this project... however, I'll try to explain what has happened up until this point.

I quickly realised that I'm obviously PRETTY much a puritan and quite the perfectionist (well, at least when it comes to casemodding, heh..), so every single solution had to be close to being perfect and be nicely in sync with where I wanted to go with the project.

First, I decided to sleeve all cables - I started with the PSU. I visited Studiedata and bought some sleevingkits (as the case is black, I thought that a combination of black and UV-reactive green sleeving would be a good match... later I was proven right... and lucky, too! Read on...) and started trying to sleeve.

Anyone who has tried sleeving will most likely agree with me that it's piece of cake to work with Molex-connectors, while it's a bitch to disassemble the ATX-plug, the EPS-plug, etc.. I can verify it's JUST like that!! After having destroyed the specialized tool utilised for disassembling the ATX-plug and following having repaired this tool to the best of my abilities, I was able to display multiple cuts and bruises on my poor fingers and several blisters had started popping up on my thumbs!

With a little practice I managed to disassemble these plugs and all plugs were replaced with UV-reactive green plugs (where applicable). I decided NOT to sleeve the ATX-cable itself (only replaced the ATX-plug itself), as Enermax had done a half-decent job already....

Anyway, the remaining cables were sleeved (and shortened, when necessary. No need to have more cables than you actually need, right?) and this was when I discovered I am quite puritan, because I realised that I think it looks ugly when you're able to spot the coloured cables through the sleeving. Hence, I had to heat shrink all cables prior to sleeving them. The result is that the cables are somewhat stiff, but they look much better this way, I think.

Tip: An old hair dryer is PERFECT for working with heat shrink!

Studiedata carry heat shrink from AC Ryan in rolls and it's not expensive at all - furthermore, it's nicely thin, quite flexible and easy to expand, if needed when applying.

Other cables in the computer had to be sleeved aswell, for instance the wide P-ATA alike cable that connect my sound card (TerraTec DMX 6fire 24/96) with its 5.25" breakout box. I coudn't disassemble this plug (or: didn't have the nerve) and I wouldn't risk splitting the cable by cutting between each single wire, so I went with the solution of "folding" the cable - in the end it was app. 1,5 x 1,5 cm. thick. Hard to describe, but check out this picture that I found on the internet:

There are lots of guides on the internet that describe this process.

Then I bent one of the plugs to make it run parallel with the cables itself and now I was able to pull sleeving and heat shrink over the plug and onto the cable. Shrink, shrink, shrink and this was the result:

Not perfect but good enough, considering that almost all visible parts has been sleeved.

The original Lian-Li fans were also sleeved:

Then I purchased an original Lian-Li side panel, premodded with a window at HK Automation - and please don't talk bull about this project just because I used a premodded side panel. I think it fits the project fine, as it's nice and pure and the rivets apply nicely to my idea:

I was going to mount 12" UV cold cathodes and these often come in pairs including 1 inverter and a PCI-bracket with an on/off switch. I had half of such a kit in advance (1 cathode + 1 inventer + PCI-bracket). I quickly decided that the on/off switch should be moved to the front of the case, as I really don't have that much space behind the computer. I gave it quite some thought and decided that it WAS necessary to be able to switch all lights on and off. It's a sweet little feature....and it's considered casemodding to put a switch in your computer, so there... ;)

Out came the drill and the file and the switch was moved from the PCI-bracket to one of the empty 3.5" slots at the front of the case:

I'd like some more UV lighting, so I got an entire set at Studiedata. Now I had 3 cathodes totallt. The 2 cathodes from the Studiedata-kit are not as powerful as the single cathode I had in advance, so they'll be mounted in the top of the case to cast atmospheric light from above.

The UV cathode I had in advance, was mounted in the bottom of the case and will cast light from below and from the front.

Wires were soldered to the on/off switch, so it can switch on/off both inverters at the same time. The inverters were mounted on the visible side of the 3.5" frame using velcro. I'm not sure it's the best place for the inverters... does it look stupid that you can see the inverters through the side panel window? Hm... well, there they are, for now...

All cathodes have been mounted using 3M Dual Lock velcro - a type of velcro, consisting of tiny T-shaped hooks, as opposed to "regular" velcro, consisting of small loops and hooks. 3M Dual Lock velcro is incredibly strong and is for instance used by musicians for securing their gear, so it doesn't shift during live acts and such... You can buy it for 16 EUR/m. at Aage.dk - it's app. 3 cm. wide....

