WaterCooling thread

E

epicstruggle

Passenger on Serenity
Veteran
Ok, we need a watercooling thread. ;) Seems to come up in alot of different threads.

Lets start out with those who have them and what they can tell us about their experience (what to buy, not to buy, good/bad companies,...).

Hope we get some good posts.

later,
epic
 
Im looking at getting a wc system together for my new pc, which ill put together in the following few months. I assume these are the basic items needed:
resevoir (not required I know)
radiator (and fan, if not passively cooled)
tubing
water additive (cooling solution)
pump
water block(s) (cpu, chipset, graphics card, hard drive,...)

So what are you guys/gals using and can recommend. I really like the tank-o-matic as a resevoir (http://www.innovatek.de/sites/tankomatic.htm).

later,
epic
 
I know a person from canda that makes very good blocks .I use one and get very very good temps. THey are pricy at 75 for the block but very well made and have not had a problem with them yet.


As for a pump. I've used the mag drive pumps but they are to nosiy . I like the hydo l30 at dangerden.com . I also have the 3.5 bay drive res from there.

I use a black ice extreme . I don't care for it and i will prob move to a heater core in the future .

As for tubing i got the stuff from home depot . It works well enough. Some people swear by tygon . I don't see a diffrence except price.

Um water additive . Most use water wetter . I just use anti freeze . I don't see a diffrence either .


As for gpu blocks and hardrive blocks I don't really use them . I would get a zalaman or another silent gpu cooler instead. As unless you go dual pumps and dual rads there will just be added heat into the system which would require louder fans .

I'm trying to get my pc as silent as possible.
 
If you have the money buy the case haha . I have an antec case that i had to cut into . Its a pain in the ass .


A heater core is from a car . Those are a nice size as they fit in most pcs .

Basicly a heater core is a radiator . The water goes through it and the air from the fans pass over the fins to cool the water .

I'm told the heater cores are better than black ice line and cheaper. I have only used black ice and I'm thinking of moving to the heatercores .

I'm told air passes through easier and thus cooling is better .
 
First of all, sorry for the crappy pics, couldn't take any better from my 7250i.

09.jpg

Overview of the case, Lian Li pc6089. I know its a big mess, but feel free to try it yourself. Watercooling, 3hd's and cdrom in a miditower. :)
This is a better pic, but that was taken before i cleaned my case. ;)


10.jpg

Little reservoir at the back, the top can be removed for easy filling. A reservoir is not needed, only for easier filling.


11.jpg

Not very clear, but this shoud be the dual 120mm rad. Attached to the rad are 2x Papst 4412 F/2GML 120mm fans.


12.jpg

This is the waterblock i'm using at the moment. Its a Maze 2 from Dangerden. Below you can see the little Zalmann heatsink, on top a 40mm fan. If you really want high fsb's, then watercool the northbridge. However, I have no problems reaching 220fsb.


13.jpg

This is the Vga cooling block, bought at Lownoise.de. Aircooled the core of my Ti4400 reached 305Mhz, now 335Mhz ( Default voltage on the core ).


The total cost of this was about 200€/$320, the most expensive were the radiator ( 80€/$132 ) and the Papst fans ( 25€/$41 each )

The loudest part of my rig is the 60Gig Western Digital hd, when that one is empty, i'll take it out. In the front of the case are 2x 80mm fans, at the rear a 80mm, on top a 80mm. Also in the front, 3x 40mm fans for outtake. All fans are running at 5V or 7V. The temps of this setup are good imo, 10°C above room temperature. ( 2000+ Dut3c at 2300Mhz/ 1.9V ) The measured temperature readout is 15°C cpu and 10°C case, you have got to love Abit. :)

The pump is a el cheapo Hydor one, 300l/h. More is overkill and less silent imo.

I would really recommend Dangerden for waterblocks. Just dont buy a aluminium block. Some blocks are attached using the socket clips ( The same as aircooling ), that ones are easier to install.

For radiator, I've heard very bad thing about the Black Ice Pro, when you attach the fans, there isn't enough space left for easy install. Mine is a heattransformer, there is about 1cm of place between the fans.

For tubing, the average one you can find in the DIY stores will do fine.



Feel free to ask more questions. :)
 
AAlcHemY, great post. Quick questions:
-is that the tank-o-matic at the back? Some people say the edges have a tendicy to crack, have you noticed anything?
-How loud is your computer now? How far away are you when you cant hear it anymore.
-how loud is your pump?

thanks
epic
 
-Its not a Tank-o-Matic, I bought it at a local shop overhere. But his website seems offline now, so I cant say the exact name right now. And I cant see any cracks. :)

-Its not perfect silent, there are to many fans for that. ( Even at a lower voltage ) Lets say from 3m you cant here it anymore.

-The pump is very quiet for its price ( 25€/$40 ), however I have a added a bit oil in the water to make it more silent. Now its perfect silent.

Also, when filling, make sure there are no air bubbles left in the circuit. One tiny air bubble can cause noise.

