Everything is here ! I'm going in!

Okay, all components are here, including a brand-new motherboard, and a half-dozen of Noctua's top-of-the-line 120mm fans for push/pull and another 200mm case fan.

Shutting down power in T-minus 60 seconds. I'll see you on the other side!

I feel like a 14-year-old in a whorehouse.

:thumbup:

Best of luck!

:thumbup:

If you get stuck :dontgetit: ... then :book: = :doh:

:pilotfly:

4h by now...cmon...post under the 6h mark :D

Sorry; really went to town on this! So, it works! Right now, I'm re-downloading stuff.

BitMaster; I was looking for the thread where I could swear you were telling me not to use drivers & stuff from the ASUS MB disk. Would you mind telling me again which drivers & utilities, etc that you think I should download?

oh ya, download the ones from your Asus support site. Those new drivers require a deinstall of the old drivers before you install those...and that can be a pain and is next to impossible for some drivers. i reinstalled 10 for that reason 3 weeks ago as mine got messed up audio etc...

Install 10, go to Asus support and download all the newest drivers they have.

Intel Chipset

Intel ME

Intel IRST

Realtek Audio

Intel LAN

WiFi (?)

BT (?)

Also, I would not install the Ai-Suite from the DVD, dont use it at all. Win10 got so many changes that it turned the DVD toxic, not Asus' fault imho.

Basically, downlaod all the drivers and AiSuite from the support site and install those.

THEN, go to MS Store in 10 and log on to it, so you can dl stuff. It will then once logged in sooner or later auto-update 3 apps, realtek Audio Control desk which you need to splitt front and rear jacks and also the 2 Sonic apps, all those now come via Windows Store. I dont like that tbh.

Thanks again ! Hey I was wondering: For now, until I can afford a waterblock/cooling loop setup, I took 2 of Noctua's top of the line 120mm fans and sandwiched the graphics card's little radiator in a push/pull arrangement, or at least I think I did.I've got both the arrows on the side and the labeled noses of the fans facing into the case, using their full gaskets on the sides contacting the radiator. Only problem is that the fans have a 4-wire PWM arrangement, and the wire coming out of the pump that used to connect to the old fan is a 3-contact connector with 2 wires, so I connected the fans to a high-amperage chassis fan outlet on the board. Oddly enough, I can barely feel air moving from the inside part of this arrangement (feel a barely-detectable suction on the outside). Given the quality of the fans, I would have expected more. Is it possible that one of the fans could be "out of phase", or is this a bad header to connect it to?

I also noticed that the inside of the case is hotter than Hell when I run a benchmark, yet I'm not feeling hot air blowing out the back, so I've been taking the side panel off until I can get to the bottom of all this. I have 9 fans all together, all blowing into the case, with a vent in the back (too small to put an exhaust fan, unfortunately).I've got three 120mm fans blowing in from the bottom, a new 200mm blowing in from the front, a 120mm, along with 2 more 120s on the CPU's radiator blowing in from the top, and two 120s blowing in through the GPUs radiator from the top-rear. Some of these are PWM, and connected to the board's chassis fan headers, while a couple of the 3-wires are connected to some kind of a splitter that is connected both to the second CPU fan header, the CPU pump is connected to the AIO pump header and usb 2.0, etc. Is there a better connection or orientation scheme that I should be using?

Also: Why does Speccy say that my 3200MHz RAM is only 1072 Mz?

I also noticed that the inside of the case is hotter than Hell when I run a benchmark, yet I'm not feeling hot air blowing out the back, so I've been taking the side panel off until I can get to the bottom of all this. I have 9 fans all together, all blowing into the case, with a vent in the back (too small to put an exhaust fan, unfortunately).I've got three 120mm fans blowing in from the bottom, a new 200mm blowing in from the front, a 120mm, along with 2 more 120s on the CPU's radiator blowing in from the top, and two 120s blowing in through the GPUs radiator from the top-rear. Some of these are PWM, and connected to the board's chassis fan headers, while a couple of the 3-wires are connected to some kind of a splitter that is connected both to the second CPU fan header, the CPU pump is connected to the AIO pump header and usb 2.0, etc. Is there a better connection or orientation scheme that I should be using?

