Discussion
karl said:
tank slapper said:
I am tempted to build something along the lines of this:
[pic snipped]
Fill the whole system with Flourinert a la Cray 2.
[pic snipped]
Fill the whole system with Flourinert a la Cray 2.
Similar principle...
www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
[k]
Crazy high temps with that setup! 80+degrees!
Edited by Altrezia on Monday 14th May 21:52
I remember reading an article in Custom PC, I think it was within their first year to 18 months from launch. In the article a guy had taken the refrigeration unit from a walk in fridge that was no longer being used by his local butchers shop. He had mounted this outside the wall so that it would allow him to drive water through this and back into his PC at the other side of the wall. I'm a bit sketchy on the details, so I'll have a hunt through any back issues I may still have knocking around and see if I can get the article for you or at least a reference to the issue number.
Another innovative cooling approach I've seen is the evaporative tower or "bong cooler" which uses a similar approach to those room cooling devices which blow air through a water soaked mesh or moving wet linen belt.
Basically, you have a long piece of 6" or so diameter pipe with a T-piece at the bottom to create a long main column and a very short branch. The top of the pipe is fitted with a showerhead which goes inside; the bottom of the main column is capped off to form a rudimentary reservoir into which the showerhead discharges; the branch is fitted with a (powerful) fan pushing air into the main column. Essentially, the fan blows cold air upwards, creating an updraft which water from the showerhead falls through. Evaporation occurs, thereby lowering the water temperature, but losing coolant (corrected either by regular top-ups or a toilet-style ball valve connected up to mains water).
IIRC, performance was pretty good, but there were significant drawbacks in that they were quite noisy (waterfall noise plus powerful fans), and made rooms quite humid when used indoors.
[k]
eta - a quick google has re-discovered the article where I first read about these things - www.overclockers.com/articles389/ .
Basically, you have a long piece of 6" or so diameter pipe with a T-piece at the bottom to create a long main column and a very short branch. The top of the pipe is fitted with a showerhead which goes inside; the bottom of the main column is capped off to form a rudimentary reservoir into which the showerhead discharges; the branch is fitted with a (powerful) fan pushing air into the main column. Essentially, the fan blows cold air upwards, creating an updraft which water from the showerhead falls through. Evaporation occurs, thereby lowering the water temperature, but losing coolant (corrected either by regular top-ups or a toilet-style ball valve connected up to mains water).
IIRC, performance was pretty good, but there were significant drawbacks in that they were quite noisy (waterfall noise plus powerful fans), and made rooms quite humid when used indoors.
[k]
eta - a quick google has re-discovered the article where I first read about these things - www.overclockers.com/articles389/ .
Edited by [k]arl on Tuesday 15th May 09:41
nickfrp said:
i did see a set up for a cooled pc running the water to and from the toilet
Edited by nickfrp on Tuesday 15th May 08:11
Genius!
My first idea, being based in wet old Yorkshire was to setup the PC onto my main water (standing charge) and just let it run on some circuit or other... toilet is a good one
I really am still stuck not knowing what to buy. I have my heart set on a nice CM Stacker 830, but I ideally want it all internal (radiators, fans, pump etc), or if I have to have stuff outside the case I want it ALL outside the case and hidden away a bit.
Need to go read some forums where others have watercooled their PC's... anyone have any good links to forums. Best I have is futuremark, but most there appear to not care about noise as much as 20k 3d mark scores
Dave
Here's the Mk2 of Sadako's system, http://sarahhayes.is-a-geek.net/galle
We're currently working on the Mk3 as erm... well.. SATA controller doesn't like SATA2 drives (it's an old VIA chip and known crap).
We're currently working on the Mk3 as erm... well.. SATA controller doesn't like SATA2 drives (it's an old VIA chip and known crap).
Mr Whippy said:
Need to go read some forums where others have watercooled their PC's... anyone have any good links to forums. Best I have is futuremark, but most there appear to not care about noise as much as 20k 3d mark scores
There is an excellent set of forums linked to the HardOCP website - www.hardforum.com - they even have dedicated watercooling and quiet pc forums where you can post. That might be a good place to start.
