Now that Celtic Spirit is again being placed on indefinite hold, wanting to bring DreamCatcher into the realm of AM2, and a serious look at water-cooling, it looks like it is time to move on to v2.0. My initial W/C questions and issues will be presented in another thread (got to get that going!) as well as one following my testing & oc'ing the mobo assembly on air. As everything starts converging for "completion" those two threads will be merged with this one.

Here are the component changes that helped me to decide to call it v2.0:

Case: Convert MicroFly to MX6 ?Hybrid?
Mobo: Abit NF-M2 nView
CPU: AMD 4000+ Brisbane
HSF: Stock Opty 175 / Tt SmartFan2
Memory: Corsair CM2X1024 ? 6400C4

These components were in the pipeline long before the idea of water-cooling came along therefore running the system on air influenced the original update.

Case Conversion: While I love it, Ultra?s MicroFly case has a couple of "flaws". One of which was airflow. Even though it uses a 120mm exhaust fan, intake is a little limited. The front of the chassis has a lot of holes and a 80mm fan, but the front bezel is somewhat restrictive for air intake. The MX6 was the next version of the chassis design and fixed that problem. The bezel uses a mesh surface that is very "breathable" and solved any restrictive airflow issues.

I had won a MX6 was about to sell it when I realized I could swap the exterior pieces to give DC better cooling it just took a while to get around to doing that. Also as e-bay would have it I ended up with an nView, so last Sunday I started......

Here sit the two boxes waiting to be "hybridized" and then with everything removed but the bezels.



It was interesting to note that when I started taking the boxes apart Ultra opted to drop the four mounting screws used in the MicroFly and rely solely on the four retention clips with the MX6. Admittedly it makes life easier as one does not have to remove the HDD tray and the requirement for a short screwdriver if a PSU is in place. Here we have two views with the front bezel removed and finally a side view with everything together.



The left over chassis and exterior parts are headed for Yoda?s SMN, an attempt at a home server build (or excuse to build another computer!).

As one that does a lot of his stuff based on the "bling" factor, I'm going to miss the top window (may do one at a later date) but was compensated by the fact the new case matches my new office furniture the wife decided I needed! It is black with pewter knobs so....



Sad isn't it!

The rest of the stuff was the result of e-bay (what's new) and a few "For Sale" threads here and there. Initially I was going to update DC by using Celtic Spirit?s Opty 175 and G. Skill PC-4000. Then it was decided to have a contest to see which would perform better Biostar / 175 or nView / 4000+ Brisbane. However after the frustration of reinventing the wheel (couldn?t get it through my thick skull 2 x 512 will always out perform 2 x 1024), ending up with an Opty 170, and running out of time it was decided I'd go with the theoretical oc'ing ability of the Brisbane. Also I decided to test the nView / 4000+ using the Tech Station for all kinds of altruistic reasons.

Besides swapping box parts last Sunday and Monday I threw the mobo assembly and the Tech Station together. With fingers crossed and my eyes shut I pushed the power button....



and was immediately reminded of two things:
1....the board was open box "You will need to reset you bios as the cpu has changed"
2....I need to flash the bios to correct the Brisbane temperature issues as I was showing 51 C for idle in the "Health Status Screen"

So now it is time to stop the physical assembly and begin the testing and oc?ing. As mentioned above I intend to do that as a separate thread and need to get started on that as time allows.

Chow for now!

Didn't realize how long it has been since I stopped by to up date things and see how everything is going. Think the last time I tried the site was down for some reason. Well anyway the following should get it caught up!

Spent quit a while working on the oc?ing of the mobo assembly and if there is an interest I can do a whole thread of my adventures. The only real biggy is the fact I had everything close to finish testing when I decided it was time to install the evga 8800GT SC. All testing/overclocking was done using the Tech Station. Because of using an older Enermax PSU I had to use the power Y adapter. Got everything hooked up and hit the power button and "pop & poof". Heard something pop and saw a small whiff of smoke come from the vid card. Long story short had lost the GPU and the mobo. Luckily found another bare board on fleabay and evga was great on an RMA.

This will be the first entry where the overclocking and water cooling parts of this project are going to be part of the primary worklog.

For all intents and purposes the overclocking part (on air) is finished. After the water cooling has been installed and the system has gone through a ?shakedown? period further oc?ing may be attempted.

So this is what the final settings are:

HTT: 291 for 3.06GHz
Vcore: 1.450v
Vdimm: 2.1v
Chipset Vcore: 1.24v
Hypertransport V: 1.22v

Rm temp is 22Cish, CPU 54C, Core 23C (per SpdFan)

This was backed up by a 12+ hour run of Prime.

