Great video Ronnie. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Both you and Eve showed lots of patience. What I will make sure to do when pressurizing the system is to take some soapy water and put it around each fitting, one at a time. If there are any leaks you will be able to see the soapy water bubble, like when you are fixing a flat tire on a bike or car and trying locate where the holes are that are causing the leak. I wouldn't have thought to do that without this video. Thanks again.
finally a fellow clear water enjoyer with a front distro plate. i don't understand why one would buy something that expensive to replace the glass panel just to put opaque water in it.
Finally a good video explaining things but not skipping everything, thanks! The one thing I still missing though Why no one shows how to actually put the straight pipe into both fittings They put it into one and then... it's done...
Probably because we're all afraid we're doing it wrong. It's not pretty. Basically stuffing it in. The saving grace is that at least one end is rotary so you twist it a bit out of alignment and you get some wiggle room to work with.
This just proves that if you would have to be insane to not use a leak tester. Thanks for the video. First time watercooler here, currently very intimated.
It was my first custom loop and for what it's worth doing the rigid tubing made it way harder. If you went with soft tubing I think it'd be far more forgiving. Those lengths were the hardest part.
Sitting here with our friend Fernando, and we were discussing computers. Mac vs PC and all that. Then I said, "well, if you want to see a whole different level of the computer world, watch the Ronnie Bunshaft world of computing!" He was impressed!
Thank you for taking the time to make this video and share your first water cool experience. But I have a few suggestions for you to consider on how to make the cooling performance better. I think you build a custom loop for the temperature and quietness. First, EK is a company that spends a lot more on aesthetics and marketing than cooling performance. The technology on jet plate, cold plate, even the o-ring inside fittings are years behind its competition. As a result, you can potentially lower your CPU temp by 5 degree C and GPU temp by 10 ~ 15 degree by simply switching to another brand for waterblocks. As for which brand, Optimus is the one. It's a US based company. The waterblock from Oprimus will blow your mind. But do be patient, Optimus can spend some time on fulfilling your order and it doesn't have a support team like EK. Second, avoid EK SE360 radiator. It's the worst performance rad on the market. If you need 30mm rad at the bottom, buy the black ice nemesis 360GTS, otherwise switch it to PE360 or XE360 and both of them will fit at the bottom for distro plate. Third, Don't use Corsair QL120 fans. I personally own nearlly twenty of them years ago. It has the following disadvanges: RGB cables are horrible and it can't sync with asus aura. Terrible static pressure, not ideal for radiator. LED on the fan has serious reliability issue. Four of my fans has broken leds just after one month of use. These are just some advices from a guy who has done water cooling for years. This industry is wierd. The company that doesn't care about marketing makes better product. As for EK, that's why it can get away with its overpriced and underwhelming product.
Thanks for the great video, Ronnie! I really appreciate the struggles you went through and the perseverance you showed in overcoming them. Your video has been very helpful in my preparation for my first custom loop. So many videos show a process with no warts so it looks like a no brainer, skipping over the complexity and details custom plumbing can be. I am looking forward to tackling this! Thanks a ton!
Awesomeness video is good that someone takes the time to document everything especially the fails I have learn a lot and it game confidence to do my first water loop, one again awesome video!
Thank you for the great tips video as I prep to build my first water cooled rig. 1 hack to give back is a couple feet of automobile hose for finding a hiss makes life easier.
This was an absolute awesome video. I am thinking of starting my first open loop water cooled build and this is by far the best video that describes the obstacles that is faced. Thanks you earned another sub
Thanks for the feedback! If you didn't notice, there is an overall summary video as well as a longer fans and wiring video on that build if you're curious about that part. Links are in the description.
Fabulous vid. Thanks so much for posting, especially all the errors and things that I'm sure caused some off-camera blue audio. Your end result is inspiring but the effort is pretty intimidating. Besides the extremely detailed work, the shipping costs alone for when you need just one more part must be very painful the fifth time 'round... Random thought: has anyone tried to use a laser level for helping with vertical measurements? It could give a horizontal light plane which could be lined up with a fitting edge, which you'd then be able to use as a reference elsewhere.
