DanielCoffey

I have posted a Build Log in the Banter Inn... https://forum.step-project.com/topic/6086-build-log-water-cooled-caselabs-s8/ Feel free to ask questions about the build there.

I have recently finished moving my gaming PC innards to a new CaseLabs case and have been asked by keithinhanoi for some pictures and thoughts on the process since it was not only a water-cooled build but also used rigid tubing. Instead of opting for acrylic, I went for 12mm copper tube and keithinhanoi wanted to know what it looked like. CaseLabs are a premium case manufacturer and have an unbelievably huge range of customisation options for their cases. They are all modular, powder-coated aluminium and are primarily aimed at water-cooling. In my situation, I was guided in my choice by the fact that I had a full ATX motherboard but only a single graphics card. This pushed me towards either the traditional vertical SM8 tower or their relatively new horizontal S8 cube case. The hardware that I brought from my previous case was a single Intel 4770K clocked at 4.5GHz, a single nVidia 780ti heavily overclocked, a pair of 2.5" SSD and one 3.5" HDD. This meant I didn't need any of the larger cases in the CaseLabs range with space for huge radiators or racks of drives. I opted for copper tubing because, unlike flexible hose, there is no plasticiser to leech into the coolant over time (although there is no point in getting coloured coolant since you can't see it). While 10mm is the minimum diameter recommended for water-cooling, it is hard to get a decent quality hard tube for bending. You can get annealed soft 10mm tube but it doesn't give nice straight lines - the softness means bends are not precise. I went up to 12mm OD, 1mm wall because it was available in a semi-hard (R250) variety. It was just soft enough to bend in a tool but hard enough to give perfect lines. The 1mm thick walls are enough to prevent flattening on the outsides of the bends. The tool used was a Rigid 412M bender. All the fittings are 12mm push fit from landefeld.de. They are food and medical grade and cost about 5 euros each for the straight ones and about 8 euros for the 90-degree rotating elbows or 90-degree double push fits. I only used elbows where absolutely necessary due to tight corners or excessively complex sections where a mistake would have wasted too much tube. Here is the outside shot of the S8. I have completed the tubing but not the custom wiring yet. I need to create and sleeve custom leads for the power to the motherboard and graphics card as well as the drives. The nice thing about the CaseLabs cases is that all panels are removable to reveal the skeleton of the case. You can get right in when building and approach your loop from every angle. I have popped the right side and top off here to show the general layout of the build. There are two D5 vario pumps in the lower left of the image in an EK dual top with the reservoir. They are in the "PSU bay" of the case. The offset tube you can see in the lower centre is the drain. It is currently rotated out of the way but can swivel down to present the tap to the side of the case when needed. The outlet of the pump comes up and over to the CPU block. I didn't have the nerve to de-lid my 4770K since it was too risky for my modding experience. After the CPU, the tube comes up and forward in the shot in a lovely 180-degree bend to the motherboard MOSFET cooler. Here I ran into the first serious issue in the build. The motherboard is an ASUS Maximus Formula VI and as shipped it has a metal back-plate and plastic shroud which obstructs the MOSFET area. EK kindly offered some extenders to bring the connection up above the plastic but I did not check the thread depth. EK clearly state to only use their components with their connectors which is fine... but it does mean that, due to the shallow threads in the extender, you run into issues when you bring in parts from the food industry which insist on the full depth of thread in a connector. My first fill attempt resulted in about 150ml of purified water piddling all over the CPU and MOSFETS. It was escaping from both ends of the MOSFET block and I had to do a full drain, strip down and drying exercise, right down to the CPU, MOSFET cooler and motherboard shroud. Fortunately I had followed the cardinal rule of watercooling which is NEVER connect anything to your PSU apart from the pump till you have PASSED the leak test. Since I could now see the tiny gap between the EK Extender and the push-fit connector, I bought some 1.8mm ring spacers to solve the issue. Next fill test resulted in water everywhere again. Damn! This time I could see that the O-rings on the spacers were bulging sideways. The top of each EK extender was domed. The slightest pressure on the o-ring and it bulged out. The extenders had to go... but how could I reach the push-fits with a spanner in all that plastic on the motherboard without them? Out came the hacksaw, snips and files. Warranty out the window, I now had a motherboard shroud with enough access to the MOSFET block to allow tightening of the push-fits without the extenders. A check of the MOSFET cooler revealed the same shallow threads as were on the extender so I had to use the spacers anyway. Third time's the charm, yes? It was. With the leak test passed, I carried on. Up out of the MOSFET and into the first radiator... an AlphaCool UT60 360mm radiator. It is a heavy beast but great for dumping heat and I had two of them. There are 90-degree connectors between the pair with a sweet little straight bit of copper. Down out of the second UT60 and we hit the next snag I found with the bending. The tube would come down, bend 90 degrees forward and then bend 90 degrees sideways into the graphics card but the bends are too close together. I opted for a double push-fit elbow and a short straight to do the job. I then hit the thread depth snag again. The EK GPU cooler has short threads AGAIN and a full depth connector completely obstructs the slot for the water to enter the GPU block. Good job I bought two extra spacers, yes? One on the inlet and outlet of the GPU block solved that. A right-angle fitting and neat 60-degree bend and we are onto the motherboard northbridge cooler. Up, forwards, an elbow, across and down ad we are back at the pump. Phew! So, how did I get the copper looking like that and why didn't it just tarnish back to brown? I had decided to use a satin finish rather than highly polished. I cleaned with 400-grit wet-and-dry, went to 800-grit then 1200-grit and finished with Brasso. That gave me a lovely pink-orange copper surface which would have been highly prone to tarnish and fingerprints so I coated it. Apparently lacquer (hair spray or clear varnish) is ideal but I didn't have any. I did have some Rennaisance Wax which is a museum preservative for metal objects. It is a micro-crystalline wax that is pH neutral. It did make the copper darken to orange but should prevent the browning. After a couple of weeks, a test piece is holding up well. So that is the saga of the build so far. How does it perform under load? I am in Scotland and even in the summer indoors it rarely passes 20C here. Since I have 6 Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans in one channel pushing cold air from outside down over the rads, 6 more NF-F12 in a Pull channel and three NF-S12 PWM passing air through the case, I have a ton of cooling but it would be noisy at 100% speed. I have attached the fan splitters to an Aquaero 6 fan controller along with water and air temperature sensors and have configured the Push and Case fans to be on all the time at 35% unless the machine heats up. The Pull fans only come on when gaming to assist. The D5 Vario pumps are set to 1.75 out of 5 and I have redundancy since there are two of them in series. At idle, the water temperature is about 4C over ambient, the Push and Case fans are silent at 35% speed. Under load, the Push and Case fans are at about 50%, the Pull fans are at about 40% and all are still inaudible. The GPU under both Valley and Heaven benchmarks only reaches 39C despite the overclock. All in all it was an expensive build but gaming PCs are never cheap. I can play Skyrim at 1440p with Vividian ENB and get a rock steady 60fps indoors and 50fps outdoors even in cities on a single graphics card. I think that is about all of the saga at the moment but if any questions crop up, feel free to ask and I will try to help.

