Prototype Oki-Doki : a GPU bifurcation and watercooling dedicated case, from 9 to 14L

[aquelito]

I may have sold my SF600 a little too soon ahah !

Currently powering the system and the primary GTX 1070 with a EVGA 520W PSU run externally, triggering a @Kmpkt Dynamo dedicated to the second 1070.
It's a mess but it works just fine.

@Thehack distro board should solve that.

 

[Thehack]

I may have sold my SF600 a little too soon ahah !

Currently powering the system and the primary GTX 1070 with a EVGA 520W PSU run externally, triggering a @Kmpkt Dynamo dedicated to the second 1070.
It's a mess but it works just fine.

@Thehack distro board should solve that.

What is the 1U PSU (Flex ATX?) you're running? is that the 520W EVGA you mentioned?

 

[aquelito]

Yes, it's an EVGA PSU, used in the Hadron case for instance.

It's actually 500W. The 40mm fan makes a kind of old refrigerator noise.

 

[Thehack]

Yes, it's an EVGA PSU, used in the Hadron case for instance.

It's actually 500W. The 40mm fan makes a kind of old refrigerator noise.

Might want to swap it out for a noctua

 

[aquelito]

I do not intend to use it for long

 

[RelentlesSausage]

this is absolutly crazy! I like the work you are doing. Nice job.

 

[BaK]

First, I turned the pump around and repurposed the bottom plate.
The EK SBAY is now fixed to it using four silent-blocs I had.

Silent blocks are well hidden, as if the combo bay is levitating!

@BaK I took the opportunity to switch to Norprene tubing ! Really glad I did, both for the look and flexibility.
The whole matte black theme makes the Bykski water blocks shine even more.

Congrats for this V3, as you say black and shiny makes it really beautiful!
And full packed with the SFX PSU, no wasted space!

After a successful 12h leak test I finally fired up the engines... and it works great !!

Why leak testing with water when you can do it safely with air?
https://www.overclock.net/forum/61-...-how-correctly-leak-test-your-loop-101-a.html

OCCT Linkpack and Octane render on both GTX 1070 simultaneously (10 minutes) :

- Fans @ 5V :

CPU : 64°
GPU 1 : 42°
GPU 2 : 41°

Impressive temps with silent fans @5V, even more if your i7 is not delidded!

Next steps : design the final case !

Looking forward to seeing this! Manual check though as it seems that the notification feature on the forum is working when it wants to... nm.

Just wondering...

Do you use big screws to hold the rad / alumium inner pannel / fans together or is the rad attached with something else that we don't see?

 

[Testifier]

@Testifier : by simply moving the pump, I now have room for a SFX PSU
The bad news is that I sold my SF600 the very day I finished this prototype .

Perfect excuse for you to get a platinum one then

 

[aquelito]

@BaK : the 2 mm aluminium plate, the radiator and the fans are held together thanks to 30 mm screws (included with the Magicool rad).
The sandwiched plate is also acting as a shroud, filling the gap between the radiator fins and the unusual frame of the BeQuiet! fans.

What kind of tempratures did you get on your 6700K ?

@Testifier : I really need to get rid of the 24-Pin cable so it's the perfect excuse to test @Thehack One2 board with a Meanwell and PicoPSU DC plugin.

 

[BaK]

Same screws I am using on the Ncase fans bracket / push fans / rad then, thank you Magicool!

What kind of tempratures did you get on your 6700K ?

I actually never took the time to bench this computer...

Real Temp is running though and shows temps like 40°C for the CPU when doing light gaming. But at idle the displayed temp is some few degrees lower than ambient temp, so it's obviously not accurate.
I check from time to time the max temp on GPU Z which goes up to 50°C, again after some light gaming.

I would be glad to check what I get compared to your build thank to HWinfo 64, but while I know OCCT, I never tried Octane.
Is there a bench tool in it or do I have to choose a specific model to render?

