Alright here we go, my H20 adventure 56k Warning

[ElrichMeister]

hello everyone, as long time poster here at the Stats, this is my first H20 build, these are the specs
AMD Opteron 148 CABYE 0535
Coolermaster Stacker 810
DFI NF4 SLI-DR Expert
X800XL (for the time being)
well everything else is going to be carried off from my old rig as for the H20 gear it is this
Danger Den Maze 4 CPU water block
Danger Den Maze 4 GPU water block
Black Ice Extreme II Rad
Hydor L35 Pump
5.25 Bay resevior
and Tygon Tubing all 1/2 ID

well here are some pics of my progress i am going to take a while to finish this little project cause im a busy guy, school, work, and g/f, take alot of my time so bare with me hehe.

the processor
http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/opteron.jpg

the mobo
http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/expert.jpg

the case
http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/case.jpg

my ghetto rad with the fans, i got bigger screws so that i can give it a clearance to reduce the dead spot in the middle of the fans

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/radwoshroud.jpg

and i made a ghetto shroud with some black electrical tape lol

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/radwshroud.jpg

i mounted the rad at the bottom of the case. i couldnt put the res on top of the rad cause the HDD cage was too low, so i put it higher

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/radresoutjpg

i mounted the rad with velcro !

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/velcro.jpg

this when i connected my first tube hehe

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/rad2rescloseup.jpg

this the fron of the case with the rad mounted

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/casenakedrad.jpg

well thats all i did today, maybe friday or monday ill finish this up, cause i work all weekand, i will update as i soon as i work more on it

[Avid6eek]

Wow...lookin good Elrich. That's a beautiful motherboard you've got there :D

[§hinoßi]

ya i looked and i was like....OMG IS THAT THE DR EXPERT!!??

lemme know if ur gonna sell that opteron :D

[Avid6eek]

lemme know if ur gonna sell that opteron :D I thought you had one? Maybe I'm mistaken and you were just talking about them.

[omga14]

every time a new core comes out and now the opteron for 939. i planed on building in january but noooooooooo had to have my stuff in october so i go with 754 :mad: well i'll sit back and enjoy o/c life through others for a little while.

[Avid6eek]

You almost got a socket 939 Opteron and new Mobo last time I talked to you :)

I don't know if your going to be able to hold up for M2. A 3.0Ghz Opteron just holds too much performance potential. Sell the old ************************!

[bluegreenshxt]

You almost got a socket 939 Opteron and new Mobo last time I talked to you :)

I don't know if your going to be able to hold up for M2. A 3.0Ghz Opteron just holds too much performance potential. Sell the old ************************!

I don't think I can wait till on M2...I want to build early 06...oi....Maybe an Opteron early 06 and an M2 early 07...

[omga14]

i gotta get control and learn to wait. i got a kid on the way and all the things i want to get for him is gonna cost me some serious dollar bill levels. i may do a small upgrade in january but that is a last ditch i can't hold out deal. i'll be getting another vid card then so we'll see:D

garuantee gentlemen, you will just see me post new benchies, overclock, and stability posts when i get done with my final new build. hopefully my o/c skills wouldn't have dwindled by then, lol. one things for sure though, i don't want to go single core for my nest build and that means no opteron 100 series as they are all single core for the s939. as well i am going to pick my stepping so that means having to see the cpu's physically before purchase. i can only do that from a brick and motar shop. that's gonna mean even more money. i'm not gonna get stuck with a weak stepping again. last 3 cpu's have been poor or non overclockers.

[Avid6eek]

one things for sure though, i don't want to go single core for my nest build and that means no opteron 100 series as they are all single core for the s939.
Opteron 165, 170, 175, 180 - Dual Core, Socket 939 :)

[gokusimpson]

Damn nice setup. Good job elrich!

[ElrichMeister]

ok heres a little update for you guys

i didnt really mount the block, just sort of, to get the sizes of the hoses n stuff, and get everything locked down, i will begin my leak test tomorrow morning, and its going to go on for about 24 hours, just to be sure.

