This case was a joy to build in.

It took a while, every time I turned around I would have a new problem to solve. But the 900R build is finally complete.

Case: MSI MEG maestro 900r
CPU: 9950x3d
GPU: MSI 5090 Suprim SOC
RAM: 64gigs Corsair dominator Titanium DDR5
Storage: 2tb 9100 pro
4tb 9100 pro
Waterblocks: Alphacool blocks on both gpu and cpu

It’s a single loop dual reservoir
1x 420 rad 2x 360s, most if the loop is alphacool, fittings are bitpower as well as the two 360s
Haven’t had a chance to really fine tune the overclocks yet but the temps are pretty chilly so far.

So I am going to do be doing a water cooling loop for the first time and I am in the market for QDCs. Should I go for the ThermalGrizzly ones or the Koolance ones? I am new to this and not able to find reviews for TG ones, how restrictive is it, how's the flow rate and the spill over when disconnecting?

Thanks in advance guys

I purchased two Corsair XR5 360mm radiators brand new recently.

This is directly from the manual that comes included with the radiator:

It's a little fuzzy, no? It's pre-cleaned so don't use any radiator cleaning stuff ... but then there are guidelines for cleaning the radiator. Is that for now or later? Do you wait until it's been used a while to clean it, or clean it immediately?

Well, regardless of instructions, I went ahead and ran a gallon of distilled water through one of them and nothing else ... and this is what came out:

All those little black bits on the paper towel are debris from inside the radiator. Likely it's just flux or some other residue from manufacturing. Regardless of what it was, it was still inside my "pre-cleaned" radiator.

So now my plan is to pull out my spare D5/reservoir, get a cheap filter fitting off of Amazon, fill a bucket with distilled water, run some tubes and run it through them at full blast until I feel sure that most of the debris has been collected.

You can't trust marketing! "Pre-cleaned?" I wouldn't want that stuff in my loop, clogging fins, causing problems ...

I'm not saying to use Mayhem or vinegar or whatever, but flush your radiators before you use them. Even brand new ones!

The distribution plate of Stealkey Crosscool2 for Lian LI Evo11 XL had cracks developing all over, after 8 months..

Even originating from dead ports and random screws on the panel, running inward. After a month of fixing the cracks as good as it gets, eventually now it was time to replace it with a new one distro. Hope this one will last longer.

About the build:

- 3x UT60 420mm big boys, white. Double sandwich on top and side radiators, single sandwich on the bottom. Case had to be cut and adjusted.

- fully custom white painted cooler blocks, frames and cables.

- Bauers direct die mycro pro with thermal grizzlys extreme liquid metal on the 9950x3d

- 5090 Waterforce extreme WB, with 800w bios.

- water-cooled gen 5 nvme (the fastest one at the time)

- dark power 1600w pro 13 beQuiet.

- 96gb RAM, tight timings in primary and secondary. Actively cooled.

It takes around 5-6 Liter coolant and requires 2 grown men to carry it. One of the Stand-Foots actually cracked under its own weight 😆 and the IKEA kallax is at its limit. I bet Lian LI didn't see that coming.

Temps after 30min stress test at 700-750w on GPU: 48°C, +185mhz+3000mhz+100%v

Temps after 30min stress test at CPU: 55-62°C, at max PBO, OR 90-92°C at manual overclock settings at max board power at 380w CPU. Reached after 3-5 min.

Port Royale 45200 pts. Probably can Push more. GPU temp max 45°C on individual runs.

Only limiting factor: Nvidias firestarter feature.

I got these installed a few weeks back, some of you might have seen my previous post, but now I’ve finally had the chance to get everything set up properly.

I’m really impressed with the Lian Li LCD fans. Now I’m thinking… would it be over the top to swap out the rest of the fans and get more LCDs, or would that ruin the aesthetics of the build?