While the setting didn?t run ?stable? (long term prime or equal) did have on late night S & Gs session where I was able to run PCMarks ?05 and CrystalMarks at

HTT: 299 for 3.14GHz
Vcore: 1.500v
Vdimm: [B]2.1vp
Chipset Vcore: 1.24v
Hypertransport V: 1.22v

PCMarks = 7436
CrystalMarks: ALU = 23308 / FPU = 25523 / MEM = 16397 with a TOTAL of 129348


Now here is the summery of the WC?ing thread and what?s happened!

In the end it was decided to go with aqua computer?s ?plug & cool? fittings and not compression. It was felt that in the tight spaces of the mATX layout they would make installation easier.

In the final configuration it was decided to drop the NB and Mosfet coolers?..financial issues and the sinking dollar being the major considerations. It also didn?t help the NB cooler would be ?hidden? under the PSU. As it turns out all major components are from Aqua Computer

Went for a combo 1 ? 2 punch to cover rad, pump, res, etc?.that will be handled by a Aquaduct 240 PRO Mark II . As I?m using AC?s plug & cool the tubing will be 6mm x 8mm with clear on the mobo and I believe black and gray (comes with the 240) from the 240 Pro.

Then for the CPU: cuplex XT di and then for the GPU: twinplex pro for FX8800 .

The cuplex XT di and a few fittings came from a state side e-tailer but the rest is coming from Berlin and shipping is ?.. OUCH!

Anyway looking at the following loop: 240 >> CPU in >> CPU out >> GPU in >> GPU out >> 240

The following pictures are just things that I?m doing while waiting on the balance of the stuff to arrive.

Here we have the last views of the mobo assembly on air?.

While unplugging the zalman CNPS8700 from the boards fan header I managed to smack my finger in the hsf as I pull?..lets just say the blades are sharp and anyone care to guess the blade spacing??



While unplugging the zalman CNPS8700 from the boards fan header I managed to smack my finger in the hsf as I pull?..lets just say the blades are sharp and anyone care to guess the blade spacing??



Okay when I pulled the CPU cooler out of it box, I suddenly realized something ? no mounting instructions! Hay, remember I?m a NOOB to this and a bit more paranoid than I probably should be. As it turns out my supplier from Germany has a great set of tutorials covering everything?..

IF you would like the link let me know as it just doesn't seem to want to post here. Too bad as Stefan aka [MMM]slame has done them in both German and English!

Anyway I mounted the two straight fittings to the CPU block and then went to mount it to the mobo. One think I did notice (on the nView anyway) is the mounting holes are noticeably larger than the mounting bolts for the block. One of the disappointments that I had with this block was the finish on the base. Sadly my picture was fuzzy so I couldn?t use it, but it was discolored and had plenty of machine marks. After all of the shinny goodness on the top parts this was a bit of a let down.



Here we have it mounted in place and I would defiantly change one thing if I ever have to remove it ? shorten the mounting bolts.



Now on to the GPU:

Here it is ?necked???.. and of course the chip!



Since space limitations didn?t let me use the cooler I wanted ( AquagraFX 8800 ) which offered full coverage I had find a way to cool my mem and volt reg chips. So enter these nifty pieces, "iandh 8800GT/G92 Memory & VRM cooling kit". I like these because they bolt on and one doesn?t have to rely on epoxy or pads to hold ?em in place.



Now I believe it was TheGlasMan at pcper who stated he preferred individual sinks as the memory chips aren?t always the same height. When I took the cooler off of my evga 8800GT SC one could see proof of that. One mem chip wasn?t touched at all and another only halfway. While looking at the following pictures you can see where there was contact (dark/rough areas) and wasn?t (light/smooth areas). Also if you look at the cooler itself you should be able to pick up contact ?imprints? on the pads. It looks like the volt regs are okay though.



Now back to my ?iandh? sinks (interesting side story can be found over at xtremesystems on these things). Because of the potential of unevenness I kinda sorta ?pilled? on the thermal paste. Good example would be prepping the volt reg chips!



When everything was bolted down I did notice a couple of ?positioning issues?. Two of the memory chips were not completely covered at the volt reg end of the card as well as one of the volt reg chips (sorry for the fuzzy pic for that one).



And then here is the GPU with the sinks on waiting for the water block.



Now I?m trying to figure out how I want to locate the in and out line from the 240 Pro. While an I/O plate is provided with holes and grommets to accommodate the tubing I had planned to use two bulkhead fittings to do the job. Again the final objective is to be able to remove the mobo tray with the mobo in place without having to disconnect any of the plumbing. Guess my question would be do I space them out as shown or should I move them closer together. If I mount them together, do I center, mount left (nearest the PSU), or mount right?





So this is where I be until the rest arrives!