 

Also: Why does Speccy say that my 3200MHz RAM is only 1072 Mz?

"2 more 120s on the CPU's radiator blowing in from the top"

That doesn't sound like the best setup, I don't think you are pulling enough of the hot air out. From my understanding you want to vent at the top if setup this way (Hot air rises). I have my AIO radiator at the front pulling outside cool air in through the radiator and is vented at the top rear fan and has been fine for heat.

The other way is to have fans at the front and top mount the radiator and pull the air from inside the case up out through the AIO radiator. This is not quite as good as the other setup from what I've seen. As you have preheated air going through the radiator.

The other way also has it's own problems as you are heating the air and throwing it over the GPU, motherboard etc.

This is my setup (Front mounted AIO) and my case being used here.

Yep, depending on the radiator's position, you want the CPU colder or the GPU colder. Or the best (like one Einstein I knew), outside the house (through the window) on winter time.:clown:

I have 9 fans all together, all blowing into the case, with a vent in the back (too small to put an exhaust fan, unfortunately)

Did you ever think of the fact all that air that goes in has to come out also? A small vent will not cut it, not even with a extract fan on it if you have 9 other fans sucking air in. With all the fans sucking air in, you don't have real airflow in your case so your air inside the case stays warm (or hot).

Those on the bottom (and lower sides) should take air in, those on top (and higher sides) should pull the hot air out. Will make a BIG difference.

"Did you ever think of the fact all that air that goes in has to come out also?"

Yep; I'm not an idiot. The problem is that I've got 360mm worth of radiators that need to draw cool air in from outside the case. I had to decide between keeping the radiators cool (and, therefore, the CPU and GPU in a more direct fashion) and keeping the inside of the case cool while drawing warmer air through the radiator (and making the radiators, which are cooling the processors directly, less efficient in exchanging heat (via the radiator). I chose the former, in the absence of better information. As far as the remaining fan space; I've been trying to figure out whether blowing cool air in from the outside, while letting it passively vent out, would be more efficient than actively PULLING it out, and letting cool air be drawn in passively. It seemed to me at the time, that because there are gaping holes around the fans (some spaces can accomodate multiple fan sizes, which I think is a poor compromise. It seems like the manufacturer should have picked one size, and made the case more or less "air-tight" around the fans) that actively blowing air in might be the better choice, but I wasn't sure, which is why I posted here.

I don't think this is quite as cut-and-dried as you're implying, and I don't think that the solution to this is a common-sense, "anyone can see that all you got to do..." one. I am, however, going to use the information from previous posts, and put the radiator in the front, and maybe the smaller one at the bottom or top-front. Only problem is figuring out what to do with all the drives.

Yep, depending on the radiator's position, you want the CPU colder or the GPU colder. Or the best (like one Einstein I knew), outside the house (through the window) on winter time.:clown:

Damn ! That's actually a GREAT idea! I suppose it's just a matter of rigging up lots of hose, and maybe an extra pump or two as "repeaters".

Even better; dunking the radiator(s) into a stream running by the house. No need for fans at all (except in the case, of course)!

one more reason for an external radiator if you go with a DIY Loop.

Less components inside, less heat inside, lots of space outside..and it looks good too. When you add up the cost for 2 internal rads you might as well get a MoRa3 instead, both will set you ~ 200€ back +/- depending on your choices.

I have 5 fans blowing inward and only 1 fan sucking hot air out. No problem as there are so many open holes and slots and mesh grid where air & pressure can escape on my Carbide 500r tower.

A MoRa3-420 with 4x 200mm Noctua fans is what I would get if I had to buy new and no money restrictions. Big fat cooler and 4 silent 200mm fans, what else would one want ;)

http://shop.watercool.de/epages/WatercooleK.sf/en_GB/?ViewObjectPath=%2FShops%2FWatercooleK%2FProducts%2F25120

Ahh, btw.

If you go DIY Loop, do yourself a favour and get Koolance Quick Disconnect Fittings, also barbs available to fit directly on the blocks ( recommended ).