There's plenty of room to get everything you need into a Stacker - have a look in the case gallery section of the HardForum for some ideas as to potential interior layouts. For an all-in-one passive external solution, a Zalman Reserator 2 would seem to potentially fit the bill, although I personally have no real knowledge of how they perform. For a wholly internal installation, I'd be thinking of something like a 1/2" ID water loop incorporating dual or triple 120mm BIX radiator, a Laing DDC1+ pump with custom top, Swiftech waterblocks for CPU and GPU and a small reservoir or T-line. I'd also retrofit quiet 120mm Papst fans wherever possible (including the rad, PSU and case fans, using adaptors where necessary) and hook them all up to a full 5-12v PWM fan controller. That should give you a pretty quiet PC for day to day tasks, but with the ability to turn up the cooling power when necessary.
[k]
[quote=[k]arl]
There is an excellent set of forums linked to the HardOCP website - www.hardforum.com - they even have dedicated watercooling and quiet pc forums where you can post. That might be a good place to start.
There's plenty of room to get everything you need into a Stacker - have a look in the case gallery section of the HardForum for some ideas as to potential interior layouts. For an all-in-one passive external solution, a Zalman Reserator 2 would seem to potentially fit the bill, although I personally have no real knowledge of how they perform. For a wholly internal installation, I'd be thinking of something like a 1/2" ID water loop incorporating dual or triple 120mm BIX radiator, a Laing DDC1+ pump with custom top, Swiftech waterblocks for CPU and GPU and a small reservoir or T-line. I'd also retrofit quiet 120mm Papst fans wherever possible (including the rad, PSU and case fans, using adaptors where necessary) and hook them all up to a full 5-12v PWM fan controller. That should give you a pretty quiet PC for day to day tasks, but with the ability to turn up the cooling power when necessary.
[k]
[/quote]
I think RobGTO has one of those Zalman reserators. He does 3d rendering on that system and all seemed good with it when I visited last year. A good solution if you have the room for it.
Mr Whippy said:
Need to go read some forums where others have watercooled their PC's... anyone have any good links to forums. Best I have is futuremark, but most there appear to not care about noise as much as 20k 3d mark scores
There is an excellent set of forums linked to the HardOCP website - www.hardforum.com - they even have dedicated watercooling and quiet pc forums where you can post. That might be a good place to start.
There's plenty of room to get everything you need into a Stacker - have a look in the case gallery section of the HardForum for some ideas as to potential interior layouts. For an all-in-one passive external solution, a Zalman Reserator 2 would seem to potentially fit the bill, although I personally have no real knowledge of how they perform. For a wholly internal installation, I'd be thinking of something like a 1/2" ID water loop incorporating dual or triple 120mm BIX radiator, a Laing DDC1+ pump with custom top, Swiftech waterblocks for CPU and GPU and a small reservoir or T-line. I'd also retrofit quiet 120mm Papst fans wherever possible (including the rad, PSU and case fans, using adaptors where necessary) and hook them all up to a full 5-12v PWM fan controller. That should give you a pretty quiet PC for day to day tasks, but with the ability to turn up the cooling power when necessary.
[k]
[/quote]
I think RobGTO has one of those Zalman reserators. He does 3d rendering on that system and all seemed good with it when I visited last year. A good solution if you have the room for it.
Hahaha, I'm swinging to air and then back to water every other day
Just trying to figure out how I can set it up in a CM Stacker 830... It would have been nice if the top panel had a 2 x 120mm opening so then you could top mount a twin radiator with two 120mm fans, but it only appears to be a single 120mm opening
Can't really mount the rad at the back anywhere, and the front top bays will be full, so I guess it leaves the lower 2 x 120mm panels for a rad, but then I've got warm air in the case
Was thinking 2 x 2 x 120mm rads on the door panel would be good, with the quad 120mm fans blowing out through the rads and the mesh to atmosphere, and then have two 120mm fans in the front dragging air in... not sure how quiet that would be though, and it could get expensive...