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/prefillside.jpg

[yahooadam]

cool

its looking nice dude :)

nice big pipes by the looks of it too :)

u gonna put some UV stuff in or what ?

[Stone Fox]

Quick question, wouldn't a water cooling setup be more effective with the rad outside the case?

[Avid6eek]

The way he has it setup is very efficient in that it is pulling cool air through the radiator so the water will have low temps. In the past I've set things up where the radiator pulls air out of the case. That air is a bit warmer than ambient room temps so it didn't cool down the water as far as it could have.

[ElrichMeister]

update leak test, 11 am today, gonna stop at 11 am tomorrow pacific time

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/testleak.jpg

[Avid6eek]

Wow...actually doing things by the book. I should learn to leak test...it tends to cost me alot of hardware when things get wet.

[ElrichMeister]

Wow...actually doing things by the book. I should learn to leak test...it tends to cost me alot of hardware when things get wet.


haha yea, i ran out of money so i cant afford to have anything mess up

[yahooadam]

Wow...actually doing things by the book. I should learn to leak test...it tends to cost me alot of hardware when things get wet.
gonna be interesting on ure latest project
if those 2 pumps go there will be enough water in ure house to make a tourist attraction

[BAM!]

NICEE!!..... love the case. so much airflow.

are those dual 120 rad and fans? and 1/2" ID blocks?. should kick out some bad ass ##. my EXOS II is dual 120 too, but only 3/8" ID block. you're gonna kick some serious ass when you have everything setup. show us some temps and numbers.

i never leak test both of my water setup :D :D i guess i just like to live on the edge. lol :D

[ElrichMeister]

well a little update, i got everything mounted now, and is ready for the rest of the hardware in my current rig, ill prolly finish this tomorrow, or monday, then the benchies will begin. enjoy

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/filled.jpg

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/front.jpg

[yahooadam]

looking good

very big tubes there :eek:

[ElrichMeister]

alright big update i finally got my stuff running and OC'd it, it didnt go as far as id hoped but im not complaining, but being so close to 3ghz that i wanted to reach is sad lol, well i do load into windows, its just not 3d stable, i hit a voltage wall, well here are my results which aint bad for a $220 processor.

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/opty.gif

[Avid6eek]

Elrich...you need to download the SuperPi mod which gives you results to three decimal places. It can be downloaded from the standings page.

[grahamf]

i know what you mean about hitting that wall. im sitting at 2.76ghz, and that is as stable as can be, but that magical 2.8ghz is still out of reach for me. i mean sure i can fool around and get most benchmarks done at 2.8 but its still not fully stable, and isnt liking to get stable no matter how much voltage i throw at it. but like you said im happy with my results for an $85 processor.

[ElrichMeister]

Elrich...you need to download the SuperPi mod which gives you results to three decimal places. It can be downloaded from the standings page.

here ya go

http://mysite.verizon.net/res74gsa/super pi.JPG

[Avid6eek]

Thanks...added you to the Super Pi Standings (http://forum.pcstats.com/showthread.php?p=263164#post263164).

[omga14]

hey elrich, have you tried giving the ram 2.9v's? that might get you some more speed out of em and be a solution to your max overclock.

another thing you might want to try to see what you max cpu clock is without ram in the mix is to put your ram on a 150 divider and leave the multiplier stock and ramp the HTT.

when you do this you should have clockgen already installed( get it HERE (http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php) ). open that and also prime95 which i'm sure you already have. run prime and after an hour or start raising the HTT 3-5 every 15 mintutes or so. when you get an error in prime back it down 5 and rerun prime. after a couple of hours if it's stable you could let it run 8 hours to see if it's really stable or call it stable and say that's your max cpu overclock.

from there you can tell if your ram is holding you back. lower your multi to like 8 and put the ram 1:1. test in memtest86 until you reach it's max stable run in test #5 or #8 as those are the most strenuous on the ram for 20 passes to 50. now take off 5 to 10mhz for windows stability as sometimes memtest stable isn't always windows stable. BOOM! now you have your max ram stability.

