Just finished reassembling my secondary (formerly primary) PC. Needed the CPU that was in it (an i7-5820K) for my HTPC as it's CPU (an i7-6800K) was starting to fail...third Broadwell-E I've been though, they seem pretty fragile. Grabbed an Xeon E5-1660 v3 (essentially identical to a 5960X, unlocked multiplier and all) off of Ebay for about $150 bucks, which was just a drop in replacement that seems to be working fine so far (still need to see what sort of OC I can get out of it).
Anyway, problems started a while back when one of the fans on my Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti started failing (sleeve bearing was wearing out and the fan was starting to seize) causing temperatures to rise. As the fan would fail completely in short order, I started looking at options for a replacement. The fans on the card's non-reference cooler are proprietary; there was no easy drop in replacement and I didn't feel like replacing all of the fans with different ones for marginal gains. So, I started looking around at aftermarket aircoolers, only to discover that they all had compatibility issues with the unusual layout of this non-reference board (I could have gotten around these by desoldering one of the stacked of the HDMI ports, but that seemed fairly extreme just to get a replacement air cooler running). I had already ruled out a custom watercooling loop for this part as I intend to replace it soon and the cost of a full cover block for this specific PCB was the most extreme of all options. It then dawned on me that I already had all the parts I needed to mount one of my CLCs (closed-loop-cooler, I normally have a few around for use on test benches, but typically use air coolers or custom loops on anything permanent) to this 1080 ti...an NZXT Kraken G12 that had been sitting in a box for years; piles of small VRM and memory sinks I had been accumulating for a quarter century; and a perfectly serviceable Corsair H55 that wasn't currently being used.
So, I get everything assembled--VRM and VRAM sinks epoxied on, block mounted, fans picked out, etc--annnnnnddddd hoses don't reach! Only fan placements where the radiator could actually reach was a bottom one, which is a no go because the block/pump cannot be the highest point in the loop, or that's were air will pool and either crap up flow or damage the pump.
Since it's the middle of pandemic and most of NYS is locked down pretty hard, meaning I can't just go to the hardware store and buy longer screws, and I'm getting impatient with a perfectly good 1080 Ti sitting here that I can't use, it was plan B time.
Enter the zip-ties!
It's a bit of ghetto-rig, but there are some side benefits to suspending the radiator like this. Namely, I can have more total air intake than I was originally planning on, which is very good for a pure positive pressure setup. Cooling performance was thusly improved, with no real downsides. In my case, it will also mean less corrosion in the H55 loop because I did refill it at some point in the past with deionized water, rather than a coolant with corrosion inhibitors more suited to mixed metals (all these CLCs are copper blocks and aluminum radiators, and if given a path to ground will turn into an anode-cathode and destroy themselves in short order, without inhibitors in the coolant), which diluted the corrosion protection it came with.
Right now, in a 23C room and a closed case with all filters back in place, the tower is quieter than my previous arangement. This 1080 Ti, overclocked to 2050MHz core and 5940MT/s on the GDDR5X, only reaches 45C in Furmark while right up against the edge of it's board power limit.
This is a solid 25C colder than the massive three-slot triple-fan cooler it came with, with less noise, at a 25MHz higher core clock. It's also about 10-15C better than I was expecting out of this H55, which is really not that good even for a CLC.
Overall, very happy with how things are working so far. Will get Elite: Dangerous back up and running later this week after I dial in a CPU OC.
Anyway, problems started a while back when one of the fans on my Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti started failing (sleeve bearing was wearing out and the fan was starting to seize) causing temperatures to rise. As the fan would fail completely in short order, I started looking at options for a replacement. The fans on the card's non-reference cooler are proprietary; there was no easy drop in replacement and I didn't feel like replacing all of the fans with different ones for marginal gains. So, I started looking around at aftermarket aircoolers, only to discover that they all had compatibility issues with the unusual layout of this non-reference board (I could have gotten around these by desoldering one of the stacked of the HDMI ports, but that seemed fairly extreme just to get a replacement air cooler running). I had already ruled out a custom watercooling loop for this part as I intend to replace it soon and the cost of a full cover block for this specific PCB was the most extreme of all options. It then dawned on me that I already had all the parts I needed to mount one of my CLCs (closed-loop-cooler, I normally have a few around for use on test benches, but typically use air coolers or custom loops on anything permanent) to this 1080 ti...an NZXT Kraken G12 that had been sitting in a box for years; piles of small VRM and memory sinks I had been accumulating for a quarter century; and a perfectly serviceable Corsair H55 that wasn't currently being used.
So, I get everything assembled--VRM and VRAM sinks epoxied on, block mounted, fans picked out, etc--annnnnnddddd hoses don't reach! Only fan placements where the radiator could actually reach was a bottom one, which is a no go because the block/pump cannot be the highest point in the loop, or that's were air will pool and either crap up flow or damage the pump.
Since it's the middle of pandemic and most of NYS is locked down pretty hard, meaning I can't just go to the hardware store and buy longer screws, and I'm getting impatient with a perfectly good 1080 Ti sitting here that I can't use, it was plan B time.
Enter the zip-ties!
It's a bit of ghetto-rig, but there are some side benefits to suspending the radiator like this. Namely, I can have more total air intake than I was originally planning on, which is very good for a pure positive pressure setup. Cooling performance was thusly improved, with no real downsides. In my case, it will also mean less corrosion in the H55 loop because I did refill it at some point in the past with deionized water, rather than a coolant with corrosion inhibitors more suited to mixed metals (all these CLCs are copper blocks and aluminum radiators, and if given a path to ground will turn into an anode-cathode and destroy themselves in short order, without inhibitors in the coolant), which diluted the corrosion protection it came with.
Right now, in a 23C room and a closed case with all filters back in place, the tower is quieter than my previous arangement. This 1080 Ti, overclocked to 2050MHz core and 5940MT/s on the GDDR5X, only reaches 45C in Furmark while right up against the edge of it's board power limit.
This is a solid 25C colder than the massive three-slot triple-fan cooler it came with, with less noise, at a 25MHz higher core clock. It's also about 10-15C better than I was expecting out of this H55, which is really not that good even for a CLC.
Overall, very happy with how things are working so far. Will get Elite: Dangerous back up and running later this week after I dial in a CPU OC.