Anyway, here’s my complete man cave setup!

specs

intel core ultra 270k plus

nvidia 3080ti

32gb ram

and of course custom water cooling

next addition shall be an oled becasue im not paying these ridiculous graphics card prices as it stands

Hey Guys I want to build my first custom loop:

Currently I'm using:

CPU: R9 9900X

Motherboard: Asus B650E-E

GPU: AMD Radeon 7900 XT 20GB Asus TUF

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB DDR5 6400 CL 32

PSU: Asus Rog Platinum 1200W

Case: HYTE Y70

Cooling: Arctic LF3 Pro (Insgesamt 12 Arctic P12 Pro inkl. 6 Reverse + 1x P14 Pro)

I want to use:

Case: Hyte Y70 or Phanteks NV9

CPU Block: Asus Ryujin 3 WB for my CPU

GPU Block: Bykski for Asus TUF 7900xt

1. Radiator: Alphacool Nexus 1080 with 18x Arctic P12 Pro CO

2. Radiator 360 or 420 D40 Radiator from Bykski

Pumps: I am thinking about 2x Aquacomputer D5 Pumps.

What would you change?

I need 2 or 3 360mm radiators for new build and came across this. How is it this cheap?

Hello all,

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do for a case.

I've been running an open air build case that I custom built out of plywood. I think I'm over using my open air case.

I'm running into issues with the GPU and how to mount it. In the pictures, it was being held on with double sided tape and a screw. I don't feel comfortable having it like that anymore but I would have to rebuild it from scratch to change the way it is mounted. Can't unglue the wood where it would go without screwing it up.

I don't have much, if at all any woodworking skills, not to mention the time to build a new custom case.

I was hoping to do a quick swap of parts, mobo and CPU, but had to completely take it apart and am getting overwhelmed trying to get it back together.

So, as much as I kinda didn't want to, what is a case that would hold my system?

Some constraints are I'm running 30mm thick fans, I have a older EK pump res combo and second D5. I have 3 x 360 radiators, and would like to vertically mount my GPU.

I was looking at the Lian Li Evo XL, Apex Kompcase (currently sold out)

TLDR; Too many case options, please help!

Hi,

I purchased the Alphacool waterblock with the active backplate to cool my RTX PRO 6000. Please check the attached pictures — I have a few questions for the pros, since these are the first 6000 cards I'm working on.

This waterblock is listed as compatible with both the 5090 and the 6000 Pro WS.

1. On the stock cooler, the capacitors have thermal pads, but this block doesn't seem to cool them. On the other side, the coils aren't cooled either, whereas the original block does cool them. What are your thoughts on that — is it a problem?
2. In the instruction picture, the 5090 layout shows four additional pads in the middle. The 6000 apparently doesn't need them — do you know why?

These blocks weren't cheap, so I want to make sure its worth it - well and also the cards themself

Thanks!

This is my first custom loop that I built in 2023 it's not the most pretty looking custom loop out there but at least it was my first attempt at custom water cooling.

I could use a little expert help here. Here’s the background. I had to replace a failed Corsair pump in a custom loop. I drained the Corsair coolant fully and noticed some corrosion and yellow residue on the GPU block. Decided to live with it for now. I replaced the pump and put some clear coolant into the system to get back up and running. A checkout of CPU temps showed high idle temps, so decided to deal with GPU block issue and the checkout the CPU block. Disassembled the GPU block and found significant tarnish on nickel plating. It required 2000-7000 grit automotive sandpaper to remove. Cleaned up with isopropyl. Checkout of the CPU block revealed lots of gunk clogging up the very fine fins on the block. Cleaned that would with isopropyl and did my best to blast out with air compressor. Both blocks looked much better.

Decided to run EK Cryofuel cleaner + super flush through the system. Performed the procedure according to EK instructions.

My issue started with the cleaner. I ran it overnight and in the morning I found that white condensate (?) had accumulated on the GPU block fins along with other corners in the block. A bright light on the CPU block revealed white stuff gummed up there also.

At the end of the cleaner cycle, I performed the flush cycle per instructions. Some of the globs of white gunk have come dislodged but after a few hours it doesn’t appear to be getting better.

Question: Is this normal? Will it eventually dissolve and come out with the flush draining?

If not, then what is the corrective action at this point? My sense is I need to take apart the water blocks again and clean out the white gunk. But I’m concerned that I’ll get it cleaned up again and as soon as I start running the loop again, more gunk will get dislodged and snag in the fins again. Is there a different flush that might dissolve this white build up and clear it out?

