Computers Water Cooling!

I took the plunge today and ordered a ton of water cooling equipment. It should get here in a few days and I'll see if I picked everything out carefully enough, and if it all fits together. Spent 3 days reading about the different options, 3 days which could have been spent doing who knows what else.

I went with CPU, GPU and chipset waterblocks from Asetek. I got their Antarctica CPU block. It's a bit of a rip off of the White Water (like Danger Den's RBX) and as such performs very well. I was sold on it because it has mounts that let it be usedfor Pentiums, Athlons (My current chip) and Athlon 64s (my likely next chip).

Their GPU block was nice because it also supports my now somewhat aged geForce3. Other newer blocks say nothing about whether they do or not. Chipset block came from them too just for the heck of it.

I got an Hydor L30 pump. This is an aquarium pump, meant to run for years (to keep your fish alive). It runs on 110 (or 220) AC power, so cannot simply be plugged into the computers power supply unit. More on that later.

I thought about getting a Swiftech DC pump that could be plugged into the PSU, but it was made of aluminum. Having both copper and aluminum elements in the water stream (even when they aren't touching) can lead to galvanic corrosion as water strips material from one and deposits it on the other. No Swiftech blocks then (as all blocks use copper for the base plate and Swiftech uses Aluminum for the siding)

For a radiator, I resisted the urge to use one from an old Chevelle and got a Black Ice Extreme from Danger Den. This thing mounts a 120mm fan. I grabbed one that does about 2000 RPM at 29 decibels.. a whisper next to the now discardable screamers from the CPU, GPU and chipset. With this radiator, copper is the only metal that the water touches, which should prevent some corrosion.

I skipped using a reservoir and went with Swiftech's fill and bleed kit, which mounts in a 5 1/4" bay. This will be the topmost point in the system, the easier for getting airbubbles out. The radiator will be at the bottom, so air doesn't get trapped in there, which can accelerate corrosion.

It is all connected with 3/8" ID, 1/2" OD Tygon tubing. Would have done 1/2" Inner Diameter, but the Asetek blocks need 1/2" Outer Diameter. Using Clearflex tubing would have saved me some cash as it's about the same for cheaper, but I didn't feel like buying from a fourth site just to get cheaper tubing (none of the three I ordered stuff from had Clearflex )

So, power. I looked at getting a DC to AC power inverter, but discovered that the modified sine wave an affordabe inverter delivers causes pumps to run hotter and die sooner. Plus it seemed ridiculous to convert from AC to DC and back to AC. The pump will gets its power from the wall then (or from the battery backup). What one needs is a way to be sure the pump comes on when the computer does. For this, I got a Criticool power relay. This thing has a switch on the back that lets you toggle the pump between On and On when the computer is on. Nice for testing the water circuit out before flipping all the electronics on.

Throw in some Watter Wetter coolant, some green UV dye (how cliche) and the then necessary UV lights and it's looking good. I also replaced the old IDE ribbons with rounded IDE cables. Serial ATA would have been nice of course (next motherboard), but these are the next best thing. They glow too for the heck of it. New rounded floppy cable too.

The ironic part of it is that all of this will go in a gigantic beige case, the InWin Q500N with no window. Overclockers hate beige cases (see this thread where someone paints his case, which is the same as mine, black). So, rebel that I am, I like the thought of having one with a faint glow coming from within that one will only see after I undo the new thumbscres and pull the side panel off

I now have two fewer available PCI slots.. on is taken by the GPU water block, another by the AC passthrough. Luckily, of the modem, wireless card, and ethernet card, I only will ever need one at any given time.

I also got a (too much) choice of free case badges. Belldandy, Rebel Logo etc were choices, but I went with the obligatory fat penguin. I'll be making one of my own sometime (with my avatar of course)

I'll post some before and after pics sometime.. but for now I can relax and not think about it for a few days

 

What temps you getting with that setup? Looks pretty nice

- Ark

 

I'll have to let you know around Thursday. The stuff is still underway, with UPS tracking saying it will be here around Tuesday. I'm hoping for something a little less than I got with my old heatsink and fan (obviously)

 

Two picsof the work in progress.