PS, and no, I dont add any fluoristic colors in the water and neons in my case. I dont like the Teletubbie cases. :)


//Edit, the reservoir is a LiquidIcer one. :)
 
And a little update:

With all the fans on 12V, 50dB. In its current state 30dB ( lower cant be measured with my multimeter ). Both measured 1m from the case.
 
I recently purchased and installed the Asetek Waterchill KT12 kit. I did a lot of research and decided this suited my needs perfectly. This was my first attempt at Watercooling.

Installation was a breeze, the manual was VERY comprehensive and left nothing to the imagination but did take longer than the "hour" I read in a lot of reviews. This was mainly due to having to pull out the motherboard to fit the bracket for the CPU cooler, removing the heatsink from the GPU, measuring and cutting pipes, etc. The fitting for my Radeon 9700Pro went flawlessly but the solution for the northbrigde was not ideal but that was easily fixed with a bit of "engineering". This is not a fault by Asetek because there are no holes in the motherboard to mount a bracket.

The quality of the finishing on the heat sinks was superb and the hose mounts are all class, no messing around with clamps, just push it in firmly and move on :D . The hose is a little inflexible but bends enough as to not be much of a hassle mounting the NB and GPU. It does take up 2 PCI slots on my MB, but the AGP slot is right beside the PCI slots on this MB.

I have a tower case so I had plenty of room to fit the components and there was easily enough tubing to connect it all together.

My only complaint was the fan supplied was somewhat noisy at the 12v setting. I went out and got a Papst 120mm and its barely audible now. The loudest thing in my PC is the HDD's :D :D :D

I used de-mineralised water as that was all I could find, went to the chemist and got some silver tablets used for killing bacteria in drinking water and also used the included Algae inhibitor. Hopefully that will be enough to keep it free from bugs for a few months :D

My rig is a P4 3.0c, 1Gb DDR400 HyperX RAM, Asus P4C800 Deluxe, ATi 9700 Pro, 2x 36Gb raptors (raid 0), DVD burner, etc, .

I was using a copper heatsink with a quite 80mm fan and was getting temps around 55c under load overclocked to 3.15Ghz using the Asus 5% O/C utility in the Bios. I am now running it at 3.3Ghz (10% O/C) and under load on both the CPU ( prime 95 ) and the GPU (3dmark03) the CPU runs at 38c as reported by MBM5. It idles around 28c. Room temps are about 20c.

All in all its a very well put together and well thought out kit and I would recommend it highly. :D
 
My old case...

2.JPG


Was very quiet, all fans were on a baybus, and usually ran at low speed, and virtually silent. Turned them on high when playing games for a long period of time.

To see other pics just play with numbers.
 
thats alot of money to spend.

Remember this is not an aquarium that needs to be cooled to that temp everyonce in awhile. This is an active source of heat.

The cooler will burn out and cost a ton of money.

Money better spent to buy a faster pc .
 
McDusty said:
Although not water cooling, this is an interesting way to solve the heat problem

http://www.savrow.com/site/plutonium.html

"The VapochillXE system cools the unit to below -21C. This ensures that your processor achieves maximum speed and performance."

Basically, its a fridge!
Click to expand...
not quite. (nothing is cooled but the processor, i jsut want to make sure no one thinks it cools the whole case)
it uses the same technology as a freezer/fridge (compressor) but it decompresses the liquid/gas (R404, or whatever freon/gas your particular compressor is charged with) in a block that is directly on the die.
The only thing that is cooled is the processor, really.
Its the ultimate extreme (unless you count cascaded phase change systems, of which there a few homebrews of out there - its where one phase change system is used to cool another, allowing much colder temps)

Anyways, I watercool - using a cheap heatercore, a viaaqua 1300 pump, some tygon tubing, a bayres, and a LRWW block, one of the best on the market. I will be upgrading to the Swiftech MCP600 pump (its a 12 volt pump with very good stats, high head (pressure) rating, which is really important in WC, as blocks are very restrictive, so free flow numbers mean nothing...and the P/Q curve is good. Then i just need to find a second hand cascade (not related to phase change) block, and get a bigger heatercore (my current one is only little bigger than a single 120mm fan, i want one that fits two).
Come to think of it, thats a whole new system, and will just go in my new case that i will be buying for my new athlon 64 system, whenever i feel the urge to upgrade :)
Anyways, good cooling forum: ProCooling
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
  • Locked
Request reopening a thread
Replies
2
Views
749
BRiT
BRiT
S
Discussion about lighting (usage of lighting techniques).
2
Replies
21
Views
1K
Frenetic Pony
F
R
Gaming and gaming hardware trends
2
Replies
23
Views
962
Remij
R
P
AI Desktop Tools - Training and Inferencing
2
Replies
26
Views
2K
pharma
P
Rys
Reopening Architecture and Products + rules and guidelines changes
3 4 5
Replies
90
Views
13K
Shifty Geezer
Shifty Geezer
Back
Top