You can pin point a leak 2 ways, 1 get some flexible tube and put one end on your ear and use the other to locate the hissing sound. Secondly use a spray bottle with water and a little detergent, put plenty of paper towels in to protect your hardware and spray the connections. You will see bubbles form from a leak. This particularly useful to find very sl;ow leaks. I have the same case and put a 60MM 360 radiator vertically in the back of the case. I have a vertical GPU mount but it is a PITA if you want work on the motherboard, ie changing NVME SSD's. My next build will have the GPU in the mother board.
Nice build! But next time don't order from EK. Those shopping charges are crazy. Performance PCs has all EK equipment. I started by build and the issue with the bottom rad pipes interfering with the vertical mount is definitely an issue. I'm thinking if reversing the rad so the ports are on the right side so that I can just use fittings to make the connections to the distro quick and easy.
DO NOT over-tighten the temperature sensor (or anything for that matter) into the distribution plate!!! It could end up cracking at points where you screwed with excessive force, many people ended up breaking this same distro by doing this
Can confirm I had to RMA my distroplate, although I was getting more cracking around ports where the EK plugs had been placed from factory. When I got my replacement, I loosened each plug. Not a crack since.
If Yu are not upgrading in future use a clear silicon seal to seal the fittings and Yu Yu will never have leak in 100years and don’t need tho worry about the length of the tube it touching the 2nd overnight or not
Nice job with this build. Used your video to help with some of the fittings I needed. Thank you for that! Curious, I didn't see that you installed a drain? I installed an EK drain in the place you installed your sensor.
Thanks Anthony! I did actually install an EK drain but I used the front outside port on the bottom left of the distro plate. You can see it sticking out in some of the later shots in the video. The upside is much easier access but the downside is obviously to the profile of the case. It's something sticking out that you can bump and isn't as clean looking. In the end I didn't mind. Would have been nice to be able to place back the front glass on the case too. But no one but me can tell that's missing.
Way to stick with diagnosing your hissing noise issue and documenting it. I've recently resolved an overheating CPU issue that was driving me nuts and it is so satisfying one you fix it. Great Job. I am currently going through a new build simlar to this with a slightly newer distro plate but in the 011 XL as well. I was wondering how you routed the distro plate RGB cable. Along the top ?
You can see more detail on my fan and wiring process in another video actually if you're interested. ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html But basically it's a bit complicated because I have some LED strips in there too that are connected in series with the distro plate cable so they all function as one big led strip as far as corsair icue is concerned.
Love the setup… would it be possible to also fit back mounted side rad to this? I run triple 360 with a tube res at the moment but really like the look of the front distro plate.
There's not enough room inside the case if that's what you mean. If you were willing to mod the side you could try that but it's a metal closure. You can look at the lighting/fans video if you want to see what it looks like in that side compartment. ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html
Yes actually, I noticed some forming around the very top fitting where there's still air. I'm thinking it needed some pressure let out after running hot for a while? I loosened a touch and it hasn't gotten worse. Not currently planning to do anything about it.
I’m have same setup as yours. I’m at the point that I have the distro plate filled and can’t get the pump started. Can you explain the two wires coming off the pump and how are they setup. I have the jumper on the ATX cable and I’m lost.
One wire is the power. It might be a molex or SATA connector depending on the version of the distro plate you have, but either way it should be obvious as that connector is much larger than the one on the other wire. The other wire is the control of the speed of the pump and gets plugged into whatever header you want to use to control that, like you would a fan. However you can ignore the control wire if you're just trying to fill the system. You can do that with only the power plugged in as it should run at 100% speed when powered on. You need the power cable from the pump plugged into a power cable from the PSU, a jumper in the PSU as you've stated so it'll turn on without the motherboard connected, and of course the PSU plugged into the wall. I'd suggested double checking all the connections and verifying that the PSU itself is getting power. Is the switch in the on position? Does the fan spin a little or any light visible on the PSU? Is the jumper in the right direction and snug? If you are 100% confident the PSU is giving power and everything is plugged in, it is possible you have a bad pump, but probably unlikely.
