S4 Mini Classic #77 - Sputnik

[CubanLegend]

holy crap, hardline watercoolinga CPU inside an S4M-C, wow! I'm excited to see this!

 

[Biowarejak]

holy crap, hardline watercoolinga CPU inside an S4M-C, wow! I'm excited to see this!

I'm glad! I think my shipment of fittings and stuff is running late but it should be here tomorrow. Right now the radiator is just twist-tied to the front

-edit-

Yeah it hasn't arrived so hopefully I can get that in tomorrow.

 

[Biowarejak]

Fittings and tubing arrived. I've done a few bends but my working environment got too stressful for me to continue safely; I already lost some blood to my RAM when I pulled a tube out of its fitting.

I'll update tomorrow, and I think in the future I'll invest in a bending mandrel kit since it's a bit too tight to free hand.

 

[eutholevonik]

I was once looking at water-cooling the S4M-C and found that koolance makes low profile fittings, they might be helpful for you. I wouldn't think you would be able to get tight enough bends doing it manually.

I'm anxious to see what you come up with!

 

[Biowarejak]

I'm using bitspower fittings they do seem to work rather well. I'm looking at getting a few 90 fittings to make things easier. One bend turned out perfectly but because the fitting sets are perpendicular, I need to wrap around one of the tubes :/

 

[eutholevonik]

I'm using bitspower fittings they do seem to work rather well. I'm looking at getting a few 90 fittings to make things easier. One bend turned out perfectly but because the fitting sets are perpendicular, I need to wrap around one of tubes :/

Well, if you need any extra fittings let me know. I just broke down my compact splash build so I have a ton of chrome bitspower fittings.

I like how your approach is different then what I was thinking. I was going to use a reference RX480 so it would be single slot with waterblock and mount it above the motherboard. Then the entire GPU area would be radiator/fans. Never actually got around to measuring so I have no idea if it would fit.

 

[Biowarejak]

You might be able to get away with that, but I'm not certain What size tubing did you use?

 

[Biowarejak]

Did A Little Mod Yesterday

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Now my motherboard doesn't have to flex in order to mount properly My first dremel disc shattered on me, gave me a scare, but I'm fine. After that was smooth sailing, as I masked off what needed cutting and filed it down to that. I also used it to round out the bottom corners and I think that worked well. My only wish is that I hadn't let it bite into the corners at the top, doesn't look as clean as it should. You can hardly tell from this angle though.

 

[Kmpkt]

OMG YOU CUT IT D:

 

[Biowarejak]

OMG YOU CUT IT D:

Just a little bit! D:

 

[Biowarejak]

@Kmpkt I got the packaging card in the mail, thanks

 

[Kmpkt]

Most important accessory that ships with the mini

 

[1461748123]

Can't wait to see the build!

 

[Biowarejak]

Can't wait to see the build!

Temporarily on hold, need to get resituated with school.

 

[Biowarejak]

Mini Update!
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I secured a proper length riser ribbon from @Morris, which has honestly gone a long way towards easing my concerns about this build. Works like a charm, so I'm pretty stoked. Next on the chopping block actually has to do with my power supply! I need to cut a few things on my AC/DC to make it fit more snuggly and install with less hassle.

A big issue right now is the bottom mounting foot; it's actually pushing the unit up and over the bottom right motherboard screw. Needless to say, the order of assembly here is a pain. Additionally, I want to sleeve the cables coming out of the unit - preferable in a fashion where I don't have to keep snipping leads to change them out every once in awhile. I think I can get clever and pull that off.

The last thing that really needs doing with the unit is actually cutting a slot to make clearance for the fitting coming off the rad. While any leaks would be terrifying, I can seal it back up with tape and still leave room for the fitting.

My graphics card could certainly use an upgrade and might honestly be about to die. I don't think anything current gen could replace it without a waterblock. I'd be happy to make one, round out the build, but it's an additional cost that I can't justify right now.

Onto the exterior, I'm fond of the orange. Really, I am. It's essential to the identity of Organgulan. In a bittersweet fashion though, it's become more than that, and the color is changing. I took it upon myself to mechanically strip one side of the side panel, and many sweaty hours later I think it looks sexy - rough and industrial with just the suggestion that it had once known paint. When I have access to a DSLR again I'll take some pictures and show you all.