THAT will save you from performing Olympic Watergames when you need them least. I would get 1 pair for ech block

Sweet ! Amazon sells the Koolance stuff! I'm a student (a 50-year-old med student, lol), so I've got Amazon Prime. What components/brands would you get for a loop system, if you were me? Also, what's the best way to hook up the two push/pull PWM fans I have sandwiching the GPU's radiator? The wire coming out of the GPU water pump is a 2-wire, 3-pin female, so I would have to solder it to the fans, in parallel, to run them off that, but I also have a bunch of chassis fan headers, including a high-amperage one.

Oh, by the way: I wrote to EVGA, asking them if these two blocks were compatible with my card (an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 HYBRID GAMING (11G-P4-6698-KR) )--

https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-400-HC-5699-B1-Hydro-Copper-Water/dp/B07BZ4MYWC/ref=pd_sbs_147_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07BZ4MYWC&pd_rd_r=e9a36462-b761-11e8-846c-b1864629fd27&pd_rd_w=pmVTd&pd_rd_wg=K0cBD&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=0bb14103-7f67-4c21-9b0b-31f42dc047e7&pf_rd_r=X850TGE8BW8X2KHVEETA&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=X850TGE8BW8X2KHVEETA

https://www.amazon.com/EKWB-EK-FC1080-FTW3-Waterblock-Nickel/dp/B07CVSL8W4/ref=pd_sbs_147_10?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07CVSL8W4&pd_rd_r=e9a36462-b761-11e8-846c-b1864629fd27&pd_rd_w=pmVTd&pd_rd_wg=K0cBD&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=0bb14103-7f67-4c21-9b0b-31f42dc047e7&pf_rd_r=X850TGE8BW8X2KHVEETA&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=X850TGE8BW8X2KHVEETA

Check out this 1100-page book I got from Amazon for about $20 (from 2015). Just some random shots from the book.:

Nice book for a men's best place :book:

You asked me what I would do if I was you, regarding the loop.

I assume a few things to make this idea work, adjustments of the layout are always possible, some will make it better, some will make it worse.

Start:

I would sell the Corsair H100i on ebay or to a friend, get some or most money back.

Decide if you want internal radiators or rather an external radiator. The pro and contra has been discussed. I like the external rad in addition to it's massive passive cooling power that it doesnt add weight to the case, which was the case with 2 or 3 larger internal rads + water + tubing + pump + res

and it all fills up your space inside.

No shit, they look nice, wow LED everwhere and hard tubing, 2 res's maybe even for dual loops and then BANG...your board becomes a diva and you need to CLR CMOS, remove the battery under 2 SLI cards with a bridge and hardtubing...etc.. they really look great but they come with a heavy drawback, your case is crowded with tubings and pump(s) and reservoir(s).

Either one works, but the time you need to access certain parts or do certain maintenance can be hours compared to direct access with clean & sleak builds, usability in mind, think of it like a weapon vs. a showcar.

For the CPU block I would get the Watercool Heatkiller-IV in the Edition of your choice. Mine is all Copper as an example. Then decide for the tubing size. Common sizes that do not have too many drawbacks are 13/10 and 16/10 mm outer/inner diameter. i use 13/10 as it flexes better than 16mm but next time i think i would take the stiffer 16mm/10mm tubing.

A 3-5m (soft) tube is no bad idea to buy. Cut your pieces as you need them

Once you know your tubing size, get the proper fittings for it. I would certainly use Koolance Quick Conns right at the block. That way you can take all tubing off and the CPU and GPU remain seated, you can discon the CPU or GPU alone and take them out for service w/o spilling any drop of water ( a tiny tiny tiny drop gets lost with every coupling procedure, like 0.001ml). You connect the radiator(s) the same way. Make all blocks and rads male couplers and all tubing endings are female couplers. It adds a bit to the cost but is worth the extra 150€, it is REALLY worth it once you have issues and need to work the board and the loop is in the way.

Pump and res. As a pump, take the one everybody but me uses, LoL, take a Laiing D5-Vario PWM-4pin software adjustable. Most resell this pump under an "adjusted" name, look for "D5" "PWM or Vario" in its name. Watercool has it right with the res, take the 200er Tube incl the pump in 1 housing + the MoRa3 360 or 420. It looks awesome and reduces a messy build due to wires and cables going everywhere ( you have 12V Molex for power and 3 or 4 pin Fan for RPM readout and adjustment in the case of PWM. Some have even more cables.. ).Then you have 1x 4-pin PWM going to your 4 200mm fans if you opt for the 420er MoRa3. Use Y-Cables to drive all 4 off the one cable.