Also thinking I might just go air cooled with a decent fan controller, try get all 120mm fans (not sure what to do with the GFX, might get a single water rad and front mount that with a 120mm fan, and dip a toe into water cooling that way) and then spend the money saved on a G25 wheel
Decisions decisions! My geeky mate who knows more than me (lives on Futuremark forums) is on his Honeymoon, so he'll probably tell me geeky things when he gets back
Dave
Just trying to figure out how I can set it up in a CM Stacker 830... It would have been nice if the top panel had a 2 x 120mm opening so then you could top mount a twin radiator with two 120mm fans, but it only appears to be a single 120mm opening
Can't really mount the rad at the back anywhere, and the front top bays will be full, so I guess it leaves the lower 2 x 120mm panels for a rad, but then I've got warm air in the case
Was thinking 2 x 2 x 120mm rads on the door panel would be good, with the quad 120mm fans blowing out through the rads and the mesh to atmosphere, and then have two 120mm fans in the front dragging air in... not sure how quiet that would be though, and it could get expensive...
Also thinking I might just go air cooled with a decent fan controller, try get all 120mm fans (not sure what to do with the GFX, might get a single water rad and front mount that with a 120mm fan, and dip a toe into water cooling that way) and then spend the money saved on a G25 wheel
Decisions decisions! My geeky mate who knows more than me (lives on Futuremark forums) is on his Honeymoon, so he'll probably tell me geeky things when he gets back
Dave
Here is an example Stacker 830 watercooling installation...
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t
...although I don't like the warm radiator exhaust blowing onto the mobo and vga heatsinks. I think I would prefer to mount it to the front half of the 4x120mm panel if it's strong enough and there's room, or alternatively fashion a duct out of plexi or corrugated tubing to exhaust air from a front-mounted dual radiator through the front half of the 4x120mm panel.
An additional brainfart - so long as you have a sufficiently powerful pump to overcome the additional restriction, there's nothing to stop you having a series of single 120mm rads...
[k]
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t
...although I don't like the warm radiator exhaust blowing onto the mobo and vga heatsinks. I think I would prefer to mount it to the front half of the 4x120mm panel if it's strong enough and there's room, or alternatively fashion a duct out of plexi or corrugated tubing to exhaust air from a front-mounted dual radiator through the front half of the 4x120mm panel.
An additional brainfart - so long as you have a sufficiently powerful pump to overcome the additional restriction, there's nothing to stop you having a series of single 120mm rads...
[k]
I water cooled my PC about a year ago in search of a quieter life - MESH SLI systems are great performers but by god they are noisy.
I forked out just under £200 for all the bits I used, purchased from here: www.alphacool.de/index.php?lang=en They will sell you a full kit ready plumbed including a case, or all the heatsinks, connectors, pipes and pumps you could ever need. I bought a kit, but added on a second GFX card cooler as I have two cards in my system. Alphacool was, when I was looking, by far the cheapest.
It's not the prettiest install in the world but I don't care I had to split the cold water feed into two, one which runs through the two graphics cards in series, and another which runs through the CPU and northbridge in series, before they recombine into the outlet which runs into the radiator:
Dremel is very useful, I had to cut a hole in the back of my case to allow the warm water outlet into the radiator which I mounted on top of the case. The cold water outlet from the radiator just goes through an empty PCI slot at the bottom.
When all closed up it looks like this:
Note that the system still retains two 12cm fans, one inside the case and one on the radiator. I actually think I could dispense with the radiator fan but since I still have a powersupply fan which is much louder than all the others, I can't be bothered.
In hindsight I should have replaced the power supply at the same time, ho hum. I'm now speccing up a new PC which I am going to build with quiet fans and components to see if I can avoid porting the entire watercooling setup.
Edit to add - it's a 240v pump which is not switched, so I run it off one of those 6 gang plugs with a master socket that powers on/off all the slave sockets.