Love this build. It was just what i was looking for to study up on building a water cooling system. I hope you don';t mind but I'd like to ask a few questions: 1 - where did you get the tubing from? 2 - you mentioned a bending jig (I think)...not seen one of these before - where's that from? and 3 - is that a normal heat gun you're using? Sorry for asking this but I'm extremely curious about it :) NOTE: is that some special drill attachment you're using to grind out the end of the tubes?
1- Bought it direct from EK with many of the other parts but it's sold from other watercooling vendors as well. You can see the specific type in the full parts list in the video description. 2- They exist but I did not use one as I didn't actually have to do much bending. I just used the edge of one of the boxes I had lying around to get a 90 degree angle. For example, from EK: www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-loop-modulus-hard-tube-bending-tool-16mm 3- Yup normal gun off Amazon, just one of the top results. 4 - Yes it's a special drill bit, also bought off amazon. You can see the specific part in the parts list. Good luck!
Yes. The "right" direction of all the fans is up for debate but I went with facilitating hot air rising. In the bottom, out the top. Additionally, if I had set 6 of the fans to be blowing out of the case with only the remaining 4 fans blowing in, I would have created a negative pressure differential on the case at large. That means more air is being forced out of the case than in, which would result in every little crack and crevice of the case where there is no fan attempting to suck in more air. Air that has dust and cat hair and whatnot in it. In general it's advisable to have more fans blowing in than out. So my fan setup is in the bottom, out the top, the 3 on the side blowing in, and the one on the back blowing out. You can see more talk about it in the lighting/fans video if you're interested: ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html
whats your thought on squeezing the thick XE 360 EK rad down in the bottom? the EK configurator said it would fit with that rad and their vertical mount bracket.. but "technically fitting" isnt the same as comfortably fitting.. i get the impression that putting a thick rad in the bottom alon with vertical mount bracket will lead to some important consequences and considerations for planning out the rest of the loop. Whats your take on this, given your experience with the O11 XL and the slim rad EDIT: i am not using a distro plate, my pump/res (heatkiller tube/D5-Next) will be mounted elsewhere.. either a bracket that mounts on top of the bottom fans, or a mount that attaches it vertically to the triple fan side panel
I think it would fit but how scrunched things are will depend on which slots you put the vertical bracket in and whether you have it in a high/low position. If you did it exactly like me I think it'd be a tight fit if it fit at all. But I put the bracket right in the middle of the available back slots so there is room to go one higher if you need any more room below. The XE is I believe ~twice as tall as my rad so that would fit. The downside would be that you'd have even less space above for the CPU/GPU tubes and even just to see the motherboard. Depending on the size of your GPU block you might even start having the GPU conflict with the CPU. You can see on mine the space between the top of the GPU tubes and the bottom of the CPU is maybe less than the height of one of those back brackets. Regardless I think it would be very tight up top instead of below.
Curious why you wouldn’t orient the radiators with the inlet & outlet on the right, next to the distro block, and avoid the long run all together. Is this an aesthetic choice?
Mostly aesthetic for me. Those long straight runs are a way to show off the hard tubing and part of the challenge of the build. Though it's also possible that there wouldn't have been space to do it the other way. I didn't actually check. Even with the distro plate designed for the case and the rads being EK, nothing was magically perfectly aligned unfortunately.
is there enough room to run this setup (front mounted distro plate) with a side mounted radiator? trying to figure out if i can do this as i prefer to use the non-xl case (cause i don't want my pc to weigh 985748923 lbs lol) i'm having trouble finding any builds where people are running top and side rads with a front mounted plate and vertical gpu. it seems vert gpu with top/bottom rad setup is "doable" but there is like almost no space under the gpu even with a slim rad in the o11 d evo, whereas the xl has plenty of clearance. i don't see why i couldn't run side mounted rad like i want, even if that means mounting the rad on the back side of the side mount so it sits inside the 2nd chamber of the case and just run my tubes at the bottom straight through under the fans
If I'm understanding correctly I think the answer is no there is not enough room to do this build with a side mounted rad. I have the fans already on the back side of the side mount. So you could probably fit a rad there but not with another layer of fans on it. This distro plate expands backward too far to get anything onto the front of the side mount. It's close but it overlaps enough that you can't do it properly.
