can someone tell me about water cooling basics

[phigdon]

I am thinking of installing a water-cooling system.

M2A-Vm HDMI AMD 64 X2 5200 1 Gig Kingston 1 Gig OCZ gold DDR2 800 HD 2600XT Optical and CD 2 IDE converted to SATA HDD

I will soon be adding a 600W OCZ gameXstream PSU.

I have never installed or worked with a water-cooling system. Can someone walk me through what to look for in quality, parts, systems and makers, parts that I need and parts that I can do without???

[hitchface]

There are a few more well-versed water cooling gurus in here, but I'll throw in some basic cautions and benefits.

Watter cooling is dang quiet, providing you set it up right. If the radiator is placed in room temperature, it will have the same basic cooling capabilities of air cooling, only without the dust and noise problems. Remember also the problem with leaks. You can fry something if you aren't careful. For this reason, pay close attention to parts recommendations. Full kits offered by the likes of Thermaltake will take your system down, so stay away.

[Cricket]

My feelings on water cooling is this...water and electronics don't really mix well together, why take the chance.

:) Cricket

[HaloAddict19]

I have to agree with Cricket on this one. Watercooling really doesn't really give you that much better cooling that good air cooling but is considerably more expensive, requires a lot more maintainence and the added risk of leaks, which means you have to be that much more careful if you have to move your computer or something. In my opinion watercooling is mostly just for show, it is impractical for most people and the money is better spent on better hardware.

As far as how quiet air and water cooling are, I think you can get dang quiet air cooling very easily. Simply replacing the case fans you have with yate loon/panaflo fans and bring em down to 6 or 7 volts (just enough to get them to start up). Computers don't need as much cooling as lots of enthusiasts use. One exhaust fan in addition to CPU/GPU/PSU fans should be enough for most computers.

[phigdon]

my processor is running at 43C after being on for a couple of days and running games all afternoon. I looked at some contained systems at newegg, concept wise they look interesting and easy to install and maintain. quality wise, does anyone know?

processor

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835103029

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835227001

VGA

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835116017

[hitchface]

I can't speak for the CPU products, but don't get Thermaltake parts.

[Dia]

Heres two sites that really love watercooling and are very helpful www.dangerden.com and xtremesystems.org (overclocking site but they are big into cooling).

Now onto what information I want to pass.

Since your running at 43c you could bring that down with just a nice heatsink (copper base) and change all your fans to the highest CFM (measure how much air is moved by the fan should be listed in the fans specs) rating you can find. They may be a little noisy but id rather have cooling over noise. Also proper wire management is cruical to cooling. Along with the size fans you have and where they are. Also making sure fans and the grills stay free of dirt build up will help with your cooling. Also keeping the room below room temp helps a lot as that the air the keeps your entire system cool.

Now if your looking to overclock and get impressive results its ALMOST needed to get watercooling in the system.

1. Dont buy box watercooling kits. They tend to be a starter entry level type build. They really dont bring temps down too much due to the hardware packed into them. What ends up happening is your temps arent reduced that much and then you end up replacing everything with seperate parts.

2. Always build your own kits. Review number 1.

3. Get awesome fans with high CFM ratings for your radiators. More then one pass rads are better. You want the cooling to stay in there to get cool before it goes back into your loop. You dont want the cooling to just go straight in and out as it will not remove a lot of the heat in the cooling. This is why people buy huge 3 row 120mm radiators that pass the fluid more then once.

4. Choose what kind of loop you want to make. In europe I read they like to do slow cooling systems. This helps to remove the heat off the blocks, the draw back is that you have to make sure your rads cool the coolant enough so when it enters the loop again its not hot. In order to do this they use smaller tubes with smaller inside diameters and pumps that pump slower then american standards of watercooling pumps.

The american version of water cooling consists of larger hoses usually 1/2" inside diameter. This is called high flow. The concept here is to move the coolant fast through the loop. This helps move the heat off the blocks without the coolant getting too hot, in which your rads should help keep the coolant always constantly cool. You need more passes to cool a block then the european way but you dont have the draw back of hot coolant going back into your loop. The pumps used pump many gallons of fluid per min in american designs.