Temps never get much above 30 degrees even when gaming.
I forked out just under £200 for all the bits I used, purchased from here: www.alphacool.de/index.php?lang=en They will sell you a full kit ready plumbed including a case, or all the heatsinks, connectors, pipes and pumps you could ever need. I bought a kit, but added on a second GFX card cooler as I have two cards in my system. Alphacool was, when I was looking, by far the cheapest.
It's not the prettiest install in the world but I don't care I had to split the cold water feed into two, one which runs through the two graphics cards in series, and another which runs through the CPU and northbridge in series, before they recombine into the outlet which runs into the radiator:
Dremel is very useful, I had to cut a hole in the back of my case to allow the warm water outlet into the radiator which I mounted on top of the case. The cold water outlet from the radiator just goes through an empty PCI slot at the bottom.
When all closed up it looks like this:
Note that the system still retains two 12cm fans, one inside the case and one on the radiator. I actually think I could dispense with the radiator fan but since I still have a powersupply fan which is much louder than all the others, I can't be bothered.
In hindsight I should have replaced the power supply at the same time, ho hum. I'm now speccing up a new PC which I am going to build with quiet fans and components to see if I can avoid porting the entire watercooling setup.
Edit to add - it's a 240v pump which is not switched, so I run it off one of those 6 gang plugs with a master socket that powers on/off all the slave sockets.
Temps never get much above 30 degrees even when gaming.
Edited by _dobbo_ on Wednesday 16th May 15:30
As promised, sorry for the delay, somehow a hair managed to get into the lens assembly in my camera! Its still there but after blowing, compressed air, a hoover and lots of shaking and banging its not as bad, just going to hope it dislodges itself.
Anyway, heres my setup, twin radiator, sli graphics and cpu cooled with flow meter, main reservoir at top and mini reservoir in the front.
g33k pr0n at its best, hehe.
Cheers
Tom
Anyway, heres my setup, twin radiator, sli graphics and cpu cooled with flow meter, main reservoir at top and mini reservoir in the front.
g33k pr0n at its best, hehe.
Cheers
Tom
Ah so your rad there is over the rear exit of the case with a 120mm fan, do they mount properly, as in the rads are tapped as if they were a fan for fitting, so a rad goes wherever a 120mm fan would? Would make sense but I don't actually know if thats right
Looks pretty mental in there
, are leaks ever an issue?
I guess with the Stacker 830 I could have one rad on the roof vent and one over the back one, so two 120mm rads and a small pump, and lots of room for a reservoir...
I wouldn't be bothering with HDD cooling etc, probably just GFX and CPU, and just maybe have another 120mm case fan drawing in cool air for passive mobo heatsinks etc, afterall with all the main heat being taken to the water rads it'd probably be pretty cool in there anyway.
So whats the best buy for an C2D water block, an Nvidia 9 series water block, a quiet as possible pump and the associated 2 x 120mm rads and pipes gonna set me back? Not sure on what 120mm fans to get but getting one or two with the case as standard I'd probably just get two quiet ones for the rads and a controller for all of them. (PSU will be 1 x 120mm fan too if I can help it!)
Dave
Looks pretty mental in there
, are leaks ever an issue? I guess with the Stacker 830 I could have one rad on the roof vent and one over the back one, so two 120mm rads and a small pump, and lots of room for a reservoir...
I wouldn't be bothering with HDD cooling etc, probably just GFX and CPU, and just maybe have another 120mm case fan drawing in cool air for passive mobo heatsinks etc, afterall with all the main heat being taken to the water rads it'd probably be pretty cool in there anyway.
So whats the best buy for an C2D water block, an Nvidia 9 series water block, a quiet as possible pump and the associated 2 x 120mm rads and pipes gonna set me back? Not sure on what 120mm fans to get but getting one or two with the case as standard I'd probably just get two quiet ones for the rads and a controller for all of them. (PSU will be 1 x 120mm fan too if I can help it!)
Dave
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