Ya you can't use the front glass pane with the drain port there. I just leave it in the case box. You'll be the only one that can tell. And actually one step of installing the distro plate is a long thin black piece of metal that secures and also covers up the gap on the left so everything looks more cohesive.
Hey Ronnie - another question. I see on the bottom radiator tube runs you are using dual 90 degree fittings on the distro plate side. Wondering if you considered single 14mm offset instead? Would the offset drop to the same height as the dual 90 degree fittings?
I considered it but it seemed to me that the dual 90s gave more distance. Unfortunately hard to tell as the offset isn't published data and it's very hard to measure manually.
@@TeeBone2112 not really, my understanding is it's just an aesthetic choice. I do imagine it would mess with the exact fitting alignment to choose though.
This is the most helpful and informative liquid cooling video I have seen, nice work and thank you 👍
Glad it's helpful!
Great video Ronnie. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Both you and Eve showed lots of patience.
What I will make sure to do when pressurizing the system is to take some soapy water and put it around each fitting, one at a time.
If there are any leaks you will be able to see the soapy water bubble, like when you are fixing a flat tire on a bike or car and trying locate where the holes are that are causing the leak.
I wouldn't have thought to do that without this video. Thanks again.
Glad it was useful!
Thank you for taking the time to make/post this. I can't tell you how helpful it is to have this as a reference.
finally a fellow clear water enjoyer with a front distro plate. i don't understand why one would buy something that expensive to replace the glass panel just to put opaque water in it.
Finally a good video explaining things but not skipping everything, thanks!
The one thing I still missing though
Why no one shows how to actually put the straight pipe into both fittings
They put it into one and then... it's done...
Probably because we're all afraid we're doing it wrong. It's not pretty. Basically stuffing it in. The saving grace is that at least one end is rotary so you twist it a bit out of alignment and you get some wiggle room to work with.
love the video man thank you for making this!
This just proves that if you would have to be insane to not use a leak tester. Thanks for the video. First time watercooler here, currently very intimated.
It was my first custom loop and for what it's worth doing the rigid tubing made it way harder. If you went with soft tubing I think it'd be far more forgiving. Those lengths were the hardest part.
Sitting here with our friend Fernando, and we were discussing computers. Mac vs PC and all that. Then I said, "well, if you want to see a whole different level of the computer world, watch the Ronnie Bunshaft world of computing!" He was impressed!
Ha, thanks!
A well-made and very honest video. So instructive. Can't thank you enough
Thank you for taking the time to make this video and share your first water cool experience. But I have a few suggestions for you to consider on how to make the cooling performance better. I think you build a custom loop for the temperature and quietness. First, EK is a company that spends a lot more on aesthetics and marketing than cooling performance. The technology on jet plate, cold plate, even the o-ring inside fittings are years behind its competition. As a result, you can potentially lower your CPU temp by 5 degree C and GPU temp by 10 ~ 15 degree by simply switching to another brand for waterblocks. As for which brand, Optimus is the one. It's a US based company. The waterblock from Oprimus will blow your mind. But do be patient, Optimus can spend some time on fulfilling your order and it doesn't have a support team like EK. Second, avoid EK SE360 radiator. It's the worst performance rad on the market. If you need 30mm rad at the bottom, buy the black ice nemesis 360GTS, otherwise switch it to PE360 or XE360 and both of them will fit at the bottom for distro plate. Third, Don't use Corsair QL120 fans. I personally own nearlly twenty of them years ago. It has the following disadvanges: RGB cables are horrible and it can't sync with asus aura. Terrible static pressure, not ideal for radiator. LED on the fan has serious reliability issue. Four of my fans has broken leds just after one month of use.
These are just some advices from a guy who has done water cooling for years. This industry is wierd. The company that doesn't care about marketing makes better product. As for EK, that's why it can get away with its overpriced and underwhelming product.
