Corsair H60 in a SX48p2

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

I have decided to give my QX9650 one more try before I consider mine a bit of a dud at overclocking, so I have decided to upgrade the cooling one more time, until now I have had a Noctua NH9 and although it has enabled me to reach 3.8 ghz temps under full load where to high for my liking, so I normally run it at 3.4 or 3.6 but never the less the cooling arrangement was quite silent.

Having looked at the options available, the only improvement feasible is to install water cooling with 120mm rad and still maintain the optical drive.

Due to espace limitations in the p2 Chasis a 120mm rad, with standard depth is all thats going fit without major mods. so I choose a corsair H60 because the mounting system for the water block/pump unit looked easier to adapt to non standard dimensions shuttle uses.

I intend to install first with the single fan supplied in the kit and once I that is done and I have figured out the best orientation and routing for the pipes I might to try to see if it can be fitted with 2 fans in with case I am thinking about installing 2 thermalright ty140 fans.

I wil take some pics and keep you guys posted of the progress, at present my SX48 is striped down awainting modification to mounting hardware to allow installation , I also going to see if I can gain more space by moving the PSU downwards a few mm.

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

I have decided to give my QX9650 one more try before I consider mine is a bit of a dud at overclocking, so I have decided to upgrade the cooling one more time, until now I have had a Noctua NH9 and although it has enabled me to reach 3.8 ghz temps under full load where to high for my liking, so I normally run it at 3.4 or 3.6 but never the less the cooling arrangement was quite silent.

Having looked at the options available, the only improvement feasible is to install water cooling with 120mm rad and still maintain the optical drive.

Due to espace limitations in the p2 Chasis a 120mm rad, with standard depth is all thats going fit without major mods. so I choose a corsair H60 because the mounting system for the water block/pump unit looked easier to adapt to non standard dimensions shuttle uses.

I intend to install first with the single fan supplied in the kit and once I that is done and I have figured out the best orientation and routing for the pipes I might to try to see if it can be fitted with 2 fans in with case I am thinking about installing 2 thermalright ty140 fans.

I wil take some pics and keep you guys posted of the progress, at present my SX48 is striped down awainting modification to mounting hardware to allow installation , I also going to see if I can gain more space by moving the PSU downwards a few mm.

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi Guys

Well I have been looking at my SX48 p2 Case and have figured out that by removing the plate under the psu this would allow me to reposition the psu lower and further to the righ.

The reason for me wishing to move the psu, is that in its standard position there isnt enough space above it to fit a second fan to H60 rad, and the second is to provide sufficient space between the PSU and the VGA card to route water pipes without touching the fans on my mushashi VGA cooler.

I removed my psu, memory, graphic card, hard drive and optical drive, drilled carefully the the 2 rivets holding plate, made a few checks and decided to attack the back of the case with my dremel, look at the photos and you will see how much material I removed  in order for the psu to sit as low possible and at the same flush with side of chassis. Note how much material had to be removed around the psu fan in order to ensure the fan is not obstructed, actually in a standard shuttle P2 chassis the hole is noticeably samller than the psu fan, removing the psu grill and enlarging whole makes the psu silent.



The end result is that the psu has moved down aprox 5mm and to the right 10mm when viewed from behind and cant sit any lower, it just clears my tall corsair dominator memory sticks.



I have measured the height of the rad with 2 fans fitted and its 71-72 mm, lowering the psu gives me a height of 78 mm, that leaves roughly 6 mm or 7 mm between the lower and psu, not sure how much that is going to affect the airflow of the lower fan, I supose trial and error will show if there is any benefit to a second fan given the space constraints.

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

Well I have been doimg trial fits of the rad with the original 120mm fan and 140mm fans do not like the will fit and leave sufficient space for the optical drive, certainly a 140 mm will not fit under the rad and allow the optical drive to fit with its sata and power leads connected without hacking the fan so it looks like I am going to stick with 120mm fans.

The logical approach would be tu use variable speed pwm fans and since shuttle provides you with 3 pwm headers in a P2 case it would be stupid not to do so, well the problem is that there are few decent pwm 140 mm fans available to choose from and their max speed is quite low (1300 rpm aprox) I could only find one worth considering; the thermalright TY140, so to make my life easier i am going to get some 120 mm fans, from what I have found out, the quietest fans for a given airflow are noiseblockers, so my intention is to purchase 3 noiseblockers 120 mm pwm (700 -2000 rpm),2 for h60 in push pull configuration blowing out and one 120 mm blowing air into the case.

Whilst I am at it , I am thinking of getting a 120 gb  SSD drive, I will hold off updating the graphic card for the time being (ATI4870), as it covers my needs at present and is fitted  with a scythe mushasi VGA cooler that is very quiet.

In the meantime I will modify the case cover, cut a window and install amesh grill, and make some brackets or supports for the fans/radiator assembly.



