H2O QPack2 - Mod Update 7/2

[Eric_J]

It’s been a while since I have posted a job log here. Not from a lack of modding, but lack of SFF modding. I was so happy with the results of my first mod, Silent Water Cooled SN25P, I couldn’t wait to do my next project.

My next build was a QuadCore PC for work using a Lian Li V1000 case. I really love Lian Li cases. I use a lot of them at work and the V1000 was a joy to work on. I put a Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultra in it cooling only the CPU. Over clocked the CPU to 3.6GHz and the fans almost never come above 30%. It’s nice and quiet.



There was only one small problem… Using a monster box at work left my 2 year old home PC rather unsatisfying!  The simple fix was to build the identical box for home. But I really wanted a SFF case for home use. I happened to have an Apevia QPack2 that was collecting dust. That decided the case for me.

But could I really cool and over clock a Q6600 without it sounding like jet taking off?  I really wanted the Swiftech solution because it’s overkill for just a CPU. But I didn’t think I would have room for the enormous pump and reservoir inside the QPack. As I was reading ads and forums trying to find something small, but effective, Swiftech released the H2O-220 Compact. It looked perfect. Same radiator and fans as the Apex Ultra, but with a integrated pump and CPU block and no reservoir.

Time to order some parts! Here’s my list:
            •    Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Processor
            •    ASUS P5E-VM HDMI Micro ATX Motherboard
            •    (4) 1GB GeIL DDR2 PC2 6400 Memory Modules
            •    Swiftech H2O-220 Compact Cooling Kit
            •    Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10k RPM Hard Drive
            •    Lian Li 3 ½  Card Reader (Every build needs a little Lian Li)
            •    Lian Li 5 ¼  Perforated Drive Bay Cover
            •    Samsung 20x DVD Burner with LightScribe
            •    Assorted bits, pieces, lights, connectors, etc.

Sometimes I think doing the research for a build is more difficult than doing the build!
Here are some shots of the goodies as they arrived:











Next up are pics of the case, complete with old AMD motherboard:









I’m not a big planner when I build a mod. I carefully consider the components but I rarely do any type of build sketches or plans. I’m more of a dermal kind of guy. So here’s the case with the radiator next to it:



As you can see there will be some size issues.  That’s what makes if fun!  After some careful measurements (holding the parts up next to each other…) I decided this was the most likely place to put it. It meant relocating the hard drive bay and moving the whole assembly down just a bit:



That’s all for now. More to come soon because the build is already completed. Comments always welcome.

[craigbru]

Very nice Eric!  It's good to hear from you again.  I love where this is headed.

[Eric_J]

Thanks Craig. Glad to be back.

[Noswal]

You're gonna need another res or a fillport, unless you plan on rotating the rad everytime for fill-ups.

-Noswal

[Eric_J]

I thought about a fillport and would like to have one. But I couldn't find a good place to mount one. I'd like to be able to get to it from the outside and the most logical place was on the cover somewhere. But that would make it really hard to remove/install the cover.

So for now... I'll tip the rad.

[Eric_J]

The next step is always my favorite. The demolition phase! In order to make room for the rad assembly, I needed to remove the internal hard drive cage. That was easy just a few screws.



Then I wanted to cut away the side of the external drive cage as much as possible to improve air flow into the radiator.



Here’s a shot of the revised external drive cage. I was able to remove a lot of metal and keep the front mounting hole along with the height “shelf” at the bottom.



Next I removed the radiator cross shelf assemble by drilling out the rivets. I didn’t get a pic of it removed, but it will all make sense in a second. The front was easy to lower. Just drill two new holes and re-rivet. But the rear of the shelf couldn’t be lowered because it would interfere with the removable motherboard tray. So I cut the shelf and created a “Z” bracket to connect the lowered portion the original height of the rear piece.

Here is the front with the cut down external drive cage. I originally re-riveted the bottom of the drive cage to the lowered shelf. But there was too much tension in the cage when I assembled everything. So I later removed the bottom connection piece.





Here are a couple of shots of the rear “Z” connection:





Finally a shot for the front panel showing the lowered rivets for the shelf:



And then a test fit of the radiator assembly… Success!







Next up was to add some mounting brackets for the radiator. I originally created them on the inside of the lower shelf. I had hoped that would do it. But it didn’t. The assembly wasn’t sturdy enough allowing the top to move around.