Thanks for the great video, Ronnie! I really appreciate the struggles you went through and the perseverance you showed in overcoming them. Your video has been very helpful in my preparation for my first custom loop. So many videos show a process with no warts so it looks like a no brainer, skipping over the complexity and details custom plumbing can be. I am looking forward to tackling this!
Thanks a ton!
Awesomeness video is good that someone takes the time to document everything especially the fails I have learn a lot and it game confidence to do my first water loop, one again awesome video!
Thank you for the great tips video as I prep to build my first water cooled rig. 1 hack to give back is a couple feet of automobile hose for finding a hiss makes life easier.
Hey there thanks for the comment. Care to elaborate on how you'd use the hose?
This was an absolute awesome video. I am thinking of starting my first open loop water cooled build and this is by far the best video that describes the obstacles that is faced.
Thanks you earned another sub
Thanks for the feedback! If you didn't notice, there is an overall summary video as well as a longer fans and wiring video on that build if you're curious about that part. Links are in the description.
Fabulous vid. Thanks so much for posting, especially all the errors and things that I'm sure caused some off-camera blue audio. Your end result is inspiring but the effort is pretty intimidating. Besides the extremely detailed work, the shipping costs alone for when you need just one more part must be very painful the fifth time 'round...
Random thought: has anyone tried to use a laser level for helping with vertical measurements? It could give a horizontal light plane which could be lined up with a fitting edge, which you'd then be able to use as a reference elsewhere.
You can pin point a leak 2 ways, 1 get some flexible tube and put one end on your ear and use the other to locate the hissing sound. Secondly use a spray bottle with water and a little detergent, put plenty of paper towels in to protect your hardware and spray the connections. You will see bubbles form from a leak. This particularly useful to find very sl;ow leaks.
I have the same case and put a 60MM 360 radiator vertically in the back of the case. I have a vertical GPU mount but it is a PITA if you want work on the motherboard, ie changing NVME SSD's. My next build will have the GPU in the mother board.
The reflection distro plate may be made for a 011D but that aint gonna stop me from stuffing it into my View 71!
Nice build! But next time don't order from EK. Those shopping charges are crazy. Performance PCs has all EK equipment. I started by build and the issue with the bottom rad pipes interfering with the vertical mount is definitely an issue. I'm thinking if reversing the rad so the ports are on the right side so that I can just use fittings to make the connections to the distro quick and easy.
DO NOT over-tighten the temperature sensor (or anything for that matter) into the distribution plate!!! It could end up cracking at points where you screwed with excessive force, many people ended up breaking this same distro by doing this
Ya I have heard that as well. So far so good!
Can confirm I had to RMA my distroplate, although I was getting more cracking around ports where the EK plugs had been placed from factory. When I got my replacement, I loosened each plug. Not a crack since.
If Yu are not upgrading in future use a clear silicon seal to seal the fittings and Yu Yu will never have leak in 100years and don’t need tho worry about the length of the tube it touching the 2nd overnight or not
Nice job with this build. Used your video to help with some of the fittings I needed. Thank you for that! Curious, I didn't see that you installed a drain? I installed an EK drain in the place you installed your sensor.
Thanks Anthony! I did actually install an EK drain but I used the front outside port on the bottom left of the distro plate. You can see it sticking out in some of the later shots in the video. The upside is much easier access but the downside is obviously to the profile of the case. It's something sticking out that you can bump and isn't as clean looking. In the end I didn't mind. Would have been nice to be able to place back the front glass on the case too. But no one but me can tell that's missing.
40:08 RIP. I feel you
This convinced me. I do NOT want a distro plate
Way to stick with diagnosing your hissing noise issue and documenting it. I've recently resolved an overheating CPU issue that was driving me nuts and it is so satisfying one you fix it. Great Job. I am currently going through a new build simlar to this with a slightly newer distro plate but in the 011 XL as well. I was wondering how you routed the distro plate RGB cable. Along the top ?
You can see more detail on my fan and wiring process in another video actually if you're interested. ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html But basically it's a bit complicated because I have some LED strips in there too that are connected in series with the distro plate cable so they all function as one big led strip as far as corsair icue is concerned.
