kevlong
Rated PG
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 Posted: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:36:19 Post Subject: |
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Just completed an install of this case with the following comments, (Note that I am an experienced system builder, but this is my first water cooled installation):
-The case is very heavy - reassuring when assembled but lifting it on and off the bench!! This is made all the harder trying to keep the front and back narrow doors closed and avoiding the front doors falling open when trying to lay the case down on its side. Further you can't have a narrow door fully open and the adjacent front door also fully open without them clashing and risking scratching
-Not all edges were smoothed
-Mixed success with thumbscrew fixing for HDD's. I had to resort to conventional screws about half of the time – Tool free humbug!!
-Fixing the motherboard to the removable tray required some dexterity in both knowing which screws actually removed the tray and then trying to get the resulting assembly back in under the lugs - The article was also right in pointing out a small but annoying registration error of a couple of mm's resulting in a tight fit for the rear ports into the plate
-Water block - Fixing was quite easy once I knew the difference between the Mylar shim and the Insulator, (thanks Google)...and oh, should you actually stick the insulator to the motherboard?
-I didn't like the tool free catches for the rear slots, mostly because unless you had a completely standard card, the plastic clip would foul the top, e.g. on my XFX 78000GTX there is a top heat spreader that I had to remove before I could clamp the card down
-Special thanks to the article for the suggestion about longer lengths of water pipe it saved me from buying new pipe because I would have certainly made the same mistakes
Once assembled I used a separate PSU to run the water cooler to fill, get rid of bubbles and check for leaks. The machine an AMD 3800+ X2 runs 10C cooler than the previous stock HSF. In terms of sound I must have a defective front fan because it buzzes all the time, so I've disconnected it until I can find a quieter replacement.
Kevlong |
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