Project DEEP PURPLE (The Introduction)

[Dgephri]

that really sucks...although "non conductive" fluid is labeled as such, so is pure H2O.

Dust on the card itself, dust from the air, anything other than the fluid CAN conduct current when the fluid contacts something.

The new fluids give you a decent chance when a leak is actually occuring in front of you, or when you first notice it to turn the system off and clean up.

I really feel for you...I am so paranoid the first time I turn my pump on for a new PC. I don't run the loop outside, I don't use clamps, and I leak test with all the hardware in and power off: if I had a leak, with no juice on, I am reasonably certain I can clean up the PCIce and dry it out for a couple days and be "ok."

I can respect that you are taking responsibility, and not trying to take more from Newegg. That's integrity, and fewer than you know actually have it.

make sure your Motherboard can get dried out...good 3-4 days out in good ventilation. Best of luck, be careful.

(guy type, sorry about your dog, pat on the back, then move away Hug)

[modding.fan]

Thanks for the support...I really think the most painful part for me, being the egoist that I am, was admitting that I screwed up. But...if I can admidt it to my fellow modders...well...that has to count for something.

Anyway...got home from work and couldn't stop milling about inside the case.

Re-re-re-checked all of my tube connections...and decided that since I have a good solid week of down-time till the new card gets here (remember, I'm posted at an embassy overseas, so my mail is *uber* slow) that I can make a few minor changes.

First, I've never liked how the feed-tube from the Res has had to be this huge, tight loop, resting up against the motherboard just so it wouldn't kink due to the connection I had to make with it:

So I had the revelation to turn it around. I did some measuring first to ensure I wasn't going to do my system worse in the switch and it turns out it's better all around. The new layout has reduced the total length of tubing connected to the res by about 2 inches. (Not a huge savings, but, any reduction is a good one.) On top of that, this new lay removes the possibility of any tube resting on the motherboard itself, and, the curves in these sections of pipe are greatly reduced, leading to a more straight (and less stressful on the pump) flow of fluid:

This did require the drilling of a new hole in the bottom of the case, but, drilling is a pretty basic thing, and i did it nice and slowly, from the bottom, so no aluminum bits had a chance of entering the case, I also had a wet-paper-towel on the inside of the case to 'catch' the drillbit (held with my hand, but i was drilling slow) and to catch any random aluminum dust to keep it out of the MOBO.

Of course, now you notice as I did that I have to move my neon. UGH! But, thanks to the wonders of Zippo Fuel, I got rid of all the old adhesive from the sticky-foam and got the tube moved no problems. And yes, before anyone asks, I once again triple checked all of my tube connections.

So here is the new location of the res, notice the nice, smooth, long straight flowing tubes? Pretty huh?

On the bonus and unexpected side, it's now even easier to hold hte res outside of the case for when I'm filling the system up...that was a pain before. (Yeah, I know that's what the fillport is for, but due to the way all of the tubing is lined up, a little bit of air is always ending up trapped in the res...so I ahve to pull the res out, unscrew the end cap and top it off with fresh fluid to get all the air out. A rough process, but, the more air in the system, the more sloshy noises I hear...and for my build, noise is bad!

The one other change I made was removing about 3 more inches of tube from the hard-drive bay out-put tube (the one leading down to the second rad). I had only ever rough-measured the tube before, and never got around to shortening it. Here is the after-shot. You really can't see a difference, and honestly with all the tubing there, I'd be surprised if anyone can really tell. But, as a hint, it's the tube in the picture that has a little residual fluid in it:

That's all for now. I think I'd better go before I decide to make more changes to the system. I should really test what I have so far before going any further.

Thanks again for the support (or, shall I say, sympathy)...it sucks screwing up...especially when your screw up BBQ's an expensive video card.

Maybe for my next post I'll show you guys some pictures of my first mod...it's got some really cool points...and will show everyone where I "cut-my-teeth" in the modding realm. I just have to take some pictures...at least it'd give me something to do.

Cheers.

-MF

[gaz_the_chav]

Woh thats a great shame man. Damn I wish I had enough money to get one of them video cards let alone two!