you may loose a couple of mhz when you combine the two but really shouldn't. with TCCD ram you might be able to hit 290mhz with a little more v's. with the current 10.5 multi that'll give you 3.45ghz:D

another thing is that with DFI mobo's you see a divider in effect when using a .5 multi. with 290mhz you'll see that your ram is running ~276mhz so that'll give you a buffer. if you want to run your stock multi of 11 you'll see a true 1:1 relationship.

[ElrichMeister]

actually ive been running the divider, i cant get it stable above 265mhz 1:1, ive done a 270x11 which is about 2.970ghz, with the 1.62v, anything higher on the voltage keeps crashing on any benchmark. ive even done 295x10 1.62v still crashes on 3dmark03, i think i hit the wall on my max cpu speed, i would love 3ghz, but thing i just noticed is does the thermal throtling help stabalize things, but i doubt it cause i havnt seen my temps go above 38c on full load

[omga14]

don't enable cool and quite as it seems to hinder o/c with some people. have you played with the timings on that board? it seems that you won't be able to transfer your bios settings from any previous NF4 mobo and get it working the same.

the guys over at dfi-street have mentioned that this mobo is taking different learning curve than the previous ones. Drive strength and Data Drive Strength seem to be VERY important on this mobo. keep an eye on this THREAD (http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30245&page=4&pp=15&highlight=expert) for more infromation that could be usefull. could solve some things for you to get that 3ghz:D good luck bro', cause i'd really like to see you get there.

[ElrichMeister]

arrggh i hate this, ive finally been running prime95, and its not stable :(, after 45min it fails. i have these settings, and i think its my cpu, 290x10 1.62v with 333mhz divider the ram was running at 240mhz 2.5-3-3-8 @ 2.8v which should be stable, and it cant pass damn prime. i was also trying to see what my 1:1 ratio would be, i was able to boot in at 265mhz 2.5-3-3-8 2.87v with a 10x multi with 1.525vcore, and the damn thing wont load windows, i then lowered the multi to 8 with 1.4vcore and it boots fine. from my other tests 2.65ghz w/ 1.525vcore should be stable, so i have no idea what the hell is wrong, im kinda pissed off lol, so what do u guys think is wrong?

[omga14]

you gotta be patient and take your time being selectively thorough. first test the cpu all by itself. to take the ram out of the equation lower the divider to 150 and leave the multiplier stock. raise your HTT while running prime95 till you get an error. back of 5 mhz and run it again. if it continues to run let it do so for a couple of hours to be sure.

then test the ram(this will take the longest and be the most fustrating). take the cpu out of the loop by taking the multi down to where it won't be a factor in overclocking. so like 7 or something. leave all the settings in bios on auto and start to raise those mhz letting memtest run at least 20 passes of test #5. when you get your max go into windows and open A64 Tweaker to see what the timings are actually set at with them being auto in the bios. from here you can start to tighten or loosen certain timings to gain more speed or tighten up performance. do one timing at a time.

most of all.......WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN! nothing like having to clear CMOS and not remembering all the settings you finally found for a great setup. also makes for great reference to see any patterns that can give clues on what to do next to get a little more out of the system.

it's gonna take a while till you get the feel of the board and what it wants you to do to get the rest of the system flying. just be patient and you'll get their bro'.

[stlouis1]

what size is that rad on the front? my case would be perfect for mounted a dual 92mm fan on the front if i cut a whole through the bezel.......

i need money now, gotta go h20

[yahooadam]

what size is that rad on the front? my case would be perfect for mounted a dual 92mm fan on the front if i cut a whole through the bezel.......

i need money now, gotta go h20
me n all ;)

[ElrichMeister]

dual 120 Black Ice Extreme II

[Nova]

wow how did i miss this thread. nice setup. wish i had it :p