Use your onboard High-Amp fan connector for those 4 x 200mm Noctuas. You also have 2 tubes In/Out coming from the case to the res/rad combo.

13/10 fits through the slots if your case dont now have tube outlets, mine has 4 tube outlets. There are also couplers for the slots available.

Buy nice Y-Cables and a 1m PWM extension for the fans, I use Noctua cables only for a few years and like them. Mind the Y-cable PWM splitt. The RPM signal must only go to ONE of the 4 fans, each Y-Cable has 1 x 3-Pin and 1x-4Pin to only pass the signal to 1 fan. Connect them such that the PWM signal only reaches 1 fan or your RPM readout and control go haywire ( been there and it gave me some headache to figure out why it went wrong, its failry easy if you obey the Y-cable 3 + 4 pin idea. All 3 Ends on the Cable are PWM style, just 1 link misses the RPM pin, it still is a PWM jack. That layout is needed every time you combine 2 or more PWM fans to 1 PWM feeder cable btw. You can buy a PWM board with 6, 8 or 12 outlets, you just will hardly find the way to mount it under the shroud of the fans. The Y-cables fit under it, for MoRa3 and fan shroud that is.

If you opt for internal rads you need more than 2 x 120mm for CPU + GPU or even SLI. For every one of those I would say 2 x 120mm is ok, 3 x 120mm for each was better, even better are 140mm fan size based rads, 140, 280, 420. A 280x140er rad is almost the size of a 360x120er.

For radiators, internal, what matters most is THICKNESS and where the fittings are located. You really have to look yourself how thick each rad can be, where the tubing has enough room to be hooked up and wont block other things and where to put the pump. This is really impossible for me to tell you which device where to etc.. I can suggest you also use Quick Conns for all those blocks and rads. Use good fans, I would only buy Noctua fans but there are other good ones out there too.

The GPU thing you have done... The arrow is the direction of the air stream. usually, but not always, the Company Sticker on the one side of the fans, if you look at it it will blow into your face. The arrow always shows the direction, some labels are wrong side, so go by the arrow to be safe.

That scheme should help. inside->Fan->Rad->Fan->outside.

Do not solder anything if you are unsure :D

If you have enough headers, use a separate header or best go straight 12vMolex Adapter ( HDD power plug that is ) --> 3 Pin Fan header. Yours only has 2 pins for + and - and skips the RPM readout pin. No issue, just a feature the pump doesnt have.

You can and should connect the 2 fans via a Y-cable and hook them up to a close by header on the board and control them via Asus FanXpert. That is a nice tool if you have many fans and want to balance cooling and noise with different profiles.

If your GPU does not accept any other coolblock out there and you are stuck with it, no big deal. The keep the H100i and do the best of AIO and plan on a DIY loop once you replace the GPU or CPU/socket.

It will not give you more fps, it may look cooler but that is a matter of taste and not worth 1k€ imho.

Just if you find out that a Corsair H1xx can be VERY loud when stressed and start replacing fans here..and there..and it still is too loud cause now the little GPU cooler cant keep up, then you know..--> EXTERNAL & BIG & CLEAN.

I bought a H110 ( 2 x 140mm ) for my son's PC in 2015 for his PC. It's been the loudest thing I have likely ever heard apart form server fans. I immedeatly bought 2 extra fans for over 50€ to get that problem fixed.

I bought bequiet SW2 back then iirc. Best ones I found quickly to get that noise killed. Reviews say the newer fans from Corsair are better, hope so :)

If not, go Noctua.

The only thing that adds a lot to the cost are the Koolance Quick Disconns.

Each one sells for roughly 17-19€ everywhere you look, a standard fitting sells for 1-2€ a piece..and you always need female and male with QC's, so that's already 2 of them..and each block has IN and OUT-let, that makes 2 x 2, that's already as much money for the QC's as for the CPU block itself, now add 1 GPU, another 4 QC's and another 4 for the rad/res.

