Silverstone TJ07 build - t_ski style

[copenhagen69]

great looking stuff so far ... just found it and sub for me

 

[t_ski]

OK, so the holidays are over and I have a few minutes to upload and post all the images I have taken since the last photo update. Here is the mobo tray, now that is has been painted and reassembled with those black Lian Li rivets!







Some of the new parts I received:

Black Ice Xtreme 120mm rad
EK res tube (I have an EK150 now, this is a 250)
EK brackets (I have one on my current system and the second one broke, Plus, it's clear and these are black.)
UN rad brackets (to hold the 120mm rad in the front bays)
Two kinds of black continuous grommet (one is notched, the other isn't)
Standard #6 thumbscrews (20 of them)
Black make molex connectors
Four 92mm black fan grills
Four 120mm black fan grills







What did all that get me? Well, I went from this:

...to this:





Notice the changes? Here's the entire list if you didn't guess them all:

• Replaced white notched grommet with black continuous grommet
• Replaced white molex connectors on fan controller and card reader cables
• Sleeved the short power cable on the card reader

And I also did this:

• Installed fans the stock Silverstone fand with black fan screws and fan grills
• Sleeved the fan cables in black
• Bundled the two cables together with black wire ties (should be hidden, but will help with cable management)

That's it for the moment, so I will leave you with a new pic for the Sexy up-close hardware pic thread:

 

[t_ski]

A minor update for you. I was messing around a little last night and lightly assembled a few parts:





Put on the PSU plate, the mobo tray and installed the res clamps where I was planning to place the res. Motherboard standoffs and the top PCI slot bracket were put in, and I swapped out the white 3-pin connectors on the 92mm fans for some that are (almost) black. I also test-fit the 120mm rad in the front bays, and now I'm thinking I may have to add a bay to the top of the stack to install my one 3.5" HDD. Just not enough room between the card reader and where the SSD's will go (bottom open bay).

 

[t_ski]

Kids had a couple snow days last week, and I stayed home with them for one of them. I got some minor work done. I made and sleeved the rest of the fan cables (custom cables from the fan controller to each set of fans). I also came up with a solution for how to address the storage drive that was easier than you'd think. I need to take some pics though...

 

[TotalChaos]

please do post more pics

 

[copenhagen69]

awesome!

 

[t_ski]

So, I finally got a few free minutes to take pics and upload them for all of you. First off, the custom fan cables I made:

I'm not totally happy with the way the sleeving turned out, as the fibers are very thin and become see-through when expanded. I might resleeve them if I have time. There are two long ones (each with double headers) that will go to the quad rad on the bottom of the case, one double header for the rear fans on the mobo tray and one double header for the two fans that go on the front rad. Front rad you say?

This is the seond rad that will go in the front drive bays. This will help bring down temps a little bit more, but will also healp provide a neat way to keep the tubes straight from the res to the pump. You can also see the blue Primoflex tubing and Bitspower compression fittings I will be using throughout the loop.

This is the Lian Li bay device that holds up to four 2.5" drives in a 5.25" bay. As of right now, I only have three OCZ Agility 2 drives, so the forth is not being used. Wait, the forth is not being used? Then why don't we do this?

I used a gift card I got for Christmas and bought myself a 500GB 2.5" drive for storage. This will allow all the drives to fit in the one bay, and I don't have to figure out some other way to fit a 3.5" drive in the top (or someplace else). Genius!

At this point, I'm getting closer to when I will move everything into the new case. I still have to figure out the mounts for the rad and sleeve a couple more fans for it. I plan on moving all the data from the 3.5" 500GB drive to the 2.5" 500GB drive first, and I will also remove the second 5970 and fit the EK waterblock that's been patiently waiting for many, many months.

 

[mATrIxLord]

this looks really nice dude!! sub'ed to see moar pics and info!! great job!

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Sub'd!

Great work so far and I love this case.

