3D Vision Blog

A few weeks ago I had the good idea to upgrade my 3D test PC with water cooling, because the summer was coming and the temperatures were starting to rise. And anyone with a high-end video card knows that with high ambient temperatures and heavy load because of playing demanding games, especially in stereo 3D mode. And unfortunately the high temperatures come with more noise coming from the air cooling, so going to water to get better cooling and quiet computer seems like a good idea, don’t you think?

And because the original idea was just to add water cooling for the CPU and the GPU, I started with looking for a good external unit that has the water pump, cooling radiator and the fans outside of the case. The reason for that being that the Chieftec case I had did not have a lot of space inside for installing a bigger radiator (just one 120mm on the back and that is just not enough). I was researching different solutions, including passive convection radiators, water towers etc, and the final decision was to go for Koolance’s external Exos unit – the 2.5 model that has triple 120mm fans and a 3×120 radiator. The idea with that was to get the unit run at reduced capabilities to achieve silent operation while at the same time to have more than enough cooling power to keep the hardware at low temperatures even after long hours of maximum load. Another important reason for choosing that was external water cooling unit was because its size was just about the same as the top of the Chieftec case I used, so the combination seemed just perfect, making the whole computer still quite compact and easy to move, unlike with some other external water cooling solutions I’ve seen.

Of course the Koolance Exos 2.5 unit contained all the external parts for the water cooling system – the fans, radiator, pump and reservoir, but the rest in the form of fittings, water blocks and tubing needed to be decided on as it is completely custom. So I’ve ordered all the needed parts and started building the water cooling upgrade, but somewhere during that process I’ve also decided to go for building a second high-end system with a completely custom water cooling solution starting by choosing a nice and big enough case, but the worklog for that will come after finishing with this one.

So the ATI/AMD-based 3D test computer was ready to finally get the more serious attention that it needed for quite some time, and the water cooling upgrade was just an excuse to do that. And so the that was the general idea upfront, but meanwhile the things did not turn out quite as good as expected…

Here is how the finished setup looks like, ready for the stage when the PC is powered up for a first time with the new water cooling installed and ready for some tests to be done, so that the effectiveness of the cooling can be judged.

And here are the end results after installing the new water cooling – much cooler operation temperatures even under heavy load and somewhat more silent operation of the computer because of the water cooling, or that is what you should normally expect to get. After a bit more than 1 hour of running OCCT and Furmark with heavy settings and creating a high load on the CPU and the GPU the temperatures go like this: around 41 degrees Celsius for the CPU and average of 45-46 degrees Celsius for each of the GPUs on the video card. Of course this is on their default frequencies, so there is some room for good overclocking of the system, but that I’ve left for a bit later time since I had a second computer to build from the scratch and this second system was much more complicated to plan and build and you’ll soon be able to see why.

The idea for this computer is to now go as a dedicated solution for testing with the iZ3D solution with their 3D monitor, and the Nvidia video card that was a second option inside the Chieftec case is now gone. Instead I built a new computer that is dedicated to testing with 3D Vision and Fermi, but more about that will be available very soon. So back to the AMD/ATI system – this is just the very short idea about the project, there is much more detailed one with a lot of photos and more information of the build process and how things turned out at the end and if you are interested in that you can take a look at the link below to the topic of the forum where all the details are published ;)

- Upgrading my 3D Test PC with Koolance Exos 2.5 Water Cooling – Detailed Worklog…

Ever since I’ve got the iZ3D Monitor I’ve had a weird issue with it, strange darker spots around the screen that were making the image look a bit strange, but did not influence the normal operation of the monitor. I immediately suspected that they are caused by dust, but unfortunately cleaning the front part of the screen did not help at all, so this meant that the issue was a bit more serious. Now the normal thing to do here is to return the monitor and get a replacement, taking advantage of the warranty, but if you got the monitor from USA in Europe like in my case, then this is not so easy as you may think. And since I rarely go with the normal way of doing things, backed up by extensive background of things I’ve done that normal people even don’t consider doing I decided to take apart the display and deal with the problem myself…

As I suspected the darker spots were caused by either dust or more likely something that went inside the LCD panel and turned out to be stuck on the frontmost light polarization filter. Trying to wipe it out with a microfiber cloth did not help in removing the spots, but adding some water did the job just fine in removing the stains from the filter. Here of course you should be extra careful should you decide to clean the polarizing filter as you can easily scratch it or get dust particles stuck to it that will later on look like dark spots or even like dead pixels.

Removing the light polarizing filter, cleaning it and returning it back brought back the iZ3D Monitor to a state just like it should be when new. Just a reminder that performing this fix should not be your first idea if you happen to have the same issue, unless of course your warranty is over as opening the display will will void any warranty left. And opening it and trying to fix it is completely at your own risk, if you are not confident enough that you can do it you better not attempt anything…

I suppose that the reason for the whole problem was due to the fact that the monitor was produced in 2007 and has been sitting and waiting for near 3 years before actually being turned on and used since it has been produced. And that time is more than enough to get some dust or other substance accumulated on the polarization filter, as this is not a problem you can easily replicate because of being quite specific. With my weird luck it is no wonder it has happened to me, but fortunately I’m quite capable of fixing issues like this even on my own without any problems… for everyone else there is warranty ;)

Neil Schneider from MTBS finishes the history lesson about stereoscopic 3D gaming with the last two episodes of the series available in stereo 3D on YouTube 3D, so if you’ve been following the series you’ll find the last two episodes also quite informative and interesting…

In Part V Neil talks about modern console gaming in 3D and how it all got started. The video also features a lot of 3D game footage. Of course Focused on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, along with some of the game titles for them that have support for stereo 3D gaming like Avatar The Game and Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao.

In the final Part VI of the series Neil talks about the leading challenges that have and continue to face 3D gaming. More about how the idea about MTBS started and where the website is nowadays. He also talks about the leading initiatives to make 3D gaming a long term success like S3DGA.

- And don’t forget to visit MTBS if you haven’t done so yet…