Corsair H80/CM Stacker Mod.

[herulach]

So, my goodies to mod my h80 arrived today. Theres nothing really wrong with it, but its not able to cope with the kind of OC I'm looking for (and that I know the CPU is capable at). Its presently just able to hold my 6300 black at 59C at 4.5Ghz. It just about manages 61 at 4.6, but thats a little too close for comfort. I took the machine out into the conservatory the other morning (so ambient about 15C lower) and was able to hit 5GHZ prime stable, now I want to be able to do it inside.

I already had a Thermochill HE 120.3 360mm from my old water cooling setup, and this morning I've had a nice package from aquatuning with a new bay res (the old setup was a fill port) an assortment of 8/6 tubing and associated barbs (and some sweets!). The plan is to open up the existing system, dump the rad and replace it with the new setup. Hopefully it should be able to cope, as it was successfully keeping an overclocked X2 3800, 6800GT and the northbridge happy back in the day.

Since I already have basically everything I needed this should hopefully give the system a shot in the arm for not a lot of money (including the H80 refurb total cost of cooling is less than most prefilled 240mm solutions)

Although I do have the case cut to take a 360 rad on the top, for now I'm going to leave that exhausting toasty GPU air, and mount the rad in the front bays (it has 10 free after the bay res) with 3* Akasa Venoms on intake duty. Hopefully that way I can keep up maximum cooling potential as well as making it easier to fill by having the rad under the res.

So, planned list of mods is as follows:

• New HDD mounting location, possibly behind motherboard tray (case is designed to use a 4-3 bay adaptor, and I'll have no bays left)
• Mounts for Rad in front panel
• Replace current non HD audio USB 2 front panel with a USB 3 HD audio one.
• Relocate power switch to fill hole left by old fillport
• Replace H80 radiator with a 360 (thin) one.

That should be enough to be going on with. Photos etc to be added as I go, probably likely to be wednesday/thursday as I need to go grab some distilled water for leak testing.

[AETAaAS]

Have you tried this totally sane and not at all over-the-top method of improving AIO cooler performance?


Image credit: Tom Logan

[herulach]

Quick Update, system is all hosed up and filled with distilled for leak testing. So much easier to bleed up a system with a rad rather than the old fill port system.

Excuse the slightly messy kitchen (and the bloody awful wallpaper!)

[Macadee]

Interesting idea, not sure how the integrated pump will cope though, especially with the head increase with the rad vertically mounted.

As an ex HE user myself (have 3 sat in a box with 32mm Panaflo fans) you're probably aware that HE rads are fairly restrictive and need fans with decent static pressure to perform. Scythe GT 1850 are the current favourites.

[herulach]

Its a distinct trickle, but its moving enough to be worthwhile. A bigger pump would be better, and at some stage I'll probably put a custom loop in with both 360 rads mounted.

The venoms are actually rated a good bit better than the GT 1850s. 2.98 vs 2.05 mmh20 & 83 vs 58 cfm. Admittedly ratings aren't everything, but they should hold their own well enough. They also have the advantage of being pwm, so my board can drop to a 20% cycle rather than 60% if they were voltage only.

[herulach]

Everything assembled in the case this afternoon, just sat leak testing again as I ended up swapping some of the right angled for straight connectors to make it fit better.

Mounts quite nicely in the front bays and by rather happy coincidence pulling the res out to fill it gives access to the bleed screw on the rad



The front panel has been changed from the original coolermaster one (6*usb 2, firewire + ac97 audio) to a lian li one. Out of shot is a 29mm vandal proof switch in the top of the case taking up the whole left by the fillport.

Decided to change my plans for drive mounting, was originally planning on mounting on the case floor, but it would have looked like ass, so decided instead to go with here


Fits just snugly after removing the bottom half of the drive bay quick release catches.

[herulach]

Everythings in and running. Quickly flicked it back to the old settings (4.5Ghz at 1.4V) and after 30 minutes prime CPU is at 45C, with an MB temp of 25C. I reckon I should easily be able to hold 55 ish at somewhere in the region of 4.8 Ghz.

All in all I'm thoroughly impressed. 2 Hours work and £20 in tubing for a c.25% drop in temperature is well worth it in my book.

[herulach]

Everything toddling along nicely. System is fully prime stable at 4.75 (215*22.5) but for general use I've knocked it down to 4.5, which it seems to be able to handle with the fans on about a 40% cycle.

Everything connected up below - I need a better camera, and a PSU with longer cables so I can get things a bit neater.

[pastymuncher]

Keep an eye on that hdd's temps as it might get rather warm there.

[herulach]

When the case is closed you get direct contact between the side of the case and the top of the disk, so I'm reasonably comfortable with it. It seems to be running about 35C which I'm more than comfortable with.

[CM Bram]

Aaaahh the old stacker! Good to see this case is still popular and used.. Good luck and have fun with the build/mod !