I think I'll be getting an extra 15 cm. UV cathode that will be connected to the empty socket in the 2nd inverter. 15 cm., because it will fit in so many places in the case as opposed to the 30 cm. cathodes, which will only mount horizontally or vertically.

Aaaaaanyway... (Are you still there? Hallo?... Yooohoo?) ;)... moving on!

The UV cathodes need some stuff to cast light upon, so I purchased some AC Ryan cables at Studiedata:

My girlfriend and I visited Berlin during a spring holiday, and I bought some UV fluorescent green color and some Nanoxia fans (because they're so much cooler than the original Lian-Li fans) that....ARGH! I'm just reading this on Nanoxia.com:

"NANOXIA - CLOSED

nanoxia will be discontinued.

The ex european distributor xen micro GmbH registered the trademark nanoxia against all aggrements on their own name.
All products wich will come with the nanoxia trademark on the market will not be original "nanoxia" products.

the original founder and engineer behind nanoxia - May 08"

Well, isn't that dandy... I bought 3 1600 RPM 9dBa 80mm fans for 6,99 EUR/piece. Bulk... didn't need the fan control bracket that usually comes with Nanoxia fans.... and these fans are actually green AND UV reactive! That's why, as I mentioned before, it was lucky I chose UV reactive green sleeving, because it fits like a glove with these fans.

I also purchased some Coolink antivibration bolts in Berlin. Unfortunately, they're blue, but I'll live.... (I bought all these parts at KM Elektronik on Alexanderplatz. Recommendable!)

My case was missing some original parts.

The hard drive rack and the fan in front of the VGA card was missing. Well, after having looked on the internet and trying to purchase these parts off other Lian-Li owners, I talked to Dan at Studiedata, who told me to come look for the parts in their basement. And I found the parts there!!! That's brilliant customer service!

Used some grit 800 sandpaper (bought at Silvan at 1,30 EUR/sheet) on the visible side of the hard drive rack and the fan in front of the VGA card and then polished these parts using Autosol (4 EUR/tube at T Hansen)- quite hard work ;). These parts won't be like mirrors after this kind of treatment, but shiny ENOUGH and in sync with the rest of the case. To fit the anodized aluminum of the rest of the case, remember to sand in the same direction ALL THE TIME and use the SAME direction when polishing using Autosol. This procedure produced the best results for me, as Autosol actually contains tiny grains that WILL produce small scratches if you don't follow the grooves made during sanding. Of course, my puritan ego wouldn't be able to live with such small scratches... if you want a mirror-like finish, use a product like Slibol. However, I didn't want a mirror-like finish so this solution works fine for me.

And yes, there are some sticky fingerprints there! I will remove them, before doing the last pictures when the project is finished...

I bought an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro at HK Automation for cooling my CPU. However, I just couldn't be bothered polishing that one... ;)

Various stickers were applied to the insides of the case, so they don't ruin the outer look...

Then I had an idea, I haven't seen before: I was going to paint the edges of my PCI peripherals using the fluorescent paint I bought in Berlin!

Done!

Now I'm thinking about what else to paint without going overboard.....

In the meantime I realised that I needed a PSU to test LEDs, fans, UV lighting and such... I modded an old Commodore Amiga 500 PSU to deliver +12V and +5V via a regular Molex-connector.

And yes, my work desk was beginning to look QUITE messy (later, this got much worse!)

Also took some pictures of my "stock" (if you need PSUs, just let me know) ;)

Well, now comes the tricky bit.... LED lighting!

Since you can't live with just UV lighting, I went to Brinck Elektronik and bought 5 powerful 5mm blue LEDs and 2 UV 5mm LEDs, various LED sockets and mounts, resistors and the necessary wiring.

I chose blue LEDs, partly because the power-LED of the case is blue and partly because I like the mix of UV green and blue LEDs in a black/aluminum case.

I need to make 2 mounting brackets for the LEDs that are to be mounted inside the hard drive rack below the hard drive itself. There's supposed to be 2 LED sockets in each bracket. One of the sockets on each bracket will contain a UV LED which will be facing the UV reactive Nanoxia fans, while the remaining socket will contain a blue LED facing the other way (towards the backside of the case)...