One: the old crappy heatsink on my Mobo (removed with its tray from my case)

Two: the new waterblock, not fastened yet but you can see how it fits. Also, a nice side by side comparison showing how my mobo is bigger than the tiny tablet PC I am using to take the pics

 

You should've gone with thermoelectric cooling if you really wanted to cool your computer down. Cheaper than Vapocooling and just as cool (around -10 degree Celsius). You'd have to spend about $100 more (to get a peltier power supply), and instead of getting a normal water block, you'd have to get a peltier block (about the same price), but it's worth it, in my opinion.

By the way, hello. It's my first time on these forums. I'm the resident Win2k freak over at Xbit Labs.

 

I looked at Peltiers, but didn't really want to deal with condensation. Dropping stuff below ambient temperature is just asking for condensation. Naturally there are insulators, and ways to protect against it, but it's one more thing to worry about lol. Phase change cooling has the same problem, though the real drawback is the price (at least $500, prolly more like $600, running up to $800 for systems I looked at)

Also, the cooling doesn't come without a cost. Peltiers use a large amount of power. They also generate a lot of heat on the side away from the chip (both carried from the cool side, and extra Joulian heat), heat I'd still have to carry off with the water. The fans would have to work harder, more noise etc. I'm pretty happy chilling just above ambient temperature with quiet fans

Or I will be, if I ever get off my but and finish the system lol.

Welcome to M2A

 

Peltiers are very inefficient, and have lots of drawbacks to the design.

[edit] And now that you've got it running (you do, right?) get us some temperature readings [/edit]

- Ark

 

Would you believe it isn't running yet? I'm just not in a real rush lol. Finished hooking everything up today (pic attached) and will fill it tomorrow.

I've learned some stuff along the way. The Tygon tubing I got was nice and flexible, and relatively easy to work over the barbs, but it just wasn't stiff enough to shove into the push on fittings of the Asetek blocks. Luckily they came with some Tubclair tubing. That stuff though is near impossible to get over some of the barbed fittings I have. So I am running Tygon from pump -> radiator -> fill and bleed kit. Then Tubclair from Fill and bleed kit -> CPU -> GPU -> halfway to pump, where I switch over to Tygon again.

I opted out of the chipset block, as the old heatsink was glued on. I could have pried it off, but there were no screw holes so I would have had to gloue on the new one and I just didn't feel like it. The old one has worked just fine so far, so I'll just hold onto the block until next time.

All that's left now is hooking up the UV colc cathodes, testing for leaks, and putting in the new rounded IDE cables. And perhaps ordering another rounded floppy cable, as I somehow ended up with a 10 inch one that isn't long enough to reach my floppy drive

 

finally finished it up. Typing on that computer right now

I torture tested it with prime95, leaving the CPU running at 100% for a half hour and the temerature creeped up to 43.5. As soon as I exited prime95, the temp dropped instantly to 40 then slowly kept dropping (see the pic) and idled around 36

I am pretty happy with this. With the old (crappy) aircooler it was at 53 right after turning it on, and I hate to think what it was like under load (never checked it). All in all, decent temps for an Athlon.

There are a few things I can improve too. The 120mm fan is blowing, with the aid of an adapter, out of an 80mm hole. There is also no space between the fan and the radiator, creating a bit of a deadzone in the middle (no fan blades there, just the hub). Adding a shroud in between might help a little, and cutting a 120mm hole in the case would be beneficial as well. Other than that, I gotta give the arctic silver5 a day or so to set. Apparently it needs to have heat applied for a while to reach maximum efficiency.

At glows nicely, there will be a pic or two of that later, taken with my new 3.1 megapixel digital cam (got it for Easter)

 

Here's a pic of it all connected up with fluids n stuff. It was taken while I was still testing for leaks, so there are a few rags lying around (or in) the case that are not there now. Also don't have the IDE cables hooked up yet in the pic. Updated one sometime..

http://www.freewebs.com/mamiyaotaru/IM000004.JPG
(BIG pic)

Maybe need to copy, paste the address into your address bar, not sure how nice freewebs plays with image linking