Love the setup… would it be possible to also fit back mounted side rad to this? I run triple 360 with a tube res at the moment but really like the look of the front distro plate.
There's not enough room inside the case if that's what you mean. If you were willing to mod the side you could try that but it's a metal closure. You can look at the lighting/fans video if you want to see what it looks like in that side compartment. ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html
Great job! Any issues with tiny
cracks in acrylic reservoir block where you tighten fittings?
Yes actually, I noticed some forming around the very top fitting where there's still air. I'm thinking it needed some pressure let out after running hot for a while? I loosened a touch and it hasn't gotten worse. Not currently planning to do anything about it.
Where did you put in the EK-Quantum Torque Extender Static MF 7 - Black?
I’m have same setup as yours. I’m at the point that I have the distro plate filled and can’t get the pump started. Can you explain the two wires coming off the pump and how are they setup. I have the jumper on the ATX cable and I’m lost.
One wire is the power. It might be a molex or SATA connector depending on the version of the distro plate you have, but either way it should be obvious as that connector is much larger than the one on the other wire. The other wire is the control of the speed of the pump and gets plugged into whatever header you want to use to control that, like you would a fan. However you can ignore the control wire if you're just trying to fill the system. You can do that with only the power plugged in as it should run at 100% speed when powered on.
You need the power cable from the pump plugged into a power cable from the PSU, a jumper in the PSU as you've stated so it'll turn on without the motherboard connected, and of course the PSU plugged into the wall. I'd suggested double checking all the connections and verifying that the PSU itself is getting power. Is the switch in the on position? Does the fan spin a little or any light visible on the PSU? Is the jumper in the right direction and snug? If you are 100% confident the PSU is giving power and everything is plugged in, it is possible you have a bad pump, but probably unlikely.
Love this build. It was just what i was looking for to study up on building a water cooling system. I hope you don';t mind but I'd like to ask a few questions: 1 - where did you get the tubing from? 2 - you mentioned a bending jig (I think)...not seen one of these before - where's that from? and 3 - is that a normal heat gun you're using? Sorry for asking this but I'm extremely curious about it :) NOTE: is that some special drill attachment you're using to grind out the end of the tubes?
1- Bought it direct from EK with many of the other parts but it's sold from other watercooling vendors as well. You can see the specific type in the full parts list in the video description.
2- They exist but I did not use one as I didn't actually have to do much bending. I just used the edge of one of the boxes I had lying around to get a 90 degree angle. For example, from EK: www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-loop-modulus-hard-tube-bending-tool-16mm
3- Yup normal gun off Amazon, just one of the top results.
4 - Yes it's a special drill bit, also bought off amazon. You can see the specific part in the parts list.
Good luck!
@@RonnieBunshaft Thanks so much for the reply :)
Am I seeing the bottom row of fans pulling hot air from the rad into the case blowing up on to the other components?
Yes. The "right" direction of all the fans is up for debate but I went with facilitating hot air rising. In the bottom, out the top. Additionally, if I had set 6 of the fans to be blowing out of the case with only the remaining 4 fans blowing in, I would have created a negative pressure differential on the case at large. That means more air is being forced out of the case than in, which would result in every little crack and crevice of the case where there is no fan attempting to suck in more air. Air that has dust and cat hair and whatnot in it. In general it's advisable to have more fans blowing in than out. So my fan setup is in the bottom, out the top, the 3 on the side blowing in, and the one on the back blowing out. You can see more talk about it in the lighting/fans video if you're interested: ua-cam.com/video/GhiJM9Q4iBo/v-deo.html
whats your thought on squeezing the thick XE 360 EK rad down in the bottom? the EK configurator said it would fit with that rad and their vertical mount bracket.. but "technically fitting" isnt the same as comfortably fitting.. i get the impression that putting a thick rad in the bottom alon with vertical mount bracket will lead to some important consequences and considerations for planning out the rest of the loop. Whats your take on this, given your experience with the O11 XL and the slim rad
EDIT: i am not using a distro plate, my pump/res (heatkiller tube/D5-Next) will be mounted elsewhere.. either a bracket that mounts on top of the bottom fans, or a mount that attaches it vertically to the triple fan side panel
I think it would fit but how scrunched things are will depend on which slots you put the vertical bracket in and whether you have it in a high/low position. If you did it exactly like me I think it'd be a tight fit if it fit at all. But I put the bracket right in the middle of the available back slots so there is room to go one higher if you need any more room below. The XE is I believe ~twice as tall as my rad so that would fit. The downside would be that you'd have even less space above for the CPU/GPU tubes and even just to see the motherboard. Depending on the size of your GPU block you might even start having the GPU conflict with the CPU. You can see on mine the space between the top of the GPU tubes and the bottom of the CPU is maybe less than the height of one of those back brackets. Regardless I think it would be very tight up top instead of below.