The overall color scheme is subject to change, but I have a preference for the warmer side of the spectrum on this one. White and yellow is a personal favorite of mine - stemming from my preferred armor colors in Halo - but regrettably, most PC components aren't friendly to that. I'll see what I can do nevertheless, as the yellow on the RGB G.Skill DIMMs is brilliant. I do have white dye handy for the loop, so that may well work.
​

 

[Biowarejak]

Small Update!​

I ordered a chipset block that will fit my GPU, though I may need to print a better mounting solution. I'm amazed I found anything, but with a cooling capacity of up to 175 watts or so, I'm not worried about GPU cooling. This also allows me to upgrade to a better GPU in the future without making a custom block, assuming one in a suitable form factor comes around.

I also ordered a couple of 50mm fans, should be adequate and get rid of the ugly 50-60 adapter that I was using.

Finally, got some itty-bitty heatsinks for the RAM and MOSFETs on the card. Might swap these out for the tiny water blocks that Alphacool makes, especially for the MOSFET cooling. Maybe I can heat-press them into an acrylic distribution plane.

As far as getting the tubing situated, I think I might need to use this here ultra low-profile 90-degree fitting from Koolance, but we shall see. I have some tall XSPC fittings that I'll test-fit the runs with.

All in all, spent a little over $60 today. including shipping.

 

[Biowarejak]

Doot
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Sorry about the brevity and lack of quality. On my way to work, but I got the stuff in mounting solution will most assuredly be changing.

 

[Biowarejak]

And Indeed, It Changed

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This little piece is the second iteration. I added a little more padding to the corners and truncated how far the overhang follows the curve of the block. This allowed for me to more easily heat-press the screw-inserts from the original GPU cooler and have better mounting clearances around the package. Mercifully the holes lined up properly and the inserted bits are holding up.

Speaking of, I did get it mounted:

Shiny! And kinda gross if you look at the tubes. Sorry!

A further-out shot, this shows just how little space this card takes! Also, many thanks to Josh for basically leaving this side empty.

Here you can see the very temporary setup. No water in it in this shot, but you'll note the mix of hard and soft-tube. I used what I had on-hand, don't judge

Here, leak testing. Small drip on that 90° fitting that's parallel to the table, caused by too much lateral pressure on it. I adjusted things and it's fine now.

If you're wondering, I put screws in the rad to act as feet here Plenty of clearance.

Testing:
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I used 3DMark's Skydiver benchmark, seeing as it's more in-line with what my card should be doing. I ran it three times on air and again on water, saving them each for comparison. Then I composited them together.

Air, consecutive runs.

Water, consecutive runs. Got tired of having to do two screencaps per result so I just changed the orientation for the last two captures.
​

I'm not sure if the loop really got saturated with heat by the end, but the score did drop off over time. I also don't know what ambient is, seeing as I don't have my temperature gun with me. I had a moderate overclock on the 750ti going, +150 on the core and +50 on the memory. I can get it to +250 on both while running the Heaven benchmark just fine, but EVE + Youtube resulted in some glitchiness so I took it down to +200. Seemed fine, and I've yet to see the loop go much further than 45° C, and just web browsing right now keeps it at 30.

I do have my concerns about the radiator being able to keep up once I have my CPU in the loop, but overall I think this is promising! Just need to shell out for more fittings and probably do a platform upgrade at some point.

Also, RIP mobile users like myself, most of those images are huge despite the low quality, and seeing as it's 4 AM here I'm too tired to fix that.

 

[Biowarejak]

It's all coming together...

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Biowarejak/saved/Pngd6h

Now, of course, I wasn't dumb enough to actually spend that much on fittings. Everything water cooling related was either bought used here or with 5-15% discount over at Performance PCs. Still, a bit numbing to realize quite how much I'm sitting on. Whenever Radian is done I'm sure the fittings will be re-used, with the 750ti finding a pace on my shelf, and the S4M-C getting a travel rig built in. That's all future though. Right now, I'm waiting to get my (hopefully) last shipment of fittings in. I also think I need to RMA my memory, so that might also be a delay.​

 

[Biowarejak]

Woohoo!

​

So excited to have my system up and running. It isn't finalized and not perfect, but still quite fun. RAM is still being RMA'd.

Specs:

• 6700t
• 750ti
• 12gb generic DDR4 currently (Normally 16gb of G.Skill Trident Z RGB)
• You can check the parts list in the previous post for the details.

Now I just need to sleeve some cables!