I will keep you guys posted

Joe Rubido

[daboggeyman]

 Hey nothing wrong with that ATI 4870 great card , not much out there they wont handle 

Hi guys

Well I have been doimg trial fits of the rad with the original 120mm fan and 140mm fans do not like the will fit and leave sufficient space for the optical drive, certainly a 140 mm will not fit under the rad and allow the optical drive to fit with its sata and power leads connected without hacking the fan so it looks like I am going to stick with 120mm fans.

The logical approach would be tu use variable speed pwm fans and since shuttle provides you with 3 pwm headers in a P2 case it would be stupid not to do so, well the problem is that there are few decent pwm 140 mm fans available to choose from and their max speed is quite low (1300 rpm aprox) I could only find one worth considering; the thermalright TY140, so to make my life easier i am going to get some 120 mm fans, from what I have found out, the quietest fans for a given airflow are noiseblockers, so my intention is to purchase 3 noiseblockers 120 mm pwm (700 -2000 rpm),2 for h60 in push pull configuration blowing out and one 120 mm blowing air into the case.

Whilst I am at it , I am thinking of getting a 120 gb  SSD drive, I will hold off updating the graphic card for the time being (ATI4870), as it covers my needs at present and is fitted  with a scythe mushasi VGA cooler that is very quiet.

In the meantime I will modify the case cover, cut a window and install amesh grill, and make some brackets or supports for the fans/radiator assembly.



I will keep you guys posted

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi Guys

I made some metal strips with the correct spacing to secure the water block/pump, I also had to file notches on original intel mount of the water block/pump assembly to allow the securing screws to bolt dowm without interference, I used the original screws and springs fited the shuttle ice cooler.


I also made metal strips which I screw to the underside of rails of the chassis and use adhesive foam strip to isolate set the coreect height.


I also sanded/filed the fan frames to allow the fans to sit flush on the rad, installed the memory sticks, psu,optical drive, hard drive, and graphic card, it all just about fits, I havent tried it yet, which I hope to do later today, I will try it first with an open case as I havent got round to modding the case cover. Here are some more fotos.




At present I am using the original fan supplied pushing fitted to the underside of the rad and scythe pwm to pull fitted above, In the near future I will get better fans.

I will keep you guys posted

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi Guys

Well as you have seen I have managed to install the corsair H60 cooling solution with 2 fans,I must admit the instalation would have a lot simpler if I had installed it the with one cooling fan only, still the whole idea was to try squeeze a few mhz out my qx9650 with lower temperatures and noise levels, and having thought about tit I felt that with 2 fans I could have the air blowing out of the case which would help keep cool the other components in my shuttle, at present I am using the original fan supplied with the kit and a scythe pwm fan, not ideal but it works, although I did modifiy the fan frames so the fans sit flush against the rad.

As for temps they are slightly beter than the noctua nuh9 set up, and at full speed a little quieter,at 3.8ghz it seems more stable, but I still get errors in prime 95 at 4.0 ghz and 1.4v, with one core getting very hot as before.

It could be that I just have dud of cpu chip at overclocking, but since I have just done a fresh w7 instalation with all the updates I really havent had the chance to test its overclocking potential, and I am mising a 120mm fan to blow air into the case,another explanation could be poor contact between cpu and the water block due to incorrect clamping force or a TIM issue, so I am to get some new fans,a decent tim, and a SSD, recheck the instalation of the water block before I make my final judgement on its cooling performance, I have a couple of things I have to resolve, like my optical drive needs a couple more mm clearance, the sata plug butts up to the corsair radiator, I am going to try shaving a bit plastic of the edge of the sata plug and it should hopefully be resolved. the other is to finish the case cover with its blow hole and mesh grille in addition to the previously mentioned fan upgrade.

I will keep you guys posted of any further developments

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

Today I finally got round to ordering some more bits to upgrade my shuttle, I have ordered 3 noiseblocker 120 pwm fans, Alternate did not have coolaboratory pads in stock despite their online shop showing them in stock, so I ordered the liquid siringe version and and some artic mx4 just in case, I also ordered 2 more sticks of ram ddr3 1600 cl8 which hopefully will work in harmony with my existing corsair dominator memory.

I have also decided to take the plunge and order a SSD, a mushking chronos 120 gb, in theory the parts should arrive on friday, so hopefully by next week sometime I will have the bits fitted.

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

Yesterday a man from dhl came with a parcel containing all the bits I ordered.

So in went 2 memory sticks ddr3 1600 cl8 ripjaws memory to give me a total of 8gb.

Next I decided to lap the corsair cpu  cooling block for good measure and to used artic mx4 tim.

Unpacked 2 of the noise blocker 120mm fans and sanded the frames to reduce the thicknes, I probably took of about 1.5mm of each fan, the total height of the corsair rad with the 2 sanded noiseblocker fans is 74 mm, this gave me 7 to 8mm clearence between the lower fan and and the psu.