Can't wait to see it all finished though!

[modding.fan]

Woh thats a great shame man. Damn I wish I had enough money to get one of them video cards let alone two!

Can't wait to see it all finished though!

All I can say...if I really *could* have afforded two...I'd have SLI'd them in the first place. I had to burn some of my buffer-savings just to get this thing up and running by now. I had initially set myself a total spending limit for this system...and was only *just* over that limit before this happened...but now I'm well over.

Sad for me, i have to bump my next planned vacation back a month or two just so I can be sure to have the cash I need for it. (grumble) I hate using credit cards (I just got myself out of bad debt about a year ago)...so I don't want to use them for vacation or for the 'puter at all. Sucks having to reschedule stuff like that due to me being impatient. (Okay, it wasn't really impatience, more like me not thinking about every alternative.)

So...next time, it's going to be another 24+hour round of leak testing and then locking the door shut. Yup...the lessons-learned post will be a good one.

Cheers,

MF

[Dgephri]

I get scared to add up what it really takes to finish my Mods. Cables, scrap plastic, LEDs, sleeving, aluminum strips, bolts, caps, nuts, nylon washers, chrome, trim, sticky tape, E-6000 adhesive, blah blah...it just keeps going up.

Luckily I rarely need to RMA, and ever more unlikely is any real hardware damage. Of course, what warranty is left when you solder onto the 5V in your keyboard?

Keep at it man...good precautions on the drilling and check all your hoses like it's and airplane taking off: "cpu, 3 barbs-check: HDD, 2 barbs-check: pump, intel and outlet-check"

[gobygoby]

WOW. Nice build you have going here. and I thought I was anal about painting my rig.

seems as though we have similar concepts in our heads. Great minds think alike!

My build log

great work, hope you get that vid card thing figured out.

[modding.fan]

WOW. Nice build you have going here. and I thought I was anal about painting my rig.

seems as though we have similar concepts in our heads. Great minds think alike!

My build log

great work, hope you get that vid card thing figured out.

Heh...you think this was bad...I *wanted* to be much more OCD on the paint job...but...didn't have enough paint to do multiple coats.

The more I look at some of the 'bad spots' on my paint, it just gets under my skin. But, I can survive. I did as well as I could with the resources I had available. Very hard to do this stuff when I can't buy paints locally, and don't have anywhere besides a bedroom/office to do the painting in.

I'm heading to look at your mod now.

Cheers!

-MF

[modding.fan]

Well...I just got home from work, am too tired to go to the bar, and can't do anything really fun since, as we all know my 'puter is still dead. (Laptop works, but, not powerful enough to do any games and such.)

So...as promised here is Big-Red, my first mod.

A bit of history first. This computer is now over 5 years old. I first got into modding when I worked part-time at a CompUSA in Aurora, CO...this would have been back in about '99 or '00. Best part about working at a computer store is that you get good discounts on parts.

Anyway, this thing started out as a standard, beige Antec. No windows, no colors, nothing. A friend at the shop and I had stumbled across GideonTech.com, one of the first major modding sites out there, and had always wanted to do our own. So, we got parts together, and dove in head first.

Best part is that my dad had access to a full machine shop (he's a mechanic for the school district in my home town). So...we packed up for a weekend visit, and spent the whole time in the shop.

As far as that part went, I can say you're not truly a Man until you've cut metal with fire. And thanks to a plasma torch, we got to do just that. So without any further ado, here is Big Red, in it's current home, acting as my media server connected to my home entertainment center:

First, don't laugh, yes I was watching Shrek 2 when I took the pictures. And 2nd, don't laugh, every time the military has moved me, they keep breaking my TV's...so coincidentally, my TV's keep getting smaller and smaller, as they are getting expensive.

Onto the machine in specific:

I custom measured and cut both the holes and the plexi for the windows. The molding was from *something*.com...it's now FrozenCPU.com, but wasn't called that at the time. I can't recall.

The most impressive part of the mod, in my mind, is my laptop hard drive. As I mentioned, we worked at a computer store, and as such, had access to lots of junk/trash parts. Whenever we would do upgrades for people, their 'old' drives typically ended up as ours in our shop. I found 2x identical laptop drives and had this mod planned for ages.

