Readers Drives - Project Violet

Posted at: Monday 30th March 2009 by Ben Lipscombe

Ben Lipscombe needed to update his PC to play the latest games, but what started as a simple graphics card upgrade became a much bigger project.

I realised my PC was in need of an upgrade last year, as my old ATI Radeon X800 Pro and dual-core AMD Athlon 64 were clearly reaching their limits. I'd attempted to improve their performance by overclocking the components but this didn't make enough of a difference. I decided to switch to water cooling, as I knew it would give me more scope to increase the CPU frequency; I was also intrigued by the visual appearance of the liquid-cooled PCs I'd seen in Custom PC. As I would eventually have to upgrade my CPU and motherboard, I spent a lot of time choosing water-cooling components that could be easily transferred to a new PC.

After I'd attached the water-cooling equipment, including a D-Tek Fusion water-cooling block to my trusty old AMD CPU, I had greater success overclocking it. I also added a set of ultraviolet cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) to help the PC stand out. At this point, I had lots of ideas about how I wanted my PC to look, and it became apparent that I'd need a new case if I wanted to squeeze in all my planned upgrades. I decided to use a Cooler Master Stacker 830, as it's very large and strong enough to hold plenty of PC hardware. I managed to find one for only £80, which is substantially less than its usual retail price.

The extra space in the chassis gave me even more ideas about how I could install additional water-cooling and lighting kit. I'd decided to forget about building a conventional PC, and planned instead to customise it as much as I could. However, as this was my only PC and I needed it for everyday use, I added each upgrade individually, to minimise the time I would be without a computer.

The new PC is based around an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 CPU, with an Asus P5K Pro motherboard and a Zotac GeForce 9800GTX+. I decided to use two separate water-cooling loops, one to cool the CPU and Northbridge, and the other to take on the MOSFETs on the motherboard and my new memory - two sticks of OCZ Flex DDR2, which have integrated support for water cooling.

It was at this point that I ran into my first problem, as the memory required 6mm tubing, which I couldn't easily find in the shops. A few days later, I discovered that a local hydraulics specialist could supply the parts I needed, so the project continued unhindered.

With the new components and the first water-cooling loop installed in the case, I had only to finish off the second loop before the PC would be in a working condition. Unfortunately, while trimming the tubing, I forgot the simple rule that you should always cut away from yourself when using a Stanley knife, and accidentally cut my thumb. My project was halted, as I had to be rushed to A&E for stitching and bandaging. However, even though my thumb was throbbing, I was more worried about how I was going to finish the PC with only one hand than I was about my injury.

When I returned, complete with a well-bandaged thumb, I went right back to work on completing the computer. My partner wasn't happy with the idea of me fiddling with PC hardware involving water and electrics while I could only use one hand, so as soon as the PC was able to POST, I decided to spend time setting up the software and adjusting the BIOS, and leave making any more changes to the hardware until my thumb had healed.