Project: Fractal S, dual 360 hardline loop in Blue/White

Soldato
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Success!

The fittings arrived this morning and I've finally put them in. The pipework I'd done for the join just needed a trim as expected.

Now the system is full and running leak free!

I've shaken the case around a a fair bit to remove air and then brimmed the reservoir and needed very close to 1000ml to fill the loop. It may be a shade under or over. That 1l wash bottle really proved useful for preventing any drips at all.

It's been going about 20 minutes now and no leaks. I'll be draining a bit out soon to add the stage 2 of the Mayhems cleaner.

In the meantime I'll fit the last 3 fans to the top radiator.

Finished pipeowrk
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Fluid!
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I think the answer is a Bitspower coupler. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/bitspower-multi-adapter-female-1-4-inch-deluxe-white-wc-460-bp.html

It's one of those and then just 2 normal EK HDC fittings.

Still no leaks as of yet and I'm now posting this from the machine so proper pics to follow. The drain works perfectly which is good. Stage 2 of the Blitz is in but its not foaming at all which apparently it does a lot of. Not sure if that's just because I just drained half the res and added the stage 2 or not. Had a slight blue tint to it though.

An annoyance I found was that I couldn't use the Sys_Fan3 for the pump. The motherboard just says run at full power. Moved it to the CPU header and its variable as required.

Another is that it seems while using the Gigabyte System Information Viewer software to set fan curves, the system fans react to case temp, not cpu temp. So when the CPU is getting toasty the fans aren't moving as the system temp isn't changing. Will do some more digging though.

Really annoying that speedfan just doesn't work. Grr Gigabyte!

Also one of my Vardar fans is busted. Feels like the fan is rubbing on something under the shroud so its very stiff.
 
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Quite common for motherboard headers to not do PWM even though they have 4 pins. Apparently only the CPU header is required to support it to meet Intel spec.

Cables are looking good. I was going to say "*cough* COMBS *cough*".....but then I got the later pics. Look much neater.
 
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Yeah they took a while to arrive! Quite stiff cables so difficult to get them looking great. The 24pin looks ok but the PCIe ones look a bit janky.

Currently trying to get Win10 installed onto the SM951 which is proving fun. Win10 wants a driver before it'll do anything!

The bigger isue for me with the PWM is that Speedfan doesn;t work with this board becasue I think gigabyte in their infinte wisdom have removed all ability except their own software. So I can't just set the system fans to react to cpu temp. I'll probably just move a few things around and do it that way.
 
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You can get 14 prong combs to make the GFX power look like one cable. That might help. I've also seen one curved round to the right instead of up/down. Not sure if the tubing would get in the way or if you could wrap round it.
 
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Don't remember Win10 asking for drivers for my M.2 RAID but that could be my faulty memory! If you haven't already, use the Media Creation Tool to create a USB stick to install from. Faster and also more up to date - less updates afterwards and also might have the drivers you need.
 
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Ahh I'll have a look at the other combs.

Also, just got it all installed. Just needed to change some bits in the bios so that it was only trying to do UEFI things and it installed fine. Just moving bits around from my old drives. Hopefully will have the Pastel in later today.
 
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Some pics of the Pastel Blue at last. Been a bit busy ripping out bathrooms!

As you can see, one top fan position is currently vacant. That fan is going back to OCUK as it's faulty. Will install a new one when I can. Very pleased with the build overall.

I might redo the pipes from GPU to top rad and then top rad down to CPU at some point, but other than that I'm pleased with my bending results for my first time.

GPU will sit at about 10c over the water temp when under load. That water temp has maxed at 39c when undergoing just stress benching on the CPU. This is with the fans and pump set to comfortable levels for me, not close to 100%. The most noticable noise in there under load if my GPU as its got some coil whine I never noticed before.

RXLPuOV.jpg
VisajTI.jpg
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ecXweNT.jpg
 
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Thanks guys :)

Looking great. Just need to get rid of the yellow on that PSU now :p

Ha yes, its on the to do list.

TBH the PSU is probably 10 years old now so I might just do it as a matter of course. Though it still works so maybe I'll just peel the stickers off!
looking great man, Much better than my bends! *waaagh*

Just heat it up till it's nice and soft, bend it slowly over the heat and then hold it in place. Getting it lined up is the more difficult bit, that's why those two pipes from the top rad are a bit wonky!
 
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The fan that went back for RMA has been refunded so a new one ordered. Also ordered a PWM extender and a 2 way splitter to try and get all 6 rad fans on a CPU header. This is because thanks to Gigabyte being stupid speedfan doesn't work on most of their boards. As a result you can only use their software. This software seems to link sysfans to sys temp which isn't what I want for my rads, i'd much rather they ramped up dependant on core temp.

Also ordered a replacement 120mm fan for the rear of the case with a wider pwm range (the Akasa on there only starts up at 70%) and white blades.
 
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certainly have your daily dose of NVMe goodness and ssd 3Dnand.

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The 2 other fans and splitters arrived.

Now all 6 rad fans are on the CPU_OPT header and sit quite happily at about 650RPM most of the time. Much nicer. They now scale as I;ve set them with CPU temp, rather than SYS temp which they do when on a SYS header.
 
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