The top had to be supported too. So using some L-bracket I created a new cross piece by riveting the L-bracket to the top of the face plate and creating a rear mount connected to the case fan.

Here’s a shot of the completed bracket:



This shows the rear of the new bracket mount:



I had to cut out a portion of the fan mount to prevent blocked air flow.





This seems like a good place to take a break. More soon…

[conzy]

Great work! I might be getting the H20-120 Compact for my Shuttle SP35P2 Pro build, it will be tough mounting it all internally! But I will probably end up putting the Rad on the outside...

[Eric_J]

That would be a tough fit!

One thing you should know about the Swiftech Compact line is the pump can reverberate through the motherboard. The noise level will depend on how the motherboard is mounted. My mounting left a lot to be desired. I ended up using a Zalman Fanmate 2 to reduce the pump rpm from 4,000 to about 1,500. That really reduced the noise and still provided more than enough cooling.

Other than that, I love the Swiftech kits. This was my second one and they are great!

I hope you post your build.

[Eric_J]

Now that the radiator assembly is mounted, it’s time to start hooking things up. I had already done an overnight leak test on the rad, pump/CPU block and hoses so I was ready to let her flow.

This shot shows the hoses connected from the rad to the pump/CPU block. Believe it or not the hoses come pre-fitted with the green spiral kink protectors. The really is great. The picture also shows the placement of the hard drive and an extra fan. (More on that later)



Here’s a different angle. Both the hard drive and the fan are only using 2 mounts. Both are rubber to reduce vibration. The arrow shows the top of one fan mount the other is forward under the hard drive.



Close-up of the hoses connecting to the pump. I love the neoprene hoses. They are so easy to work with compared to the clear plastic ones.



One of my goals with this build was to have the inside as clean as possible. Usually I would zip-tie the long wires into some bundles and leave it at that. But I wanted this to be different. So I bought all the required goodies needed to do it right; replacement pins, pen insertion/removal tools, professional crimpers, wire sleeving, heat shrink and more zip-ties. But the best item I bought was a thermal wire stripper. I used them in the Navy, but have done it the hard way ever since. EBay came to my rescue and for $60 I had brand new thermal wire stripper. It makes all the difference in the world, especially with very small wires in tight places. It heats instantly and all you do I put the end of the wire, any size, into the blade; twist and pull off the insulation. It even has a wire depth gauge to ensure every wire is stripped to the same length.

Pictures!!! Here is the only power connector for the front panel. There would have been three. You may notice the 12v goes one place and the 5v volt goes somewhere else. But still only one connector!



This is a better look at the inside panel. I added the two LED light bars. They face backwards and reflect blue light back out the air intake grills. Also a little more wire magic on the front panel goodies (power, reset, sound, USB and Firewire).



This is what the front panel power connects to. Again a custom connection combining power for a 12v fan and 5 volt internal LEDs. One plugs into the front panel and the other plugs into a single 4 pin molex from the power supply.



Here is a shot of the blue internal LEDs. I bought these as a set of lighted feet for the computer. But I didn’t like the look of the plastic feet. So I drilled 4 holes in the center cross member and hot glued the LEDs in the holes pointing down.



Here is the custom wiring harness I make for the LEDs. They are wired in parallel so the bundle gets bigger with each LED. No build goes perfectly, at least for me. The front panel LEDs are 12v these are 5v. I didn’t realize that and hooked both up to 12 volts. It was beautiful for the blink of an eye and then all 4 LEDs burst with a crack of ozone.I have to admit it was kind of cool… I still have to buy replacements for them and solder them in.



Back to the inside. These are the main fan headers on the motherboard. The one for the CPU, not pictured, is a 4 pin PWM connector and will only control a PWM Fan. So I connected the PRM lead from the water pump to it. The two rear connectors are both 3 pin, but only one can be controlled by the motherboard. So I connected the 120mm Noctura case fan to uncontrolled one and let it run full speed. It’s pretty quiet anyway. The other one connects to the two 120mm radiator fans and is temperature controlled by Speedfan. Is it redundant to say you are a fan of Speedfan? The 3rd arrow points to a mysterious ribbon cable sneaking out the back.



What’s the ribbon cable for? I’m using a Zalman Fan Mate 2 to control the speed of the water pump. At 4,000 rpm the thin (cheap) motherboard tray sounds like a 747 winding up for takeoff. But at 1,500 rpm the sound is almost gone. I did some Prime95 testing and determined the pump speed has very little effect on cooling in my setup. Fan speed seems to be everything.