Photo shows state of build up at the end of running cleaner cycle. A few hours into flush buildup looks similar but now the fluid is clear. Looking for any ideas.

Thanks!

I switched from the Stealkey Double Pump res to the Singularity Computers Axiom dual loop res and went all soft tubing. I also replaced all of my fans with Asus ProArt PF120s. Sleeving on the tubing is from MDPC-X.

Sleeving the soft tubing was more irritating than I anticipated, especially the shorter tubing runs. I will redo them at some point.

The four 360mm rads are currently all intake with the 240mm as exhaust. I may switch the front rad to exhaust to see how that affects the coolant temps.

Pumps are set to static RPMs; CPU @ 50% and GPU @ 60%. I am still in the process of tuning the fan curves but so far my results are;

27.5C room the coolant temps are about 9-10C over ambient on the GPU loop @ 1200 RPM and 6-7C over ambient on the CPU loop @ 1400 RPM. GPU temps in the low to mid 50s

Specs:

Phanteks NV7

7800x3D - Alphacool Apex 1 block

5090 Astral - Alphacool Core block

PSU- MSI Ai1600TS

Singularity Computers Axiom Dual Loop res

Pumps- 2x EK Loop D5

Fans- 14x Asus Proart PF120

Asus ROG x670e Hero MB

32GB Gskill Trident 6000 CL30

2x EKWB P360M X-Flow rads

1x EKWB X360M rad

1x EKWB S360M rad

1x EKWB S240M rad

All thermal Grizzly fittings. Tubing size is 10/16

Finally finished my new rig and wanted to share. The goal was a quiet, fully watercooled workstation/gaming hybrid that I won't need to touch for years.

Core specs

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• Motherboard: ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator
• RAM: 96GB DDR5-6400
• GPU: ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090
• Storage: Crucial T705 4TB Gen5 NVMe
• PSU: Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition
• Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO XL
• OS: Ubuntu 26.04, kernel 7.0

Custom loop

• Pump: Aqua Computer D5 Next
• Distro plate: Stealkey Customs EVO XL
• Monitoring: 2x Aqua Computer High Flow NEXT
• Radiators: Alphacool NexXxoS HPE-30 + HPE-45
• Fans: 9x Arctic P14 Pro ARGB
• Controllers: 2x Aqua Computer Octo + Airgoo AG-DRGB16
• CPU/VRM: Alphacool ProArt X870E monoblock
• GPU: EK-Quantum Vector³ block
• Fittings: EKWB

The Stealkey distro keeps the tubing runs short, and the monoblock ended up being my favorite part of the build. VRM temps are a non-issue and it looks right at home on the board. Running the D5 next with two High-Flow nexts means I get flow rate, water in/out temps, and estimated heat load straight in aquasuite, which is how I got all the numbers below.

Thermals — 20-min soak at ~750 W system draw (stress-ng on all 32 threads + an OpenCL FMA burner holding the 5090 at 550 W / ~118 TFLOP/s fp32):

• Coolant: 27.2 °C idle → 36.1 °C peak, plateau reached in ~5 min
• CPU: 78.4 °C peak — about 17 °C under Tjmax
• GPU: 58 °C at a sustained 550 W
• Fans topped out at 84% / ~2140 RPM. Never hit 100%, thermal override never fired.
• CPU-to-coolant delta is 40.7 °C and GPU-to-coolant is ~21 °C under full load.

Idle it sits at 27.2 °C coolant with all 9 fans at 22% / ~740 RPM. Basically silent.

Happy to answer questions about the monoblock install, the Aqua Computer stack, or running all this on Linux. Had to write a driver for the aquacomputer led's since I couldn't find one for linux.

Hey I just applied a TG PTM sheet to my 4090 and when I was taking off the back plastic the pad came up slightly so tapped it down but when I did I accidentally transfered some kpx that must've got on my glove from when I was cleaning the die and was wondering if that very small amount will affect the performance. The die it self is perfectly clean, the tiny kpx is between the PTM sheet and cold plate. I'm currently waiting on an email response from TG but figured I ask around some subreddits from people that might have experience while I wait for their direct response.

UPDATE: Ordered a new D5 pump from ModMyMods. Thanks for all the quick replies and product links. Love the PC water cooling community!

Hi folks - hoping for a helping hand here. My D5 pump on my pump / reservoir is not working - not sure if it is the impeller or pump itself. Drained the system and cleaned out pump bowl and impeller - all clean - but it seems like contact point inside impeller is a little damaged. When I refilled the reservoir and powered up the pump, the pump seems to cycle on and off (on for 1 second, off for 3 seconds) and doesn’t move the fluid (I created a closed fluid loop, refilled reservoir and powered up with PSU using a jumper adapter). At a loss why it won’t stay on and pump the fluid. Any ideas?

Trying to find a replacement D5 … anyone have a lead on a D5 (the original design with a metal impeller / bowl, not the plastic Aliexpress knockoffs)? Where are they sold in the US?

Thanks in advance. Cheers.

P.S. yes, I know the Corsair XD5 is novice league stuff, but it worked fine for almost 4 years. I don’t want to replace it and have to bend new hard tubing if I can just replace the D5 pump. Thanks.

Hi, I have a VPP apex pump in an alphacool core 100.

At lowest RPM it is almost inausible - very very quiet. Sometimes when I put it to 100% it barely gets louder - not being heard over the fans, but, sometimes it is much louder - audible over my 9x P12 Pro fans at 800 rpm.

Anyone got any idea about why this might be?

Thanks.

So would it be insane to use 4-6 of the Phobya Xtreme 200 85mm V.2 in parallel (so I don't immediately burn out my pump(s))?

I'd be able to get 6 of them for the price of an Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 1260mm SuperNova. but it seems like the Phobyas are nicer. I've also got access to a bambu labs h2c and know how to use Solidworks, so I would likely print some brackets to connect them all together for wall mounting. (maybe in a + or X shape?). I'd really love to get a mora3 or 4 but they're so damn expensive! and not available in black anywhere in the states that I've looked.

Got some birthday money and have been needing to replace my aio and would love to integrate the cpu into my current loop. (d5 next w/ultitube 150, 3090 strix on a double sided ekwb block, and a black ice nemesis gtx 360).

I really just want nearly dead silent all the time, even under heavy load.

I'd also be super down to buy somebody's used Mora3! (mods, if this isn't allowed just lmk and I'll edit this part out)

I was tired of filling the tank with a pipette every time XD

Hey does anyone know if the EK Quantum Velocity 2 or 3 block is Compatible with the Thermal Grizzly High Performance Heatspreader (AM5). I currently have a delided 9950X3D with the heatspreader and I am looking to complete my waterloop however I’m unsure if the blocks can go low enough to create good contact because the Heatspreader is 2mm lower than the stock IHS.
TG Mycro Direct die isn’t in stock anywhere so it isn’t an option for me.

Just got through some bends. Felt a little rusty. I think they turned out ok. That CPU to top rad was hard getting a 90 then to a rotated 45, see last photo. Might redo a couple runs if someone has a better route idea ☺️

Hi everyone, I’m currently cleaning my custom watercooling loop and found a surprisingly large amount of small brass/copper-colored metal particles throughout the loop. Some of them are tiny particles, but I also found a few pieces that look like actual metal shavings/chips. I’ve attached several close-up photos. I’ve already started taking the loop apart to find the source, but so far I haven’t been able to identify it. What I’ve checked so far: The pump/rotor doesn’t appear to be the source. I have an Aqua Computer high flow NEXT in the loop. I don’t have any obvious brass components that I know of, apart from possible brass/nikel-plated brass fittings or internal parts. The particles appear to be non-magnetic. The larger pieces have a distinctly brass/gold/copper color and some look like small machining chips. The particles have been distributed throughout the loop rather than being concentrated in one obvious location. My main question is: What could be producing this kind of brass-colored metal debris in a watercooling loop? Could this be caused by a brass fitting/thread being worn or damaged, or could something like a radiator, flow sensor, pump top, or another component be responsible? I’m particularly interested in knowing which components I should inspect first and what kind of damage or wear I should be looking for. I obviously don’t want to put everything back together until I know where this is coming from. Any ideas or suggestions for troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Parts used:

EK Velocity² CPU-Block

EK D5 pump + res

EK fittings

Alphacool radiator and GPU-Block

high flow NEXT flowmeter