 

[t_ski]

Thanks. I decided to resleeve the new cables, but I ran out of shrinkwrap

 

[t_ski]

Here are the new fan cables, resleeved:

 

[t_ski]

I still have this on my to-do list, but a lot of it has been put since I was doing the mini-ITX server build. That's almost done, and I was hoping to do some work on this next week while the wife is out of town. I need to buy some other fittings, etc...

 

[(FIH) The Don]

anything new on this awesome project?

 

[t_ski]

Unfortunately not. I bought a bunch more fittings, but I think I need to buy a few more, just in case my plan does not work out. Aside from that, I've been focusing on trying to clear out some old hardware so I have the funds to finish this.

 

[(FIH) The Don]

ah i see

well, at least its still going

might be getting a TJ07 from one of my friends soon, i freakin' love these cases, some of the most beautiful ever made imo !

 

[t_ski]

Well, on a whim I sold both of my Radeon 5970's (and one of the blocks - I still have the other available *HINT*HINT*). I purchased one 6970 for the moment and I am contemplating not watercooling the card. It was such a hassle to get the old one out without having to completely take the loop apart, which is something I'm wanting to wait until I can get the chance to move everything over.

Anyway, not having the card watercooled (or at least not yet) makes the flow of the loop change, which is fine because I did not have all of it completely planned anyway. Now I just need to rethink that part...

 

[ERazer]

sub'd

i feel ur pain, i took down my loop just to replace my gpu

 

[t_ski]

I'm taking the day off and working on this. I have quite a bit done so far, but I'm not sure if I can finish it up tonight. Maybe this weekend???

 

[(FIH) The Don]

i will certainly be looking forward to whatever you have been doing

 

[t_ski]

I've taken everything out of the old Spedo case and started transferring parts to the TJ07. Of course, along the way I've had to sleeve lots of fans, clean lots of parts and figure out where to run everything. I'm even going to have to re-drill and tap the fan mounting hold on the small rad because I have no friggin' idea what size screws it's supposed to use, and I can't find anything at the hardware store that matches it. And the ones I got with the rad are too big to fit the holes. I'm going to make them into M4 like the ones that were shipped with it, and that happens to be the same size as the ones on the big rad.

Hopefully I can do enough work today to start leak-testing the loop...

 

[t_ski]

I've got the loop finished, but I may have a slight leak from the res. I have an EK Multi-Option res (version 1, not X2). I originally bought a 100, but bought a 150 tube as an upgrade. However, when I first used the tube in my last loop, I knew it just would not seal right on the bottom. I had to put some teflon tape on it to seal it good. I redid the tape as I put the loop together, but when I was trying to fit everything together, I ended up taking off the tube so I could spin the base to connect the fitting (soon you'll see how tight the loop is). I put the tube back on and thought the tape still looked good, so I did not redo it again.

As I was filling the loop, I over-filled the res and got some leaking from the top (I have a tube with a straight barb on the top for filling purposes). Not a ton of water leaked out, but it was enough to make a bit of a mess, which makes it hard to tell if there is a definite leak. I need to take about 1" of water out of the res so it gets down below the tube, at which point I can take off the tube and re-tape it.

Unfortunately, my schedule is very busy this week, so I'm getting to it when I can. The good news is that I have not seen anything else from the loop that looks like it's leaking, and I should be able to get the rest of the air out of the loop when I seal the res on the bottom and the top. Once I get the system back up and running, I will start posting some pics.

 

[t_ski]

I spend a little time with the loop today. I removed some water out of the res with a few paper towels and retaped the fittings for the tube. I filled it back up and worked out most, if not all, of the bubbles, and found no leaks after running 4 or 5 hours. Tonight or tomorrow I hope to start managing cables...

 

[babeman]

A very cool thread! Like the progress screenshots with your whole mod.

Keep goin! Will continue to tune in

 

[t_ski]

I did not get to work on this last night, but I spent a few hours this afternoon on it and have the case back together and all the cables managed. I had pics to resize and upload, and more pics to take. I was able to get online a little bit and update the video card drivers and redo the Afterburner settings now that I have both card in the case.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Looks like a very thorough job!