I'll see what I can do. I have no photos yet and haven't finished the custom cabling but I should be able to give an idea of what the rigid copper looks like. I should stress that there is no such thing as a "typical" CaseLabs case as they are highly customisable. The S8 that I picked is for the full ATX motherboard (I had the mobo before choosing the S8 - with hindsight I would have bought mATX and the S5) and is a cube case arranged horizontally. It is white, has side windows, an extended top with two 360 radiators in push/pull with a total of 15 fans controlled by an Aquaero 6. I may have over-specified the cooling capacity a bit as it is totally silent in operation, even under load. When running the Heaven and Valley tests the GPU only gets to 39C despite a very heavy overclock! I'll charge the camera batteries and see what pics I can come up with that show the copper.

As Gopher says... "And we're back!" Resuming modding on the Lost Library in the next few days.

Another setback today... The 1.8mm spacers do not fit on the EK extenders. The extenders have a rounded top lip which means that the o-rings of the spacers squidge out under the slightest pressure. It proved impossible to get them to sit correctly and still give a seal. The second leak test failed with a small seep at the spacers and unfortunately some water got on the motherboard as I stripped down the tubing. That meant a full disassembly and drying again. I solved the issue by removing the EK extenders. That meant I had to modify the plastic shroud on the ASUS motherboard... a hacksaw job. Now I can use the push-fit connectors straight onto the MOSFET block without the extender. The third leak test passed with no short-term leaks under low pressure and passed with both pumps running too. The majority of the air purged after an hour apart from some in the processor block but that will shift. Next step is the wiring. I have made custom cables for the drives and have to get the fans hooked up to the Aquaero. Once I have fans, I will connect one none-boot HDD to test if the water has done any damage. If I can boot to the bios I will connect the two SSD main data drives. After that, I should be online and ready to configure the Aquaero... then back to modding... once I have caught up with SR:LE changes over the past two weeks. Phew!

Problem solved... or at least identified. There was the tiniest gap between the EK motherboard water block G1/4 extender and the push-fit connector on each end of the block. The push-fit connector had a thread that was the maximum for the G1/4 specification and the EK extender had a short thread like the rest of the EK connectors so the o-ring didn't seal I bought a pair of 1.8mm G1/4 spacers for delivery next week (Monday is a local bank holiday of course!) and once they arrive I will reassemble and refill.

Bit of a setback today... I got all the copper tubing bent to shape, polished and connected for the leak test and it piddled everywhere! Two of the connectors were not snug or were under stress because of incorrect lengths and a good fifty cc ended up all over the motherboard around the mosfets and CPU. No harm done as the power was not connected and it was purified water anyway. I had to strip everything down including the motherboard housing, strip and redo the thermal paste on the CPU and dry everything off. I will correct the issues I think caused the leak tomorrow and connect in stages to check the problem joins on their own.

