I decided to give my Zalman a flush out and check for any gunk that I had been warned may have formed - it is now just over four months old and been running pretty much 24/7.

I also made some changes to the tube routing, and the system flow. Also changed liquid to fesser black to match the case and everything else

First a pic of the system as it was but with my new mobo - Crosshair IV and 1090T CPU:






Now for some cleaning. I drained the system, and then opened the water block without voiding the warranty...spot any blue gunk:






Now for the GPU Block, harder to see as it is blue anyway, but you can just make it out:




I gave both blocks a scrub with a brush and a rag and made sure there was no gunk left.

Now for the good stuff The rebuild:


As you can see, I have lost the front fan, and the top fan, and set the radiator up in a push/pull configuration.


I have also made some drastic changes to the way the loop is routed. It now flows:

Reserator > CPU Block > Radiator > GPU Block > Reserator



In this pic you can see a Zalman RAM cooler that I fitted across the 5.25" drive bay, was a perfect fit, but removed it as it had an odd sound to it.


Now the GPU Block:


You may have noticed some braiding too, courtesy of NZXT, I went for 24pin, 8pin and PCI-E:


The above pics did not include drives, as I was waiting for a new toy to turn up...

... my new C300 128GB 6Gbps being used as my OS drive with a junction point for the Users over to my old 80GB Intel X-25-M. I will also be adding a 160GB 2.5" drive for music.


So far I have only compared temps at idle - stress testing is just about to start now for load temps, but already this routing etc has saved me 5c on core temps (25c down to 20c) and 3c from the CPU temp (42c down to 39c).

:thup:

Tomorrow is the server update with the 1TB drive that used to be in this machine...

What kind of pump do you have running the W/Cing? How is the noise level with the pump and where do you place it? I had a watercooled system but the vibration from the pump was unbearable.

It's a Zalman Resorator, so the pump, radiator and reservoir are all onw item.

The pump is very weak 300 lph / 0.5m head so is silent.

PC is sat 2 feet from my head and I can't hear it even with a 6 core CPU - cores running at 19c even overclocked to 3.7/4.1GHz.

I am due to swap out the standard CPU Block for an EK Supreme HF, but the one that arrived yesterday has been RMA'd and a new one should be here soon.

I also now have a Corsair HX650 as the HX620 was RMA'd and they didnt have any 620s in stock so I got a free upgrade