Roughly 150-200€ but I still say, if you do a loop, by all means, get QC's if you not only go for looks but rather built something with maintenance and downtime in mind.

I did not know that there are QC's directly for the blocks and got 6 pairs for mid-tube. It also works great but having them right on the blocks/rad/res is much cleaner and easier to handle too. I am just not going to replace half of them just for the looks now. Maybe when other things need attention I may do that change on my rig.

A flowmeter isnt bad but not mandatory. You will hear a blocked loop by your pump squeeking ( ehhhhh ) and you will see temps go NORTH if your pump fails. when that happens, your CPU fan should read zero and an Alarm will come as an OSD from Asus Ai-Suite, so yeah...I skipped that part as it only adds complications. Keep it simple and sleak.

I had trouble with my water in my 3rd year of running that loop. I cleaned it out a few months ago, took the block apart, rinsed the Poseidon, replaced the tubing and THOROUGHLY rinsed the rad with almost boiling water.

Ever since I ran into that problem, greenspan sitting on the entrance gate of the CPU block fins, I am fighting this problem, with better succes since I use

simple automotive cooler additive made for copper ( and others ). It inhibits the reaction of unavoidable debris in water with copper to form greenspan.

This is not copper oxide, that you can avoid by not letting your copper stuff "breathing" air but always seal it airtight or submerge it, aka use it in a loop with water/additives. I used to use a few drops of citric acid only but that has shown to be of no good use with greenspan present.

I would not use any color additives, most if not all are for show only and must not remain in the loop for too long before the clogg things and gobble uo larger particles. Some are said to work..but hey...clean 1 loop forst and then answer again if you wanna take chances again..haha..it can be some 2-4 work if the loop goes sour, been there a few times and I learned.

I was damn happy to have soft tubing and QC's. without that I would runa Noctua DH14/15 aircooler by now and would hate WC-DIY :music_whistling:

"Did you ever think of the fact all that air that goes in has to come out also?"

 

Yep; I'm not an idiot. The problem is that I've got 360mm worth of radiators that need to draw cool air in from outside the case. I had to decide between keeping the radiators cool (and, therefore, the CPU and GPU in a more direct fashion) and keeping the inside of the case cool while drawing warmer air through the radiator (and making the radiators, which are cooling the processors directly, less efficient in exchanging heat (via the radiator). I chose the former, in the absence of better information. As far as the remaining fan space; I've been trying to figure out whether blowing cool air in from the outside, while letting it passively vent out, would be more efficient than actively PULLING it out, and letting cool air be drawn in passively. It seemed to me at the time, that because there are gaping holes around the fans (some spaces can accomodate multiple fan sizes, which I think is a poor compromise. It seems like the manufacturer should have picked one size, and made the case more or less "air-tight" around the fans) that actively blowing air in might be the better choice, but I wasn't sure, which is why I posted here.

I don't think this is quite as cut-and-dried as you're implying, and I don't think that the solution to this is a common-sense, "anyone can see that all you got to do..." one. I am, however, going to use the information from previous posts, and put the radiator in the front, and maybe the smaller one at the bottom or top-front. Only problem is figuring out what to do with all the drives.

If you have that many fan(s) pulling fresh air in (Front ) and (Bottom), you should be able to keep the rads cool pulling this air out through the top.

I would try it with the fans on the inside pulling this air through the rads as an exhaust. I would also set the rear GPU rad like this also. That way you would have 5 or 6 fans pulling lots of fresh air in over the components (less heat, your GPU is water cooled) and 3 fans pulling it out through the top rads.

Just my 2 cents.

Well, until you workout how your going to setup the water loop. I think i'd to do it how BitMaster sets it up. I would much rather keep as much water out of the case as possible just in case.:D Then have it all nice looking.

Damn ! That's actually a GREAT idea! I suppose it's just a matter of rigging up lots of hose, and maybe an extra pump or two as "repeaters".

 

Even better; dunking the radiator(s) into a stream running by the house. No need for fans at all (except in the case, of course)!

Or put the heat sink in the freezer. No, it's not a good idea, condensation issue will occur. A lot of fans in the case = A lot of dust to be cleaned.:megalol: