Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
104 Posts
2
22528
November 22nd, 2019 21:00
Aurora R9, DIY project
Just got my brother a new Aurora R9 as a gift. Here is the specs: 9900K+ 2080Ti + 850W PSU+ Lunar light
We saw a few interesting posts in this community (very helpful and informative) and decided to do some DIY mods by ourselves before PC arrived. Basically, there are three phases in our project.
Phase 1: Replace top and front fans. Add push-pull setup for CPU cooling, and extra top front intake fan. Replace memory with 3200 ones.
front intake fans -> Gentle Typhoon 2150RPM 4-pin Using Noctua Y-splitter and connect to front_fan header
top fans-> ML120Pro (push-pull) Using Noctua Y-splitter and connect to top_fan header
Memory-> G. skill gskill trident z 2*16GB 3200 CL14
We never tested the stock fans. First thing we did after taking it out of box was replacing the fans. Now, idling is about 28-30 degrees on CPU, about 32 degree on GPU, and noise is very minimal after we adjusted the curve. Full load, CPU is about 55-60 and GPU is about 70.
For pushj-pull setup, l was considering to add one extra fan on top of radiator directly after removing top cover however, there is no enough space between top cover and top bezel to fit the pull fan. You have to remove the whole CPU cooler to add the fan. And it is quite tight so be careful not to damage any component when installing.
For top front fan, thanks to this community, I find the weather strip is the best way to secure the fan there. Otherwise, only 90mm fan can be fit in with the HDD cage.
However, there are a few problems here after replacing the fans:
1. AWCC only displayed % RPM reading. Even if we set it to max manually, it would only show about 59% for top fan and 45% for front, because the software is using stock fan max RPMs to calculate the %. ML120pro has 2400RPM which is about 60% of stock top fan max RPMs. We tried some other software but only Intel XTU can give you the RPM readings. So if you replace the fan, don't worry about the % reading.
2. If I manually set both fans at max before stress test, top fan would slow to min RPM. If I set top fan at 70% speed, then front fan will slow. If I set both fan at 70% speed, no issue. I also had both fans running at max for 30 mins while PC idling and no issue. There are two possible reasons, one is unstable voltage when CPU is consuming more power. Second is unstable PWM signal. IMO, this problem seems to be related with PWM signal since CPU pump fan is working perfectly under stress test all the time, which shares the same +12V source with top fan but without PWM control. If it was becasue of unstable voltage, then pump fan should also slow but it did not.
Here are a few pics
Phase 2: Upgrade 2080Ti blower to water cooled. To be continued。。。。。
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
November 27th, 2019 19:00
I will see how it goes when the thermal adhesive comes in tomorrow. Will keep it posted.
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 3rd, 2019 21:00
@GTS81
A few findings after my test, will post more tomorrow.
1. R9 has open-bottom design allowing air inflow from rear left side.
2. I fitted 240mm AIO on the bottom side as intake rad. Kraken X52. 240mm performs much betterthan 120mm AIO (Corsair H55) with 15mm front fan which is found to be very important to keep case temp under control and remain the performance of CPU. The 25mm bracket has to be removed in order to fit 240mm AIO. Now, Idling is 27 for GPU, 28 for CPU and GPU is about 52 max under Time spy test. 120mm AIO is about 10 degrees higher.
r72019
6 Professor
•
5.3K Posts
0
December 3rd, 2019 22:00
I really want to see the photos!
r72019
6 Professor
•
5.3K Posts
0
December 3rd, 2019 23:00
Wow, interesting setup, thanks for posting! Very creative. The R7/8 have the same holes in the bottom of the metal box, but under the box there's 0 air vents in the bottom plastic surrounding the metal box, so there'd be no outside air coming in.
GTS81
2 Intern
•
2.2K Posts
0
December 3rd, 2019 23:00
I can see the pics now! Glad I stayed up late to see them.
@coldfish_91 you evil genius! Your R9 gave up the “sexy heel” that the R8 had for a flat foot base and in turn you get airflow! Awesome!
Kudos to how you just went ahead and put a 240mm against the floor of the chassis. With 2 ML120 Pros.
HanoverB
2 Intern
•
798 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 01:00
Good stuff with the R9 mods!
Those are nice temps. Like the 240mm radiator and fans pulling in air from the bottom.
Would even be cooler if there was more openings in the bottom of the chassis for the fans to pull air through.
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 06:00
@GTS81 Thank you !! Sorry for the delay. I actually finished the setup a few days ago but was hesitating between 120MM and 240MM which needs more time to test. After all, I decided to go for 240MM.
First of all, X52 240MM has nylon and longer tube which is way more easier to fit than 120MM Corsair H55 with rubber and shorter tube. Even though 120MM AIO is smaller but I can only fit it in one particular position (very very hard), not recommended unless you put it as front intake rad in which case you need to cut the grid or use narrower 15mm fan which may fit with 2080Ti and it will be tight based on my measurement without cutting. My rule of thumb in my plan is "everything can be returned to stock", so I will pass on this one.
Secondly, 240MM has much better cooling performance on GPU than 120mm (not even close, I feel 120MM on the bottom is even worse than the stock blower setup).
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 06:00
Technically speaking , you can cut the plastic edge between two holes on the side of bottom cover to get more air in.
My biggest concern here is the heat soak in the lower side after GPU is loaded for a long time since all the hot air will be blasted into the case, which has been tested to impact CPU temp as well. In this case, we need more air flow in the lower side after installing AIO to move hot air out of case faster. I am going to test my setup tonight and see how well it can handle the load on CPU and GPU simultaneously.
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 09:00
@HanoverB
52 degree was the temp I got with 240mm AIO without bottom front fan installed. I will test it tonight and see how it performs with new 120*15mm front fan being fitted.
To get better cold air flow, I also added some heat insulation method to the left panel to isolate hot air with cold air so that cold air will only be coming from rear lower part of panel and hot air will stay out of bottom cover.
Yes, 120mm AIO is the limiting the OC capacity of our CPU. I am running 85 degree max with all cores running at 4.7ghz, which is pretty much the best my rig can handle (plus, I have a weird issue with fan which cannot run at max speed). 240mm is required for higher OC on CPU.
Since my rig is for gaming mainly, I dont need to use 100% capacity on CPU all the time, which make 120mm AIO on CPU cooling adequate in my case. You can actually connect the CPU with 240mm AIO if you want (X52 has long enough tube to reach CPU but the water pump is quite large and it may not fit, you may need a low profile water pump like Corsair's) , and get a new 120mm with longer tube to replace the top stock liquid cooler (too short tube on stock liquid cooler, it wont be able to reach GPU) and then connect it with GPU in the lower part. You will need tube length at least 400mm for both 120mm and 240mm AIOs to have this setup feasible.
However, if you want to use G12 kit, the choice is quite limited for 120MM AIO. Kraken is the only brand having tube length at 400mm but they dont have any 120mm AIO available for G12 kit anymore. Corsair has a few options but they all have 300mm tube which is too short if you want to put GPU 120mm AIO on the top as exhaust rad in the case.
Plus, nylon tube is way better than rubber in the tight case like R9.
HanoverB
2 Intern
•
798 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 09:00
reply to @coldfish_91
Technically speaking , you can cut the plastic edge between two holes on the side of bottom cover to get more air in.
My biggest concern here is the heat soak in the lower side after GPU is loaded for a long time since all the hot air will be blasted into the case, which has been tested to impact CPU temp as well. In this case, we need more air flow in the lower side after installing AIO to move hot air out of case faster. I am going to test my setup tonight and see how well it can handle the load on CPU and GPU simultaneously.
Keep up the good work.
I am referring to the holes in the metal chassis being inadequate for unrestricted airflow. There is less surface area for those fans to pull air through the bottom of the chassis. Being able to couple the fans directly to the radiator is great, and the 52 C temps with Time Spy are fine. You should be okay with no additional cutting but you will get lower temps if you can get more air to the fans.
If your CPU is being liquid cooled as well then I don't think there will be an issue with the amount of heated air coming out of the radiator dumping into the case. Overall case temps should be lower with the GPU temps being under control and CPU temps should not be worse. The airflow coming from the bottom should help as well as the fact you are using a rear blower type card. I had no issues with non-OC CPU temps with both an AIO GPU and CPU in the similar XPS 8930 case.
The Turing GPU series temps are still manageable with the 120mm AIO coolers. I played around with a RTX 2080 Sea Hawk hybrid card in a Phanteks case with fan to motherboard and was getting temps in the mid to high 50's under load so the 120mm AIO is still adequate with the right case.
The 240mm should do a better job cooling than the 120mm unit. You are fortunate with the Alienware series to be able to adjust the speed of the exhaust fans at the top of the case to pull air out. The top exhaust fans are the most important fans in the case and with the right fans you can keep them at close to 100% and still have a quiet system. Unfortunately you are seeing the thermal limits of the single 120mm AIO on your CPU with overclocking. That would still seem to be the biggest issue with the chassis. Too bad you couldn’t manage to get that 240mm on the bottom to cool your CPU vs the GPU.
GTS81
2 Intern
•
2.2K Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 10:00
@coldfish_91 :
Is the 4.7GHz for AVX workload like small FFT?
I agree that for a gaming rig, most times we're doing the CPU OC thing just to satisfy our ego.
You mentioned your concern with heat recirculation in the lower chassis. I was wondering why you had to place the radiator so near to the front such that you needed a 15mm fan. Then I saw those tubes which need to clear the card + Kraken. This means you have some space at the rear of the chassis, correct? Can you fit an 80mm Noctua there? I've tested something like this before:
It does bring down temps by 2-3C.
p.s.: Any plan to remove those unused PSU cables from the modular PSU?
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 10:00
@GTS81 I already removed all unused cables from PSU.
I used Cinebench R20 to test the CPU.
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 10:00
@GTS81 No chance. 240mm AIO is about 275mm in length.... 15mm fan can be fitted in the front without issue. Rear end only has about 10mm gap left which I used to store the cables already. I can fit a 80mm fan on back panel to pull out hot air if necessary.
That is a good setup, adding additional 80mm at rear end would help air circulated faster in the lower part of chassis, helping to keep case temp lower
coldfish_91
104 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 15:00
After adding 15mm front bottom fan with 240mm AIO , I get 44 degrees max on GPU under Time Spy 3Dmark test, average is about 40ish. Without front fan, it was 52ish. @HanoverB @GTS81
Here is the result after running Furmark GPU stress test at 3440x1440 and Furmark CPU burning test (16 threads) simultaneously for 10 mins. CPU ( 9900K, no OC, all 8 cores running at 4.4ghz with max power limited at 118W) max 68 degrees ish. GPU max at 51 degrees. Here are the pics
I also measured noise level using Sound Meter App at about 12 inches in front of front panel.
Idle: about 31-32 dB(SPL)
Top/front fans 70% speed, AIO fans 100%, pumps 100%: 45-47 dB(SPL)
GTS81
2 Intern
•
2.2K Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 16:00
On why one should not take SSD heat lightly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnST5rA64Oc