Curious why you wouldn’t orient the radiators with the inlet & outlet on the right, next to the distro block, and avoid the long run all together. Is this an aesthetic choice?
Mostly aesthetic for me. Those long straight runs are a way to show off the hard tubing and part of the challenge of the build. Though it's also possible that there wouldn't have been space to do it the other way. I didn't actually check. Even with the distro plate designed for the case and the rads being EK, nothing was magically perfectly aligned unfortunately.
@@RonnieBunshaft Thanks for the response. Working my through a similar build and your video was very helpful.
Should have added some smoke then did the pressure test it would be easier to see leaks.
Interesting idea, hadn't thought of that. Though I'd be worried about introducing particles of crap into the system.
If you could go back, would you have picked a different color fittings? Like nickel?
I'm happy with those but definitely agonized on the coolant color. Might change that next time I clean it.
@@RonnieBunshaft I actually like the clear coolant coupled with the RGB. But what other coolant color were you considering?
@@dstir009 maybe a light purple or blue for a "cold" effect.
is there enough room to run this setup (front mounted distro plate) with a side mounted radiator? trying to figure out if i can do this as i prefer to use the non-xl case (cause i don't want my pc to weigh 985748923 lbs lol) i'm having trouble finding any builds where people are running top and side rads with a front mounted plate and vertical gpu. it seems vert gpu with top/bottom rad setup is "doable" but there is like almost no space under the gpu even with a slim rad in the o11 d evo, whereas the xl has plenty of clearance. i don't see why i couldn't run side mounted rad like i want, even if that means mounting the rad on the back side of the side mount so it sits inside the 2nd chamber of the case and just run my tubes at the bottom straight through under the fans
If I'm understanding correctly I think the answer is no there is not enough room to do this build with a side mounted rad. I have the fans already on the back side of the side mount. So you could probably fit a rad there but not with another layer of fans on it. This distro plate expands backward too far to get anything onto the front of the side mount. It's close but it overlaps enough that you can't do it properly.
Looking at the video... you have the drain in the outside drain port... does that interfere with the front glass?
Ya you can't use the front glass pane with the drain port there. I just leave it in the case box. You'll be the only one that can tell. And actually one step of installing the distro plate is a long thin black piece of metal that secures and also covers up the gap on the left so everything looks more cohesive.
@@RonnieBunshaft Nice! I wasn't sure if it would close up the front and basically replace the front glass panel, but sounds like a good choice.
Hey Ronnie - another question. I see on the bottom radiator tube runs you are using dual 90 degree fittings on the distro plate side. Wondering if you considered single 14mm offset instead? Would the offset drop to the same height as the dual 90 degree fittings?
I considered it but it seemed to me that the dual 90s gave more distance. Unfortunately hard to tell as the offset isn't published data and it's very hard to measure manually.
@@RonnieBunshaft Thanks Ronnie. I may test it out and see. Any reason you chose 12mm over 16mm tubing?
@@TeeBone2112 not really, my understanding is it's just an aesthetic choice. I do imagine it would mess with the exact fitting alignment to choose though.
@@RonnieBunshaft So far your recommended fittings match up. Only change, I'm using dual 7mm extenders on the bottom radiator vs 7mm+10mm.
try some other color settings.
How are the temps?
Is this the first version or the plate or the second?
Not sure at this point sorry. Maybe you can figure it out based on the timing of the build at the end of 2021?
OMG
lol. cats