One more set of wires to deal with; the Power Supply. It came with the QPack2 case and had enough connectors to power double the number of drives you could install in the case! So, snip, snip, sleeve, sleeve and I had exactly the number I needed. I cut all the unused wires about 3 inches from the power supply board. Then I heat shrinked the ends and wrapped them inside the power supply case. That way I can add more if I need them (like for a video card). There are exactly 2 SATA, 1 molex, 1 3 pin fan connector, 24 pin & 4 pin mother board connectors. And that’s it. Also the SATA cable is about 2 inches long! The arrows show the custom 3 pin fan and single molex connectors. The 3 pin fan connector goes to the Zalman and then to the water pump. The single molex goes to the front panel.



That about wraps up the wiring (lol).  More later.

[phinix]

OK. I have to ask - is your pump running hot? I mean when you ran leak test, outside the system, did your pump run hot when touched? I ran my leak test and pump was pretty hot on the top on full speed, only attached with the radaitor in the loop.
So what re your temps idle with this pump at 1500?
and about that noise you mentioned - was it because of the vibrations moved from the pump on full speed to the mobo???

[conzy]

Incredible build! Nice log, so much detail

I can't wait to get my new rig now! My Dremel is lonely

[Eric_J]

Hey Phinix,

I believe the connection information in the instructions is a little confusing. Originally, I connected the Pump OUT -> Radiator IN and Radiator OUT -> Pump IN. My pump was warm/hot to the touch, but it cooled off some when the Radiator fans were running. Both the pump and fans were running full speed. This was done before I installed the Radiator and pump into the computer.  

I was having trouble getting all the air out of the system. So I went on the Swiftech forum and determined I had it backwards. It should be Pump OUT -> Radiator OUT and Radiator IN -> Pump IN. This made the bleeding much easier and the pump noticeably cooler to the touch.

My idle temps are Core 0 – 86F/31C; Core 1 – 86F/31C; Core 2 – 88F/32C; Core 3 – 91F/33C. The temps were taken after several hours of running.  The water pump is running at 1,577 rpm and the radiator fans are running at 555 rpm. Measurements were taken using Speedfan 4.34 beta 40 and Everest Ultimate. The readings are the same on both. I’m running a Q6600, step 0 at 2.4 GHz. (not overclocking yet…)

Yes the noise was from the pump vibrating the motherboard and the motherboard vibrating the motherboard tray. I found several threads on various forums reporting the same problem. (Cooling very quiet until installed, then jumbo jet loud when installed.) Everyone seemed to be trying to rubber mount the pump/CPU block. But then the problem is a poor connection between the CPU and CPU water block. The whole thing is designed to be rigidly mounted to the motherboard. Enter the Zalman solution. FYI – I tried using a 3 position fan switch (Lian Li of course) and the pump would only run on the highest setting. But the Zalman worked fine and allowed more precise adjustment.

Let me know if I can provide any other information to you. I can take a surface temperature reading on the pump if it will help you.

Also, congratulations on being selected as a bit-tech mod of the month contestant. You got my vote.

[conzy]

I cant believe the the Swiftech kit performs so well even at low pump speed! amazing

Most reviews I have seen say it is whisper quiet, is it a problem with certain cases / motherboard trays?

I'm not sure if the SP35P2 Pro  uses standard LGA775 mounts so I may need to make a custom mount for the H20 120

[Eric_J]

I think it's just my cheap case.

[conzy]

hehe I will find out soon, the Shuttle seems pretty robust so hopefully it wont vibrate

[phinix]

Hey Phinix,

I believe the connection information in the instructions is a little confusing. Originally, I connected the Pump OUT -> Radiator IN and Radiator OUT -> Pump IN. My pump was warm/hot to the touch, but it cooled off some when the Radiator fans were running. Both the pump and fans were running full speed. This was done before I installed the Radiator and pump into the computer.  

I was having trouble getting all the air out of the system. So I went on the Swiftech forum and determined I had it backwards. It should be Pump OUT -> Radiator OUT and Radiator IN -> Pump IN. This made the bleeding much easier and the pump noticeably cooler to the touch.

