Two Questiosn, concerning Motherboard Mounts/Standoffs and Watercooling.

[WarEagleAU]

Alright, I went and got me a couple of more things so I can finish my PC build. But, I currently have two questions and I wanna triple/double check everything before I proceed (next weekend more than likely, or the weekend after that, still need me one more tube for my Koolance Exos).

QUESTION #1 : I planned on using the Motherboard Mounts/Standoffs that came with my Compaq XGaming PC 5000Z. It has an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Nforce 3 250GBS motherboard in it. Its attached to a Coolermaster Wavemaster case. My question centers around these two parts. I planned on replacing the motherboard with an Asus A8N5X that I bought off of here. I need to make sure if these mounts/standoffs will work, or should I get some more/different ones? Also, if I need to get different ones, where would be a good place? (Compusa doesnt have any, and Gigaparts wants to see one of the standoffs I have so they can get me the proper ones with thread size).


QUESTION #2 : I have a Koolance Exos Water cooling setup. I got it from another person on here. My question is, should I run distilled water through it, to thoroughly wash it out? Also, I got me a 700mL bottle of Liquid Coolant. Should I just use the coolant, or do I need to mix that with distilled water as well? Also, how would I go about setting up the cooling, to check for leaks before connecting it?


Thanks for the help folks. You can never be too careful when building and I wanted to triple check on all of this.

[WarEagleAU]

*BUMP* Anyone with any ideas or help please?

[Darknova]

Question 1 - Use the mounts you have, if they came with the case then they will be exactly the right height, sometimes you can get ones that are taller than others. You may have to move the mounts around but that's fine.

Question 2 - I would wash it out myself, just to be certain, plus it will act as a leak test.
Read the instructions. It should tell you if you need to mix the coolant with distilled water or not.

[Sasqui]

#1 - if you can see a pic of both boards side-by side, you can probably guage the number of standoffs.

#2 - Last time I changed the coolant in my PC2 case (Koolance), I did exactly what you describe - ran almost a full gallon through the system (had an extra hose section sucking right out of a 1-Gal distilled water bottle). If you have the blue Koolance fluid, use it full strength. You can cut it with distlled water if you don't have enough.

Testing is obviously a good idea :) If you have a white towel, put it under all the parts you're concerned with and let the pump run for a few hours.

One other piece of advice before filling - try to clean dust out of the radiator/fans/etc. with compressed air, brush, etc. I don't know how easy it is to crack open the Exos. It was a bitch with the PC2 case, I had to drill out rivets and replace them with screws.

[WarEagleAU]

Thanks for the reply and help you two. Ill do exactly that. Thanks again.