On the following picture you can get an idea of what it's going to look like. And you can see the hard drive mounting system that I came up with myself...

As you can see, I have various LED sockets.

The socket with the glass lens is COOL, but almost impossible to get. I bought it at Brinck Elektronik by sheer luck, but they only had 1 left in their stock. They told me they would order 10 more, but when they arrived, they turned out to be "regular" reflection sockets, without the glass lens. Oh well, I will manage. I WILL find a way to utilise the glass lens socket. I'm working on something resembling the "Terminator eye" effect, you know. The slow fading out and in... more on that subject later!

I came up with the idea of a 90 degrees bracket for mounting of the LEDs in the hard drive rack and I was going to use and old CD-ROM drive for that idea..

Yes, the result was butt-ugly (pardon my french) and quite impossible to polish to a better look....

I decided to purchase some pre-fabricated 90-degrees brackets from Silvan (and some bolts to mount them with), and then drill the right size holes in them myself - these brackets look much better, I think (unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the brackets prior to modifying them).

All I need to do now, is to expand the pre-drilled holes to 8 mm., allowing for the LED sockets to fit.

I decided to move the inverters to another place because, as I mentioned before, they were mounted in a place I wasn't completely sure about.

Now, they're placed a little more "out of sight, out of mind" and have been mounted using 3M Dual Lock velcro.

One of the inverters is placed on top of the inlet fans, while the other one is placed on that side of the 3.5" rack that is not visible through the side panel.

I also purchased 2 new, powerful blue 5 mm. LEDs, aswell as 2 new UV 5 mm. LEDs - I bought these from the guy responsible for leds4all.dk.
These new LEDs are much better than the LEDs I bought at Brinck Elektronik - not only are the new blue LEDs MUCH more powerful, but the UV LEDs are also much better at illuminating UV reactive things. I suspect Brinck Elektronik having sold violet LEDs to me - violet is just behind ultra violet (= UV) in the color spectrum, but it's hard to prove. Anyway, the "violet" LEDs ARE capable of illuminating UV reactive things a little bit, so I will probably use them somewhere...

I mounted 2 blue 5mm LEDs from Brinck Elektronik in the case front, making them cast their light towards the back of the case, on the inside.
It looks OK - the final result won't present itself until the case has been completely assembled. And yes, those legs need to be shortened, so they're not visible once the socket sits in place.

Well, I drilled the holes in the LED-brackets, mounted the sockets and the LEDs and built everything into the hard drive rack. It looks pretty good. However, I have some concerns regarding the LED wiring, so I'll gave that some thought:

Here are some pictures of the fan that sits on front of the VGA card and draws hot air from the case.

Of course, the wires need sleeving, a fan regulator will be attached and, at this point, I think I'll be painting the fan itself fluorescent green (not the metal frame, but the fan itself), making the greeen color glow in the holes of the metal frame:

So, the northbridge of my ASUS P5ND2-SLI is getting preeeetty hot, so I need to mount a different cooler.

So I went and bought a used Thermalright HR05 IFX.

The old cooler was removed, the northbridge chip was cleaned and the new cooler installed. It was a little tricky to secure the new cooler, as there wasn't much room to operate in. The mounting solution by Thermalright isn't best, because the cooler can actually twist when mounted on the chip, but I'm counting on it sitting there quite nicely once the heat from the chip has hardened the Artic Silver 5 cooling paste:

While replacing the ATX-plug with a UV reactive one I hadn't covered the colored cables entirely.

Not pretty, so I had to fix it, but I wasn't about to remove the plug again only to apply heat shrink, so I applied some Nitto tape instead:

Ok, finally decided that the LED wiring in the hard drive rack didn't meet my expectations, so I decided to create better wiring and a more radical way of connecting each LED to the PSU.

I decided on using RCA plugs and cutting a piece of acrylic, making it fit into the 3.5" rack.

The RCA-plate with female connectors was dug out from the basement and 8 RCA male plugs were purchased at Brinck Elektronik.

I soldered resistors to the female plugs on the RCA plate, all parallel, to be able to plug in each LED individually without messing with the amount of light coming from the rest of the plugged-in LEDs.