My idle temps are Core 0 – 86F/31C; Core 1 – 86F/31C; Core 2 – 88F/32C; Core 3 – 91F/33C. The temps were taken after several hours of running.  The water pump is running at 1,577 rpm and the radiator fans are running at 555 rpm. Measurements were taken using Speedfan 4.34 beta 40 and Everest Ultimate. The readings are the same on both. I’m running a Q6600, step 0 at 2.4 GHz. (not overclocking yet…)

Yes the noise was from the pump vibrating the motherboard and the motherboard vibrating the motherboard tray. I found several threads on various forums reporting the same problem. (Cooling very quiet until installed, then jumbo jet loud when installed.) Everyone seemed to be trying to rubber mount the pump/CPU block. But then the problem is a poor connection between the CPU and CPU water block. The whole thing is designed to be rigidly mounted to the motherboard. Enter the Zalman solution. FYI – I tried using a 3 position fan switch (Lian Li of course) and the pump would only run on the highest setting. But the Zalman worked fine and allowed more precise adjustment.

Let me know if I can provide any other information to you. I can take a surface temperature reading on the pump if it will help you.

Also, congratulations on being selected as a bit-tech mod of the month contestant. You got my vote.

THANKS for voting on me!!!

Well, I haven't installed that pump on CPU yet, but I'm going to do it this week. Now working on mobo tray and PSU out. I do not have that compact version of the pump - I bought them separated - Swiftech radiator 220QP and pump/block. So it is hard to say which one is in and out in rad. You can see my loop in my log - I connected pump out to the lower rad barb so pump is pushing the coolant up to the upper bard - which is connected back to the pump (in). So, you gave me idea that it would be the reason why it is running so hot. I found it hotter when fans not running. Just got my new Noctua fans and when turned them on, pump was like half of it cooler, but still pretty warm when touch it. I hope everything will go back to normal when install it all in the cube. Thanks for that reply, it gave me some ideas:)
About that vibrations - I hope it won't vibrate too much on my tray. If yes, then I will put it on rubber stand offs.... Still have lots of space on upper level...
We'll see..

Nice mod you did there - I like the way you just fit that radiator in it! Cool!!! Next move - watercool your GPU !!!  :cheese:
How do you control your pump? I read you do it using fanmate, but does it have that 12V-4pin plug same as pump? I have to make my own converter to use it with small 3 pin plug - cause I'm gonna use it with fan controller...

[Eric_J]

Hi Phinix,

From what I can tell you have your water loop hooked up the same way I do. But we do have different radiators. The one that comes with the compact kit has a larger water capacity since there is no reservoir. You might try reversing the hoses before you install everything to see if it makes a difference in the pump temp.

The Fanmate and the pump did have different connectors. But I rewired the pump connector from a 4 pin molex to a 3 pin fan connector so it would plug into the Fanmate.

As far as my next steps... I haven't decided on a GPU yet and am currently using the Intel G35 motherboard graphics. I don't play a lot of games on my pc, so for now, it's ok. But the G35 northbridge chip gets over 80C! That's why I have that little 80mm blue fan pointing down at the motherboard. Even with that, the temps get pretty high.

So, my next step will be to water cool the north and south bridge chips. The G35 is pretty new and I can't find a chip cooler specifically for it. I'm looking at modding a CPU block now. That will let me get rid of the noisey 80mm fan. I've never liked manual fan controllers. I do a lot of large data processing and leave my computer running. I prefer everthing to be automatically adjusted by temperature.

Looking forward to your next steps too.

[Eric_J]

Work has prevented me from posting lately. But I can’t let my thread slide into obscurity… Here are some pic’s of my next steps.

I ran the system for a week or so as listed in my last post. The north and south bridges ran very hot! The northbridge was running over 80C. I had to run the case fans too loudly to keep the temps down. Even the little blue fan I mounted above the N/S bridge chips didn’t help. Plus it would get in the way of adding a video card. So, I added water cooling to both chips. The northbridge was a little tricky because the mounting for the G35 is non-standard. I used an old Zalman water block and filed out the mount points to fit. I used a Switech for the southbridge. Here are a couple of pictures:





I also wanted to reduce the overall noise, so I replaced the 120mm fan in the power supply with the Noctua I was using as the case fan. It runs much quieter than the stock PS fan and still keeps it cool.



