Watercooled SX38P2 mod log

[mongot]

Hey everybody! Long time no see! I hope life has been as kind to you all as it has me!

Ive had this computer for a while now and originally intended to do this mod straight away, but real life (in this case mostly my master thesis) got in the way. But now after almost two years I decided it's about time to get started!

Even though the box is old(ish) it still performs very well. The games I play goes on 1920x1200 and max settings and I rarely notice any fps-drops. Even in daily use I'm known to stream 1080p from rar-archives with hundreds of firefox tabs open while coding in Visual Studio or running some Matlab calculations, and the box keeps pace nicely. So I have no issues spending money on watercooling it regardless of its age. The main goal is silence, but if it turns out I can also get some nice clocks all the better.

The specs are as follows (all at stock):
Shuttle SX38P2
Intel Q6700
Nvidia GTX260
2x2Gb HyperX cl4 800mhz
WD Velociraptor
Samsung Spinpoint 1Tb

Key mod parts:
Laing DDC 3.1 (or mcp350/ddc 1t) with Phobya plexi top (formerly known as OCLabs XPTop)
 - Widely accepted as the most powerful silent pump out there, especially if used with a good aftermarket top. The Phobya/OCLabs top isn't the best of the best but definitely in top contention and probably the smallest of the bunch. More info and good testing here: Martin's Lab DDC top roundup
Watercool Heatkiller G200 gpu-block
 - THE gtx260 block. Check why here: Eiskaltmacher gtx280 block roundup
Watercool Heatkiller Rev3.0 cpu-block
 - Can't find the source right now but, most newer block roundups are tested on i7 which really isn't the same thing, but IIRC it's supposed to be one of the standout quadcore blocks. Very similar in design to EK Supreme or D-Tek Fuzion v2.
SanyoDenki San Ace Silent 120x25
 - Three of them actually, two on the rad and one to be mounted on the soon to be chopped up front panel. San Ace are known for realistic specs and good pressure and airflow for its noise level. Cost of importing to Sweden that makes me wanna curse... Found here: San Ace at Newark
SanyDenki San Ace 80x15
 - Used to be called "Petite Ace". Is to replace the PSU fan that is driving me nuts. The 12v version of the fan with same specs found here: Petite Ace at Newark
Swifttech MCR220 QP
 - Some people seem to dislike Swifttech but this could well be the very best slim radiator available. It also happens to fit perfectly in the top of the p2-box. I estimated top heat load to be around 400w during heavy gaming for which this rad with these fans gets a deltaT of about 11-12 (MCR220QP at Martin's Lab). More info on deltas can be found here: Guide to deltaT at Overclockers.com but short of it is you want cpuloops to have delta below 10 preferably and gpuloops below 15. Since I'm working with some restricted space it should be good enough.


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Layout:
For those wondering how the **** I'm supposed to fit all this inside a P2-box here's some sketches of the planned layout:

Harddrives are to be mounted together in sound dampening frames and mounted on the swivel originally holding the cpufan so I can reach the insides better when installing the watercooling. Pump and t-line placement is really the biggest question mark. Don't know for sure where they'll fit until I install them.

Airflow sketch:
I'm not 100% on this. Pulling cold air from the outside and through the radiator is assuredly best for the rad, but maybe I should reverse the psu fan as well and then reverse front fan to pull out all the hot air. Or maybe even set all fans to blow inwards and force the hot air to escape wherever it can.

[tino]

It would be better I would of thought to 'pull' the air out through that front fan by the CPU, rather than through the PSU. So the PSU and Rad fan's suck air in and the one at the front sucks it out.

As the CPU is in the Water cooling loop it won't really affect the temps or it much if at all

[mongot]

@tino: Yeah, I didn't really think about it until I sketched it up but I think you're right. Otherwise that little psu fan would have alot of hot air to pull out.

Tore the case apart and started working on some stuff. Sorry about the blurry pics, didn't have my "good" camera at hand.

First up the stock mainboard cooling. These are really crappy. Aluminium fins painted to look like copper all topped off with a logotyped cap sealing the hot air inside. I ripped those off straight away, accidentally broke a fin on the northbridge block while doing it. Much better.

Cut the cap of the mosfet cooler of with a jewelers saw since no air would be blowing through it otherwise. Don't do this on the northbridge though, the cap is the only thing holding the fins on there together. Also don't dremel it as I found out the hard way, the dremel twisted the fins and I had to clean that up before returning to the jewelers saw.


I also switched out the psu fan. Just cut the wires and soldered the wires from a 3pin male fan connector on there. Still waiting for some stuff to silence it even further so gonna leave it like this for now.


I got creative with the cpumount since oval washers are kinda hard to come by around here, so I used some furniture angle mounts that I cut in half. They can be found all over Sweden for those looking, I bought mine at clasohlson, 20sek for ten of them.


Mounted the gpublock. I found a great guide to removing the stock cooler here for those in need: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3540588

[mongot]

Update time. Ive gotten some progress on the chassi but nothing worth looking at yet.
 
Im finished with the psu, and it proved more difficult than I expected to fit a rubber frame on the fan in there since there really wasnt even a millimeter to spare around the fan once in place. A bit of filing solved that. Heres a pic just before closing it up:

 
Also lapped my cpu and have a nice shiny coin-shot for your viewing pleasure! I messed up with the coarse grains though so got clearly visible slopes on the corners. Shouldnt have much of an impact however.

 
 
 

 
Lastly I have a two-part question for you Shuttle veterans. Im looking to clock this at least mildly when all is done, mostly the FSB. So my questions are:
 
1. How high can I expect to reach with the FSB?
2. Would cutting the heatpipe to the NB and replacing that block with an enzotech copper block improve the NB cooling, or is stock prefered?

[mongot]

To answer my own question and in case someone else is wondering, I did some rough calcs on dissipation area and it came up to this:

stock Shuttle Northbridge: ~48000 mm2
stock Shuttle Mosfet: ~40000 mm2
enzotech cnb-r1: ~24000 mm2

for ref, thermalright hr-05: ~85000 mm2 (with which many has reported better NB temps in their p2-chassis)

Ofcourse there are a lot more variables to consider to get a precise answer, but these numbers are clear enough for me to come to the conclusion that in this case its not worth it.

[Quartz-1]

I would suggest you have the top fans blowing out - and you might want to have them underneath the radiator. The case isn't airtight, so getting sufficient air in won't be a problem. And it will all be cool air.