I also had to dremel part of the lower fan to give clearence to sata and power plugs for the optical drive a very tight fit, but it fits which is the important bit.

I also installed a 120gb Mushkin chronos SSD.

Next fired hit the power button and see what happens, well the answer was not much, since the system would hang up at the post screen and could even enter bios set up, I traced this to the fact that when ever you hit the cmos clear button the default setting for hd is IDE and thats not compatible with SSD, disconnect SSD fire up, enter bios and adjust settings and it now powers up correctly.

I decided to do a fresh install of w7 on the ssd, very quick the initial intalation and several hour installings updates and drivers.

The whole pc feels much faster thanks to the SSD and very quiet on smart fan settings, but the whole idea behind this besides the noise benefit was to see if I could push my QX 9650 cpu further, I started optimizing the ram and here I came up against a few problems, my memory sticks as an individual pair could run DDR1600 at CL8 but when ever I populated all four slots the best setting I could run is 9-9-9-2 regardless of ddr voltage, northbridge voltage etc, so in order to improve things I tried upping the FSB from 333 mhz and found it would run 400 FSB at the same setings. I have a nasty feeling that the problem here is the chipset and mb

Next I started overclocking the cpu via the multiplier and we already know from my previous experiences that my particular chip is not the best and starts requiring serious voltage when you want run it above 3.6 ghz, more so at 400 FSB, in addition to this, Shuttle never designed this motherboard for serious overclocking and it shows on the voltage drop when stress testing the system for stabiltiy under prime 95 at present its runs stable at 3.8 ghz but I have to select 1.41 volts in the bios and cpuz or speedfan show a V core of 1.36 or 1.37, havent bothered trying to run 4.0 ghz because its going need more voltage since I am already at the recomended max voltage for this cpu, can,t really complain, I bought this cpu cheap second hand. if any one else is looking for the best socket 775 cpu,its not the Extreme Editions QX9650 and QX9770 which are the same chip and steping, the best cpu is a XEON X3380, they are all EO stepping like the Q9650 but runs 9.5 multiplier which gives 3.8 ghz at 400 fsb and it will do this at a lower voltage and therefore it will run a lot cooler than a Extreme Edition cpu.

At present I am quite happy with its performance, as a side note this update has cut my starting time by 20 seconds
from hitting the power button to windows desktop takes 35 seconds.

I will post some photos as sson as I get some time.

Regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi guys

Some more photos as promised












Enjoy

regards

Joe Rubido

[jrturbo]

Hi Guys

Its been a while since my last update, and coment a bit further on the finishing touches, as far as the cooling system the only thing left was to try and optimize the fan settings. although the SX48 has 3 pwm headers, smart fan in the bios only looks after 2 cpu fan headers and even then it has different ramp speeds on those 2 headers since originally one fan is a 92x25 and the other is a 70x15, so this doesnt help you when you connect 2 identical fans in a push pull configuration since ideally you would want them both to run at similar speeds if you are to get the best performance and lowest noise levels.

I had 2 options, either obtain a pwm splitter lead and connect to either of the 2 headers or use speedfan to control the fans, I decided it would be better to use speedfan since I could also use the 3rd pwm header and to put a cherry on top the latest version of speedfan can also control the fans on AMD/ATI Vga cards.

Downloaded the latest speedfan and looked at various online tutorials I found on the net, after couple of hours tweaking the numerous settings, I had speedfan set up and controlling all the fans inside my shuttle, at idle the 3 120mm fans are running at aprox 1000 rpm at which speed the noiseblockers are silent, and even when gaming the fan rarely speed up much, you rarely see the fan speed up beyond 1400rpm, it takes something really cpu intensive like prime 95 to push the cooling system, the final bonus was that was I lower the cpu voltage from 1.41 to 1.4 volts and still retain stability

I think I should remind you guys that my cpu is a pig, it needs 1.40 volts in the bios to run stable at 3.8 ghz, and 2 of the cores run hotter than the other and it these same 2 cores stop first and give errors when testing with prime 95, other people with QX9650 cpu and similar voltage are reaching 4 ghz and more, I have no doubt that better example of cpu in my shuttle could run at 4 ghz and possibly 4.2 ghz, and had my cpu been one of the better ones its quite probable that I would have not done this latest mod, intalling a compact water cooling solution like the corsair H60 I choose gave me a lot of headaches to resolve due to me wishing to use 2 fans, in order to have the best cooling perfromance and the lowest noise levels, I now feel the hassle was worth it, thanks to the noise drop achieved more than 200 mhz gain in overclock.


Here are some photos of the unit assembled and running, I would also like to add that I havent added a single lighting accesory, and all the leds you can see lit are from the motherboard and the graphic card which clearly visible thanks to the mesh windows, I found this feature usefull to tell from distance if my computer was switched off or in hibernation