 

[aquelito]

There you go !

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/

 

[BaK]

Here is what I get when running both OCCT Linkpack and Octane render with :

- cooling: 1x 240mm rad push/pull + 1x 120mm rad pull (slim fan)
- quiet fans but not dead silent (unknown speed and voltage because of the 4 fans hub and MCubed FanAmp)
- ambient temp: 23°C

-> delidded i7 6700K max T°: 59°C
-> GTX 970 max T°: 47°C

(The limit temp I've set on the FanAmp was never reached so the fans never sped up to 100%)

 

[BaK]

As expected, your cooling is better than mine, even when being quieter, well done!
I am getting a better CPU temp but I guess yours is not delidded, right?

Now that you got me back on testing this build, next thing to do is to disconnect the pull fans to verify if push/pull is indeed not useful with slim rads.
I will update my build log when done.

 

[aquelito]

Thanks for the data, very interesting !

My i7 6700K has not been delidded.
Custom WCing is only worth for delidded CPUs ; otherwise, not much difference with a 120 mm AIO !

 

[aquelito]

So, it's pretty weird but my EVGA Flex ATX PSU won't shut down and, as a consequence, neither will the Dynamo.

For instance, just after shutting down the computer, if I take the tensions at a Molex connector, I can read a 10.43V voltage on the 12V wire and a ~ 5V voltage on the 5V wire.
No wonder why the Dynamo remains ON, as it's triggered by the 5V coming from one of the Flex ATX Molex connector.

Leaving the Dynamo always ON doesn't help either.

It's the Flex ATX that isn't properly shutting down. I have to manually switch it OFF then switch it ON again to solve the issue.

I suspect the motherboard to be responsible.
It may have something to do with powering USB devices when the computer is OFF ??

This is not the first issue I have with PSUs not shutting down.

 

[aquelito]

@BaK : I bellieve you also have an Asrock Z170 Fatal1ty ITX board ?
Would you mind checking if the 5V rail of your PSU stays ON when the computer is shut down ?

 

[BaK]

Yep that's the mobo of my NCase build.
No problem to check, but how should I know?

Maybe I already have a clue.
I had to ask the Asrock support because the light on my USB hub (USB powered only) was still on even when the computer was off.
They pointed me to the Chipset option in the BIOS where I had to enable Deep Sleep for S4 and S5, which worked fine!

Apart from that, this board is behaving strangely... it sort of resets itself each time I unplug the PSU from the wall. 'Sort of' because the BIOS is reset but the setups I saved are still available. So I have to load one and I'm good to go again.
I changed the CMOS battery but that didn't do any better.
I think I also checked if it was a side effect of the S4/S5 being enabled, but it wasn't from what I recall.

Let me know if such strange thing happens to you also.

 

[aquelito]

Thanks !

I also enabled Deep Sleep but it did not change a thing... I did not use this board for long but it seems pretty picky power-wise.
Only my SF600 did not produce strange behaviours (the only PSU that did stop after shutdown !!).

I recently purchased a Gigabyte GA-Z270N-GAMING 5 which also supports Bifurcation.
If the Asrock Z170 is not compatible with @Thehack One2 Distro board, then I'll swap boards.

 

[BaK]

So at least that's not only my Asrock Z170 which has a weird acting with power, thanx for letting me know.

Just in case...
I was using the following cheap KVM switch between the builds in my sig to share USB mouse and keyboard between them:

Everytime I tried to turn off the NCase / Asrock Z170 while the MiniCube was running, the former restarted itself and I knew I would need to reload my BIOS setup.
And that was because of this switch, it took me time to figure that out...
I am now using a better switch from UGreen with which I don't have that problem any more. It's a powered one so that could also help as my keyboard is RGB.

 

[aquelito]

Now that you say this I also suspected my new USB ACGAM keyboard to be responsible for the "always-on 5V" issue.
I will plug my old keyboard again to see if that's the solution.