First, I took the top plate off of one, and used it as a template to make a plexi plate. After destroying 5 or 6 while drilling, I finally got one made. Then I went into the paint-room at my dad's shop, took the other one apart, and did as fast a cover-swap to the other drive as I could...leaving the heads and platters exposed to open air for as little time as possible.

I'm *VERY* proud to say that this drive is STILL in active use, and has never once had any data storage/crash problems. Yup, a self modded, plexi-topped hard drive...and 5-6 years later...it still works!

Anyway, back to the case...

Before filling, the inside was painted a nice silver (the dull steel-grey just didn't cut it for me), along with all the fan holders and such.

Another fun touch I put in was a plexi-mirror on the bottom. Looks great and helps with the 3 lights a lot:

As you can see. I had to use two 3.5"-5.25" hard drive mounts to raise up the laptop drive enough to be seen through the window.

Also, as I said, the computer is over 5 years old...in that time I had to replace the PSU...thus all of the wires are no longer sleeved...they used to be...but upkeep on this case sort of went through the window somewhere between Denver->Australia->India. LOL...amazing how moving a lot will do that.

Well, the front of the case has the same stone-style paint, and if you look close, I actually put a toggle switch for the neons on the very bottom right of the case (it's a red button):

Another nice mod I have (but no picture sorry) is that I built a full size, removable, washable, air-filter into the inside of the front bezel. The whole front panel is an air intake, and I didn't think I wanted that much dust in my nice new windowed and mirrored case. Since I've moved to India, I have to pull it out and clean it about every two weeks...it's insane...but...seeing how much dust *isn't* getting into my system is worth it.

Lastly is the quintessential dark shot of the case:

Yup...the middle-light hangs just in-sight (one reason I went so crazy about hiding all of the lights in Deep Purple). And yes, for those who noticed...the 2 smaller lights are the same brand/style lights as I have in Deep Purple. The mini-tubes from StreetGlow. The large tube is also a Streetglow tube. 5-6 years going, with LOTS of use, and they are still burning bright.

So there you have it...the original case by modding.fan. This one is actually much more heavily "Modded" in my mind (as I cut the windows, did the air filters, and most especially the hard drive)...but I don't think it was nearly as much work as Deep Purple has been. Mostly because I had the proper facilities for Big Red, I also had a couple of home improvement stores I coudl readily run to in the middle of modding when I needed to. (Not to mention a professional mechanic staring over my shoulder the whole time.)

Still have about a week till my new video card comes in...so until then cheers.

Once I get Deep Purple up and running, I have a few pictures from the build of BigRed...I'll throw those up too. But...those will be *long* after you all get to see the finished product of Deep Purple.

Cheers for now,

MF

[brouhaha]

Leave for a few days and look what I missed. Sorry to hear about the video card It may be a little late, but the dye looked nice and purple in the pictures. I think you got that part down.

[modding.fan]

So...I sent a bit of hate-mail to the folks at D-Tek Customs yesterday over the non-UV-reactivity of they "UV Reactive" dye. I got a very confusing respnose back from them today. It makes no sense to me, but, me not being a chemical engineer, maybe you all can help explain it to me. See, in the message, I basically told them off for selling dye as "UV Reactive" when, as you all saw in my pictures, it really isn't.

I sent them the same pictures you all have seen in my log.

The response I got back was along the lines of "from the looks of the pictures, you used too much. Try using only one or two drops in a few cups worth of water and see how that works. When the die is too concentrated, it looses it's reactivity."

Does this make sense? How does watering down a solution *increase* it's reaction to UV? I told them in the mail that I'm not worried about a return/refund (as it'd cost me about 15 bucks to mail back the dye for a 20 dollar refund).

I'm going to test their thoery once my new card comes in...just with a glass of water outside the case (I can't right now, since I have the rez and half the lines filled still...i turn on the lights...i turn on the pump...and it'll make a mess).

Anyway...thoughts?

Cheers,

MF