Brace yourselves, project: "winter is coming"

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Hi there!

 

My name is Gerd and it is the first time I participate in a case mod competition at all. I am not totally new to the topic as I worked as a computer technician and assembled lots of standard builts.

 

There are 2 causes why I decided to make a mod for the Cooler Master Case Mod world series 2016:

 

• After almost 10 years (!!) my mainboard, an Asus Maximus Formula SE, quit its job a month ago and forced me to react. Back then in the end of 2006 I made a watercool built with an Asus EN7950 GT SLI system and an Intel E6600. To house this built there was just one right decision: The Cooler Master Stacker 830. In the last years some of the parts were changed, but the case is still like I bought it. Now I will honor this majestic high airflow case with a cool silent-oriented mod and hope it will house my components for another 10 years again.

 

• An idea of a mindblowing mod: I am really into the series game of thrones! For about 3 months now, I think of a cool mod regarding the north, their gods and the house Stark. In my own perception I did work out a thousand of sketches until I found the right one. I hope I can manufactur it like I have it in mind.

 

What can you expect? This answer is easy Snow, blood & direwolves

 

Current components:

• Cooler Master Stacker 830 black
• Asus Maximus VIII Hero (hopefully it is as long-living as the Maximus formula SE )
• Intel i7 6700K
• G.SKILL 16GB (2x8GB) F4-3200C15D-16GVK
• Aquacomputer Aquastream Ultimate
• Aquacomputer HighFlow Sensor
• LIAN LI I/O-Panel (PW-IN20AH50T0)
• Lots of EKWB fittings, tubes and the breathtaking EK-FB Asus M8G water block
• thermal grizzly Kryonaut thermal grease
• MDPC-X Sleeves

 

Notes:

• If you look closely there is no GPU listed. Well, I hoped that Pascal was launched earlier this year. As it will be available in a few months I decided to spend the "GPU"-money in more future-oriented components listed above. Hopefully I have enough savings until it is launched and I will be able to afford it then. In the meantime I will use an Asus Strix-GTX 750 Ti OC. The only backdraw is, that the design is thought of highlighting the waterblock of- & the graphics card. Even if the series ends, I hope I can update the pictures in the future, to show you how it should have been.
• Radiators are also not listed above. I have two 360 and one 240 radiator of a previouse built. If it works, I will just paint and use the two 360, if not, one 360 and the 240 will be chosen. As I bought them years ago I have no idea who the manufacturer is.

 

This is the first picture of my old (broken) system and some new parts:

 

 

 

Closing words for now:

 

I hope you are as excited about the mod as I am

 

Special thanks to telequest & Internet Solutions GmbH, a broker of international service numbers, for supporting me with some hardware parts.

 

Special thanks to Büchsenmachermeister Peter Ebenberger, a local gunsmith, who invited me to manufacture this mod in their studio and will give me all tools I need.

 

 

Greetings from Austria & brace yourselves, winter is coming!

 

Gerd

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Hi again guys!

 

To build my mod I have holidays in about two weeks form now on. As the studio I am allowed to build in, is approximately 250km away I just can prepare some parts and rework my sketches.

 

Today I mounted CPU, RAM and waterblock on the hero viii. Below you have some pictures of it. Regarding the sword: Yes, I bought a little version of longclaw and it will play an important role in my mod

 

 

I also started sleeving some of the psu cables. Even with the MDPC Molex remover three cable didn't want to move. So I have to think of another solution. I will show it to you when it is like i thought off

 

To make this board fit the got snow theme, I think of a paintjob for the plastic cover part. What do you think?

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Hi fellows,

 

today I had time to sleeve the PSU. It is the first PSU I have ever sleeved and it worked better than I thought of. 

 

 

Today I have to thank the ASUS Promotion Team! After I didn't think of a positive answer anymore, I got an e-mail, that I will get back some money from the cash-back promotion.

 

I also have to thank Fabian from procooling.de. Procooling also sells via Amazon marketplace. There have been false images and descriptions at some products. So I received an e-mail, that made me aware of the bug. Fabian also asked me if I wanted any changes in my order. As I would have bought false products, I answered directly what I would need and procooling didn't charge any additional cost's for the changed basket. I am very pleased with this

 

Next week I will be in the studio and then you will see the modding work at my stacker and the liquid cooling system Stay tuned and "brace yourself, winter is coming!"

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Hello again

 

I am sorry, that it took me so long for the update. I was the whole last week in the studio of gunsmith (Büchsenmachermeister) Ebenberger to build the mod and I could achieve a lot of progress. In the following posts, you will see some of the parts and their way of creation . Before you see the pictures, there is a short story:

 

The studio belonged to my grandfather. He was a high class gunsmith and developer. I literally spent my whole childhood around him and in his studio, which includes also a retail shop for guns / rifles, ammunition and anything you can think off. He was like a father to me. When he passed away due to cancer last year, it was the darkest time I've ever had up to now and hopely will ever have. Now my uncle, who is a gunsmith too, moved back home and gladly carries on the tradition and preserves the memory to my grandfather. I tell you this story, because my girlfriend said something, I didn't realized when I took the fotos. "Gerd, there are guns on every second picture...". I grew up there, so it was like normal to me and it doesn't bothers me. I hope you can fade it out and focus on my build

 

First of all, there was the plain tower (without sidepanels).

Now 3 Pictures of the case without sidepanels and without the slide for the mainboard:

 

 

 

 

For the mod I was going to build, I had to exclude a lot of the aluminium parts.

Next I enlarged the void in the top:

Then I had to decide if I want to use 2x 360 radiator or one 360 and one 280. When I tried to fit the bottom 360 radiator in the case, there was too less place for the water pump. So I had to go with the smaller one in the bottom.

As I get rid of the slide for the mobo I placed an acryl board on the back. For fitting in the mainboard, I also had to work some material off it. Thank god, we have a molding.

When I finished this, it was kind of late. I decided to do a fast paint job and go to bed. First I painted it with primer:

Then I colored it snow white. Funny thing was, that In the night it looked so damn like this old bleached computer parts. Not white, not light grey ... - just like a bit light yellow. I was totally frustrated. But then I took this fotos and they looked damn nice. Really bright & snow white! I guess, I was just very tired, that I couldn't see the right colors anymore ^^

New day. It was a sunny morning - best time to drive to my grandparents, now only grandma's, home to use the second garage / studio with some big machines to cut and treat wood. As acryl is not that hard, I decided to cut it there.

This morning I worked on some of the coolest parts of my new mod: The fluid reservoir. I told you that I will do a GoT theme, especially a northern one. My reservoir will be an ode to the weirwood trees.

I hope you enjoy the following fotos:

When I finished cutting the boards, I went back to the studio to finish the reservoir:

Following I took the 2 boards of the middle and worked off the material in the middle with the mill.

Following all plates where glued together.

Finally the test, if it is waterproove - it worked

Finally the finished weirwood tree - reservoir

 

 

New Updates will be revealed soon

- So far: Brace yourselves, Mod "winter, is coming"

[Gerd Markus Egger]

The next part was the fixation for the mainboard. Therefore I have an acryl backplate, which is fixed in the rear acryl board of the case.

Afterwards I made the recess for the psu. This is what the case looked like then (without sidepanels):

Following I made one of the most stunning things of the build. A middle partition, which will be used for transporting water and will be enlighted from the back.

The bottom board of it:

Partition from above with the fittings:

Well... while working hard I drilled into my own finger... Looks like nothing - didn't hurt, but bleeded for almost 5 minutes.

Stay tuned - future update soon

[Gerd Markus Egger]

New day - new update

In this post you will see some of the bending of acryl. First off all.. I couldn't find any heatgun in the studio, but there was a braze which is used to solder barrels.

It was just a balance act between - to cold and a second later too hot, but it worked out well

acryl window for the top:

When this was done, I started building the inside. In the meantime I agglutinated the boards of the partition and cutted g1/4 threads for the fittings into it. For the partition I had something speacial in mind, which worked out better than intended. The partition should represent the cold ice of the north, like a frozen lake which is cranked by red blood lines. As you might know, if a lake freezes, it is not transparent at all. There are airbubbles under the surface and the ice crushes, while freezing. You will see it in later pictures, I could achieve this effekt! - Even if the bottom board has little fissures in the channels, it is still dense.

Then I started bending the EK WB EK-HD tubes. I really tried keeping my mouth shut while doing it, but it always opened when I focused on neither burning the material nor me. I had to turn it 360 degree in 1 to max. 2 seconds to get the right temperature. I burned my fingers only a few times, but I learned very fast. *g* I invite you to lough now

After finished all bending work, I assembled the tubes in the case. This is what it looked then:

Hitting the night again, I decided to drive back to Graz, the city where I study and finish the rest here. This was the status then:

Back to Graz I started to test the denseness, but this will be the next post

Be prepared for more of the "winter is coming" built

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Back to Graz, I couldn't wait for testing the desneness.

This is what it looked like:



On the next picture, you see those "bubbles" which quiet looks like the bubbles in real ice



A real frozen lake looks like that (google image):



This is the look through the top glass. As I mentioned in a post before, I cracked the bottom glass, to get this "crackle" look in the channels, like if the ice was real.



This is the first test with the real coolant:



After the denseness-test worked well, I installed Windows 10, all drivers and startet the automatic 5 Way Optimization of Asus. The clockspeed hits 5000 Mhz, but wasn't stable. I achieve 4900 Mhz stable now, without finetuning, which will be done in the near future.



Today I also mounted the acrylic glass on the side panels. It will take till tomorrow, until it I can mount the side panel with the glass the first time:



While doing the tests in Windows, I saw, that the High flow - Meter doesn't work at all. Next week, I will have a closer look at this part. Until now, the internal flow meter tells me, I have 60 to 180 Liter / Hour with 0,3 mbar and a speed of 3500-5000.

From now on, there are only a few things to do:
 

• Have a look on the Flow Meter
• Paintjob for 6 more parts
• Work on a nice cable management
• Build in the painted parts
• Mount the new USB 3.1 Panel
• Sleeve the cables of the new USB 3.1 panel
• Sleeve the cables for Power and Reset
• Place 2nd LED Strip to the partition for a better light transmission
• Remove the secure film from some acryl glass
• Order a 1080 gtx ... Asus prefered, but will take one, where the EK WB cooler will be able to be installed

 

So far, Stay tuned - I hope you enjoy the posts & "Brace yourselves, winter is coming!"

[Gerd Markus Egger]

Hello fellows

As I am still working off the bulletpoints above, there are some pictures.

Today I received the 2nd LED - Strip for the Partition-Front. Thanks to caseking.de that they delivered that fast!

I also had time to do some paintjobs, just check it out now.

What do you think of the Mod so far?

Greets from Austria!

[Gerd Markus Egger]

*update*

this weekend I finished the side panels:

what I didn't imagine was how cool the back would look like

From now on there is just a last paintjob missing

[Gerd Markus Egger]

last update:

today I achieved to make the last pictures I hope you enjoy it!

- This was winter is coming.

When I will be ablte to afford the new grafics card I will show another update with the enlighted watercooler, which can be seen from the top.