A piece of 3 mm. acrylic was purchased at Silvan (3,75 EUR for a 60x60 cm piece) and I cut, snapped off and sanded until I had a piece that would sit nicely in the back of the 3.5" rack. Then, this pice of acrylic was spray painted black on the back. That way you add a little depth to the color and as the paint is sitting on the back of the acrylic inside the 3.5" rack, you won't easily scratch the color. I was thinking about adding a female Molex connector to the piece of acrylic, in order to power the LED plugs, but I decided to hide this part of the wiring, connecting it directly to a switch, just like the one I added for the UV cathodes:

While I was working with the acrylic, I decided to make a cover plate for the VGA card, because the red color of the ATI card didn't really fit into the color scheme of the project.

The cover plate was measured, drawn, cut, snapped off, sanded and I marked a circle, where I wanted to cut a hole in order to let out excessive heat from the backside of the GPU:

Hm... as I mentioned earlier, all of this started with a desire to try watercooling, but back then I dropped the idea, because I didn't really have the money for such a project.

But by now I was hooked on the idea again, so it's time to add watercooling to this rig!

I bought a radiator with an Aqua Computer radiator grill. I had some trouble identifying the radiator, but eventually I concluded it was either a HW Labs Black Ice Extreme II, or a somewhat older HW Labs radiator. Whether the flow is good enough or that it cools efficiently is yet to be seen.

The Aqua Computer radiator grill is made especially for Aqua Computer Airplex EVO 240 radiators, where the 120 mm. fans sit a little further apart than most other radiators, so a non-Aqua Computer radiator normally won't fit that radiator grill unless it has been modified (drilling new holes in the radiator to fit the holes in the grill). As you can see, the previous owner had modified the radiator to fit this grill, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep this grill - what if I want to use another radiator in the future? Then I'll have to modify the new radiator, too, and I'm just not too sure that I will want to do that. Well, anyway, I'll have to make a decision on this matter later. Here are some pictures of the radiator (before and after cleaning) and the radiator grill:

I visited Studiedata again to purchase some spare UV reactive Nanoxia antivibration bolts, 2 extra Nanoxia fan controls and 2 Nanoxia FX12 fans:

In order to cut the holes to fit my radiator, I had to take the top off my Lian-Li PC6070 - this procedure meant removing the 4 rivets that hold the top in place (2 in the front, 2 in the back).

On the internet there is a totally pointless guide on how to remove rivets - something about having to use a Dremel to cut through the rivets, thereby producing a cut that you can put a flatheaded screwdriver into and break the rivet-head in 2 pieces. Nonsense! All you need is to drill the middle of the rivet head and then push the remains out using a pointy device, such as a screw. Please use my method instead as it won't damage your case!

Ok, trying to see how much room there is for the radiator. Turns out, not much!

As you can see, my UV cathodes have to be moved in order to make the radiator and the fans fit:

Ok, I expanded the mounting holes for the 80 mm. fans a little bit, in order to make the UV reactive Nanoxia antivibration bolts fit. See, they're PRETTY fragile and WILL snap in 2, if you use excessive force while trying to make them fit. Better to expand the mounting holes by 1 mm. or a little more. But not too much - they still need to sit pretty good in there:

Had to cut thread in the holes where the rivets used to sit.

These holes were just under 4 mm. (probably around 3,8 mm.), so I didn't have much aluminum to work with. Which shows on the pictures.

I decided to expand the holes to 4,2 mm. and cut a 5 mm. thread:

Hmmmm. Well.... I guess there will always be moments, where a casemodder is in doubt and decides to take another direction.

Well, I chose to sell my newly purchased radiator and the Aqua Computer radiator grill as I was annoyed by the fact that the grill wouldn't fit most radiators without me having to modify those radiators first. And yes, one could say it's a stupid reason, but I happen to like standards and if I wanted to change radiator in the future, I wanted a grill that didn't require modification of the new radiator.

But hey, all things happen for a reason and this made me came up with an idea for my own grill design:

Also bought a XSPC X20 Delta V2 CPU block, got 2 DangerDen Maze4 chipset blocks (found these at Studiedata), got a D-Tek UV-Blue 5.25" bay reservoir and an Alphacool NexXxos Pro II radiator. Bought all these parts with minimal flow restriction in mind:

Yeah, I still need a pump, a GPU block, some hose and all fittings.
So far, I've decided to use 8 mm. ID BSPP (G 1/4") Push-On fittings.

