Help me to tweak my watercooling setup (Mod included)

Hi all again,

About a week ago my water circuit fucked up, my Thermaltake Aquabay M3 broke (res->pump part) and all the liquid started leaking from the reservoir down into the case. Luckily the holes on the bottom of my case drained the liquid without any problem, and all my components are working flawlessly. I moved to air for a while and worked on my cable management which now is pretty good.

So I ordered the Swiftech MicroRes and MCR-220 rad from fitseries3 to improve my setup (should arrive this week), and I wanted to use my GTS120 (almost brand new) so i planned a mod with the cage of the Aquabay M3. It was hard to cut a hole in it since it's steel (or very hard aluminium) but i finally did it, i used a drill machine with a radial disk, i suppose this explains the scratches. While keeping good cable management, I wanted to integrate the GTS120 rad with a fan in a 5,25" bay for cooling the water again before dumping into the reservoir.

Here are the results of today, tomorrow i'll buy a spray can to remove those ugly scratches and paint it completely black again, maybe the grill too. Take in consideration this is my very first mod:






Since this is done, i planned a possible new setup with the new parts, i know it's not the best rad position but it should work well, though fitseries3 told me the rad won't be able to push all the air outta the case, which it's true, anyway ... i just can't mount another bracket and leave also a 120mm intake fan there to make the good airflow. I'm just doubting about if purchase 2 more SilenX fans cause i actually own just 2 plus 2 TT and 1 Panaflo (on-the-wires) ... and how to mount and/or point the fans at the MCR-220. Here is the plan:



Any help, advice and/or critics will be appreciated. Ty

First, i wanna thank all your comments, i really appreciate them and i'd like to comment them right now ... but i gotta go to the university so within a few hours, i'll be here again to tell my thoughts to all of you.

ty very much

@tzitzibp it's 7/16" tubing (18-12mm) i think

tzitzibp said:

Well, good luck with your first mod, and it looks like you are on the right track...
btw what kind of tubing are you going to use?

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Thank you, i thought it was really crap, but fits correctly into the case, so i'm almost proud of myself, when i have time, i'll paint it. Talking about tube, the one i have now it's 18-12mm (7/16" i think) but i'm considering to get Tygon R-3603, don't know which size to get, i can go for 16-11mm or 19-13mm, which one it will be better considering if the actual it's 18-12mm?

t_ski said:

Are you planning on adding a GPU or chipset block to the loop? I think if you're cooling just the CPU the radiator on the back should be sufficient. If you are going to add more blocks, is there any way to mount the GTS120 directly to the fan along the front? You'd get some much better temps that way.

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That was the same fitseries3 told me to do, just to use the MCR-220 and get rid of the GTS120 till i could mount it vertical ... but this couldn't be done at the moment. Maybe i'll add another block on the loop ... but now ... i don't need to cool anything more, maybe the video card block will be added but within a few months. If it's really bad (when testing the temps performance) to have the rad at that position, i'll consider to remove it.

t_ski said:

Also, the setup on the back of the case with the radbox looks right. One half of the radbox attaches to the case with the internal case fan, and the other half attaches to the fan on the rad. You then screw the two halves together.

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Thank you, i really doubted if this could be done with the MCB-120 radbox.

t_ski said:

My only criticism would be the Hydor pump. I didn't care much for the one I had, and the Laing D5's I've owned since have worked much better for me.

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Yeah, i know this setup will work tons better with one Laing D5 ... and also that my Hydor it's not the best pump but it worked flawlessly all the time ... so till it brokes i won't change it, cause i really think the pressure height is good (1.35m - 3.5feet) and also the flow (700LPH, about 3.1GPM) level, at least for the setup i'm planning to do ... and just one block.

philbrown23 said:

If I were you I would go from the pump to the mcr220 to the cpu block, the to the 130 rad, mcr res, pump. thats how I do it and it gives great temps, here I'll show you a paint pic of it.

my suggestion for you is the first pic. my actual setup is the second pic

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Thanks for your ideas, I thought about that, really it will be nice cause waterblock and res&pump will always receive fresh water ... but since my Hydor it's not that high pressured as a Laing D5 i think i'll fuck the flow of the waterblock, so the improvement won't be that good in my case ... but correct me if i'm wrong. Anyway i'll consider to mount it that way if my temps are not good for me.

Nitro-Max said:

you are one lucky person lol

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Thank you, i think your setup it's also going to look great

By the way, should i place the rad fans also with this direction on the airflow "<--"?

Thanks to all of you, truly