I used a PWM fan to replace the rear case fan. I did this because the motherboard will only control two fans via Speedfan and one of them (the CPU fan) must be a PWM fan. The MB has 3 fan headers, but only controls 2 of the 3. So the two Radiator fans are connected to a 3 pin header with a Y-splitter. The case fan is connected with a 4 pin PWM header. Both are temp controlled via Speedfan. I use the third header (3 pin) to connect the rpm wire for the water pump. This gives me the best combination of fan control (noise) and monitoring.

I mentioned before blowing out my internal LED lights with too much voltage. Here are a few shots of the replacement LEDs.





I kept the LED on/off switch from the LED case feet and used it on the internal lights. It is the red switch on the first slot bracket. Can anybody see my since of humor here?



I also had an extra WD 120GB Raptor lying around. So, I added another hard drive mount so I could run them in a RAID 0. I couldn’t easily fit the second drive into the existing mounts. So, I added the vertical HD mount back into the case. But, I moved it to the other side since the radiator is now mounted where the HD rack was.  Here are a few shots of the new rack.





Here’s a pic of the horizontal hard drive mounted in the 5 ¼” drive bay under the DVD. It’s only mounted on one side. I did it to allow more airflow into the radiator. There are 3 rubber mounted bolts holding it on the one side.



Speaking of rubber mounting… Both hard drives are now rubber mounted. All 4 fans, 2 x radiator, 1 case fan and the power supply fan are silicone mounted. And the motherboard is silicone mounted. I’m not really sure how much it helped. I did so many changes at the same time, like removing the N/S Bridge fan and replacing the P/S one. But the system is much quieter. I’m just not sure what gave me the most bang for my buck.

The next few shots are assembly photos, motherboard in, radiator in, etc.





Finally we get some money shots! I love the blue LEDs inside the case.







Here are some pictures fully assembled. I put in a few pre-mod photos for contrast.















It is quietly humming along, (Not much louder than my laptop, with the CPU fan running) over clocked to 3GHz at stock voltages. I haven’t put much effort into over clocking yet. Still busy loading software, etc.

So what’s next… Mostly cosmetics. I want to update the front panel look. I’m thinking of replacing the existing vertical mesh intakes with the same size mesh as on the side panels. Also, I really don’t like seeing the irregular holes on the frame inside behind the front panel.  So I think I will build a black aluminum façade behind the face plate. It will be set forward of the irregular vent holes on the frame so air can still enter. But will cover the holes and allow the blue LEDs to reflect out the face plate from a more uniform surface.

Next up will be changing the power-on LED from green to blue and the hard drive LED from orange to red. Then I have found a very nice analog temperature gage to replace the existing blue digital one. The temps it gives me don’t really mean much since they are sensors taped on water blocks. The new gage will show water temperature in the cooling system.  I also have a Matrix Orbital display I might add to the front and changing the radiator fans to the new Noctua NF-P12. The coloring doesn’t go with my system, but they are very quiet.

What do you guys think?

[Eric_J]

A new little box came to me today!!!

I’m at work so I don’t have any pictures and I can’t even plug it in… But I’ve got a new Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66GHz with 12MB of cache.

I knew I couldn’t keep up with Craig or Phinix in craftsmanship. So, I did the next best thing, got something really cool to play with!

Pics and tests tonight.

[Shadowtester]

You might run into a problem with that Zalman block its aluminum correct if so your mixing metals within the same loop which will increase the galvanic corossion problem I would suggest getting another block as soon as possible if it is aluminum.

[Eric_J]

Shadowtester - Looking for one now. Thanks for the tip!

[Noswal]

I thought galvanic corrosion only happens when there is an electrical charge. Unless you have wires touching the two metals, there isn't going to be galvanic corrossion.

-Noswal

Edit: what coolant are you using?

[Shadowtester]

Actually galvanic corrosion is caused by the electrical charge created by the contract of two dissimulator metals in this case copper and aluminum in an fluid, Its been a problem with cooling systems for quite a long time in automotive cooling systems which is kept under control by strong anti corrosion additives within the antifreeze.

[Noswal]

So can galvanic corrosion happen without an electrical charge at the anode and cathode? In alcohol?

-Noswal

[Shadowtester]

Yes the different metal with different conductivity being in contact with each other will cause a electrical potential to develop between them causing the galvanic corrosion. Here is a link to a website about Computer water cooling loops which also talks a little about galvanic corrosion http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Water+Cooling?t=anon I am sure if you did a search on google also you could find additional references to galvanic corrosion in computer water cooling loops caused by mixing aluminum and copper.