I also quickly decided to only watercool the north bridge, because the southbridge doesn't run very hot at all.
The plan was to move the Thermalright cooler from the northbridge to the southbridge and then use one of the Maze4 blocks (modified to fit) on the northbridge.
But I stumbled upon this guy selling brand new Biostar P35 boards for just 40 EUR., so I just HAD to buy one of those. I will wire him the money tomorrow and hopefully have the card here next week.

So, all I need now is a better CPU and to sell the old crappy motherboard, hehe. Ooooh right, I also sold my ATI Radeon 3850, since it's become hopelessly outdated since I started this project half a year ago, heh. Instead, I'm going to buy an ATI Radeon 4850 and equip it with a Swiftech MCW60-R GPU block. Looking for both these parts at the moment...

Anyway, I visited my brother-in-law, who is an engraver by profession (very handy for me at times, hehe). He was going to help me make 2x114 mm. holes in the case top (114 mm. equals the diameter of the fan blades, ie. the moving part of a 120 mm. fan). It was my plan to borrow a 114 mm. hole saw from Boris at h20koeling.dk, but he didn't respond in time, so we took on the task using a device which my brother-in-law called a "radius cutter". Looks pretty much like that thing which spies and thieves use to cut glass in movies, but this one is for cutting metal.
Damn hard to control and it all seemed pretty wild - but the holes turned out VERY nice and all I need to do now is to drill the mounting holes myself:

TIP: My brother-in-law showed me how to re-create the finish of anodized aluminum using powders for scouring, some water and a nail brush. Mix the powder with a little water and use the brush in the same direction as the grooves in the aluminum. The result was amazing. There used to be small scratches and some stains on my case top, but after this treatment it looked brand new! Highly recommendable! But remember that you can't use this method forever, since the surface of anodized aluminum is only so thick...

I felt bad that we didn't drill the mounting holes at the same time as making the fan holes, because we had a template and all - we just forgot.

So now I was left with having to figure out how to make marks where I had to drill the mounting holes. I had to find the centre of the newly drilled 114 mm. fan holes and I thought quite a while about this, until my lovely girlfriend suggested using baking paper! Brilliant! Here I am in the process of drawing the template needed for marking the mounting holes:

... all what was left was to mark the holes, check with the fans and drill:

Ok, sold my ASUS P5ND2-SLI, as I (as mentioned befoe) wanted to get a Biostar P35 board - however, I decided to go with another P35 board, as Biostar had put the ATX-socket in a pretty bad place: between the CPU socket and the first PCI-E socket. What were they thinking?

Also sold my Thermalright HR05 IFX cooler and there's a guy interested in both Maze4 chipset block. I don't imagine I'll be using these blocks anyway, since I don't plan to do an extreme overclock - only moderate. So I hope the heatpipe on a coming P35 board will be enough. I also want to get rid of my P4 CPU and get a Core2Duo, but we'll have to see how much money I got for that....

Oh, bought a used Swiftech MCW60-R for the GPU:

Nice. Now, all I need is a pump, some hose and the fittings.

Right now, I'm also negotiating several purchases, amongst those a P35 motherboard, an ATI Radeon 4850 VGA card and a Watercool 80 mm. radiator should also be on it's way. I plan to mount this on the 80 mm. exhaust fan that sits in the back of the case.

Aaaaand, here it is!

But, but, but.... that inlet is NOT 8 mm. (just about 7 mm.) and if you, like me, are a perfectionist and want the entire watercooling system to be 8 mm. ID, you got to drill a bit:

Not so nice after drilling:

But I think I can fix that. Had bought this lovely set for 13 EUR at Harald Nyborg earlier this month:

No perfect tool for this task in that set, though. After working half an hour using a semi-usable tool, the result looked like this:

Well, it ain't going to be much better using these tools, so that'll have to do for now. After all, the inlet and outlet holes ARE 8 mm. ID now, so I'm counting on the turbulence resulting from those drilling scratches won't be much of an issue....

Also bought a used Laing DDC PRO pump - or, at least that's what I though it was. It turned out to be this pump instead:

Still Laing, still good.

I wanted to disassemble the pump in order to clean it:

As you can see, there's a little bit of dirt on the impeller, the impeller housing and the pump top:

But this is much worse: the top had cracks!!!!

So now I need another top. Sigh.....

Oh well, started cleaning the impeller and the impeller housing. Polished the impeller off with some Autosol and then I sprayed both parts with Limelite in order to remove the dirt that had settled.
Afterwards, the impeller looked pretty nice....:

Well, turns out that the pump was worn down. Very, very, very worn down.