According to the UESP wiki, being successfully sneaked (snuck?), gives you a +25% chance to pickpocket which implies you can still succeed if being watched but the chance of failure is higher.

Just a heads up to say that I will be taking some enforced time away from modding the Lost Library while I migrate my PC innards from one case to another. Since it is water-cooled, this is not as straightforward as an air-cooled rebuild. I will be taking redundant backups of the Book Covers mod just in case as well as securing my personal Lost Library build which is part-way through the "That Damned Horse" book hunt. For those interested, I am moving my motherboard, processor and graphics card over to a CaseLabs S8 case with all new radiators, double pump, Aquaero fan control and, importantly for me, rigid copper tubing. It isn't a case of cut some tube, hook it up and check for leaks. The tube is 12mm OD hard copper with a full 1mm wall thickness and has to be custom bent without a lot of waste as this stuff is fiendishly expensive and unforgiving of mistakes. I will have my iPad for internet access during the down-time but will not have as much time for checking forums. I will of course post an "I'm back" message when it is all sorted. So... until further notice, I am offline.

The problem with the face tracking is that it is running in software and takes quite a high toll on the CPU plus it can "lose" the face position at inopportune moments. The folks over on the ETS2 truck forum have discussed it and found the game struggling for CPU power and the TrackIR is the hardware solution. It is like the difference between using FRAPS or a hardware capture card. The software solution has a higher overhead than the dedicated silicon.

Mod updated to version 1.3 with an UPDATE file since the changes are in the ESP only. - Clutter : Gelebor's rest area in Darkfall Cave, relevant book clutter (Dawnguard)- Book Hunt : First Editions - Added master file : Book Covers Skyrim.esp See the mod description on the Nexus for details of the new hunt.

Cos I'm a tease....

You can actually use the new version without Septim HD I believe? It just makes the Septim Coin Piles look like they are made of Septim HD coins even if you don't use that mod. Here's a copy of the replacement texture for you to see (1024x1024 DTX1 ARGB) : https://www.dcoffey.co.uk/images/misc/SeptimCoinPile.dds

I am making headway with the first book hunt but am having to learn the vagaries of the CK as I go. I have already had to learn how to create new static clutter but now I am over that hurdle I should be making better progress. There is something wrong about Fus Ro Dah'ing containers and gravestones around the room!

Would it be a good idea to ask for this to be moved to Tamriel Traders - Skyrim?

I have worked round it and assumed the entire chamber is sealed. I am trying to avoid cluttering places that are questline-specific.

Quick question... in Tolvald's Cave where you find the Crown of Barenziah if you are a Thieves Guild member... is the main chamber with the crown blocked off until you are on that quest or does the crown just not appear until you are doing the quest? I wanted to add some book clutter to the main chamber but when I went to view the place on a test save, there was a rock wall in the way. I can easily place my clutter in the wrecked carts in the corridors but I wondered what the condition was for getting into the main chamber.

That book is a skill book - perhaps have a look at mods that affect Archery skills? There are no scripts associated with it.

Install it through MO as usual. All you need Wrye Bash for is managing the shared merchant and levelled lists. Remember that you have to run WB through MO so that it can see the MO virtual directories. 1. Download and install WB from the Nexus. By default it will put itself in Skyrim / Mopy / WryeBash.exe 2. Open MO and go to the Tools icon (the cog wheels) 3. You need to create a new entry for Wrye Bash pointing to the location that WB installed itself. 4. You can now run WB through MO. 5. Once WB is opened, you should see all the MO-installed mods and at or near the bottom of the list, one new one called Bashed Patch, 0.esp 6. Right-click it and choose the Rebuild Patch option. Let it finish and you can close WB. Remember to rebuild the Bashed Patch in WB every time a mod which affects levelled lists changes. You may have to tick the Bashed Patch in the MO esp panel and run BOSS to sort it into the correct place.

In that case you are looking for Biography of Barenziah, Vol. 1 to 3, The Real Barenziah, Vol. 1 to 5 and of course The Real Barenziah, Vol. 01 to 12 (Unabridged)... happy reading.

According to The Imperial Library, there are three versions... 1. The unabridged 12 volume set 2. The Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim condensed version, censored by the Tribunal Temple, reduced down from twelve volumes to five. 3. Then the Imperials got hold of that version and rewrote the Biography of Queen Barenziah... from their perspective.

Version 1.2 Bug Fix : corrected World Mesh for Harvest's End Bug Fix : resolved possible source of Payyrus spam in BCSLL_VendorQuest Add : The Real Barenziah, Volumes 1 to 12 (Unabridged) from Daggerfall to the Valuable Book lists. Remember to rebuild your Bashed Patch to pick up the new books on vendors and loot.

Script debugging help needed... Please can those of you who are familiar with Papyrus have a look for lines similar to the following in your logs. I have had one report of Papyrus spam but cannot reproduce it so would appreciate some additional eyeballs...

Resolved - sorry for the hiccup.

It was the BSA - I have just found that all the file paths are incorrect - dammit! Archive.exe stored the absolute paths. I will rebuild and reissue the BSA.