Talked to several Laing DDC pump owners AND Vcore.dk (= the shop that sold this pump 1,5 years ago). They all agreed they'd never seen a Laing DDC pump is such a bad state. They all believed that the pump had been mistreated or simply mounted incorrectly, so now I need to get a new impeller house.
A guy at OC Team Denmark, called Riska, had a brand new spare impeller house lying around, so he offered it to me for the price of two packs of cigarets. Nicely done and thanks, Riska! ;)

Here are some pictures of the worn down impeller house and the disassembled pump:

When looking at the case, it DOES have several scratches on the inside. Now, I COULD cover them up using paint or acrylic... but, I have decided to polish the case on the inside. Not going for a mirror-like finish, but going to make it match the finish of the HDD cage and the VGA fan housing.

Had to take off the feet first (they will be replaced by aluminum/rubber feet, anyway):

And then I decided that since I had to remove a lot of rivets in order to take the case apart, I wasn't going to tap the holes, but simply re-rivet them. A lot easier, I think and the best choice, really, since I'm not going to take the case apart on a daily basis (I hope not!).

I bought a pair of riveting pliers + some rivets (and a hole saw kit plus some sanding paper for lapping the CPU and sanding the case):

This is what the rivets on the bottom look like:

They're countersink rivets, so I'll have to get some of those.

Here are some shots of the case as it's being stripped:

Oh, and I also got a XSPC reservoir top that will replace the cracked Alphacool PRO top - actually, I got 2 tops: the XSPC AND an OCLabs XP Pro top, but I think I'll use the XSPC top. After reading a review at Martin's Liquid Lab, I'm sure that the XSPC reservoir top is the way to go. Which means I'm going to sell the D-Tek 5.25" reservoir and the OCLabs XP Pro top....

Also got a new CPU - an E6750. No receipt, but so what? I'm going to lap it anyway, so I don't need no warranty:

Ok, a small update while I'm looking for the time necessary to really get some things done on the case.

I drilled out the rivets holding the motherboard tray rails and the HD rack holder. As you can see the bottom has a lot of scratches:

Sanding time! As mentioned before, I bought some sanding paper (wet sanding), but also a cork block:

After 400 grit:

After 800 grit:

After 1200 grit:

And now I polished - after polishing with Autosol:

"Wow! Shiny!", you say? I'm not too happy with the results, and a picture from a different angle using different lighting shows why:

Yep, lots of small scratches that are impossible to remove using Autosol. Which means I have to buy a 230 volts drill, a buffing wheel, some polishing wax and Autoglym Metal Polish to finish the job. This does not come cheap, so I had to think a little.

But then I stumbled upon Darkened's "Orange Monster" casemod at bit-tech.net's casemod forums - he's using carbon foil (he calls it carbon vinyl, but I'm pretty sure we're talking about the same stuff) in the bottom of his case and it looks quite good! I visited Thansen and bought this:

I'm going to use the carbon foil in the bottom and other places that need covering up. Yes, I am lazy at times. ;)

Earlier I mentioned that I had purchased a Laing DDC pumpe that turned out to be worn down.
I the meantime I managed to get half of my money back from the seller and Riska from OC Team Denmark sent me a brand new impeller housing.

It's finally arrived and here's the difference between the old and the new impeller housing:

I little close-up of the old one:

And the new:

Yes, pretty big difference and the impeller is definately spinning much better now (determined by moving it by hand, not electrically). Still haven't tried it with water yet, but I'm sure it'll be great.

Riska also sent me this modified pump housing:

This should make sure that the pump doesn't overheat easily.

I do plan to paint the new pump housing. Yet another task in the pile. ;)

I bought a used Club3D ATI Radeon 4850. The prevois owner had installed Enzotech and Zalman heatsinks on the memory chips and voltage regulators, so it's perfect for water cooling. As you can see, the acrylic I cut for my old 3850 fits the 4850, but the ventilation hole for the backside of the GPU'en needs to be moved a little. I will probably just make a bigger hole to avoid having to make a new plate. Also, it looks like there's enough space for the Crossfire connectors behind the acrylic.:

I will end this update with a picture of my new motherboard - the Abit IX38. Damn, I'm looking forward to assembling this case!