5. NO KINKS IN THE LINE!! very important you want to limit how much resistance you have with the water flow. Too much resistance wont let the water pass. The better the tubing you use the more bend you can get before it kinks. And get good clamps. I use the ones you find in any plumbing store they are metal and have a screw type design. This provides ultimate tightness on the water adapter (barbs). Use bad clamps expect a tube to loosen and get coolant everywhere.

6. Design a good loop. The most common start of a loop is straight from the outlet of the pump to the cpu, from there it varies user by user. Some want to go straight to a rad, some may go to northbridge or GPU then a rad. This is something yuo have to decide for yourself. Just keep in mind what yuo need cooled the most and how the rads are going to cool your system. Going from the CPU straight to all your rads and then hitting your northbridge, GPU then back to the start of the loop is not smart. As you have used all your cooling options in the beginning of the loop and are now cycling hot coolant back to the cpu. So think, plan, discuss make drawings etc etc before you actually buy anything.

7. Figure out which pump you want. Research the pump for how many hours you get out of it before it fails. A pump that is gonna fail in like 20 hours is not the pump you want to use no matter how much pressure it pumps with or how many gallons it cycles as it will die fairly quickly. Everytime a pump fails tahts a chance to burn everything out. Dont forget if that water isnt flowing you have no cooling. No cooling on a CPU can take a short period of time to fry a cpu if your overclocking, or jsut runing a system in general.

8. When prepping your system make sure all your barbs have teflon tape around the threads and have seals on them. This helps prevent leakage. Screw the barbs into everything and make sure its tight but not overly tight, no need to strip it. Just make it tight enough you know it wont leak.

9. If your novice at doing watercooling its best to set up a look involving NO COMPUTER PARTS. Run it for 24 hours and see if it leaks or was leaking. This will help make sure your doing everything correctly and limit the chance of failure and soaking your system in coolant.

10. When ready to install do a check to make sure everything thing is tight and secure. There is no half assing with water cooling. You make a mistake that mistake may cost you your system. Make sure you have cycled all the air out the tubes when filling. Dont burn out the motor while filling. You fill your your line run the pump. When the line gets low or the pump is sucking air shut the pump off fill the line some more. Keep repeating until ALL air is out of the system. You may have tiny bubbles left after a while and those will just have to cycle out over time, im mainly talking about large or semi large air pockets.

Now for a little science. Try and find a coolant or liquid that is highly conductive of heat, but possibly not conductive to electricity. Limit harmful coloring or dyes as they carode your tubing and your rads. Make sure your fluid has the ability to limit organic life (or add a few drops of algea eating solutions), the worst thing is for a plant to be growing in your rads coils and you cant see it.

Now for the results of how much cooler your gonna run. Well taht all depends on your coolant, your loop design, your hardware, maintance etc etc. But I will tell you if you think your gonna run at 20c from 43c I doubt it.

Hopefully this will help ya have a bit mroe information from my experience with watercooling kits. I'm not saying I've mastered cooling kits, cooling is a highly debatable conversation. The only thing to really debate is challeneging yourself and yuor own builds to achieve the best you can.

Goodluck and of course enjoy becuase I love watercooling. (even though it can be a pain in the ass) :)

[brizey]

Is 43 degrees under load really a problem that requires the jump to water cooling?

[Cricket]

Is 43 degrees under load really a problem that requires the jump to water cooling?No.

:) Cricket

[David M]

Watercooling is for some and not for others. For most people it is not for them. I do like watercooling because it makes my computer quieter. This is the primary reason I water cool. The second added benefit is that I can overclock without having to add a bunch of noisy fans. Even "quiet cases" are not so quiet.

Expect to spend more money and take more risk with your components. The benefit is you can sleep with your computer in the same room should you choose to water cool.

I just bought a couple new graphics cards that are very noisy that I cannot wait to watercool. From what I have seen from one manufacturer that sells watercooled cards, they can be overclocked more than any air cooled card.

Watercooling is more for the computer hobbyist. If all you want is a computer that runs fast and do not care how much noise it makes then go with aftermarket air cooling heatsinks.

Quiet-Fast-Inexpensive....pick any two.

[not important]

As mentioned above.........43C is a long way from hot and would not be a resaon to spend the money for water cooling.
And, to heed the wise words of Cricket "water and electronics don't really mix well together"

[Spearball]

I don't think its the water cooling that makes your system quieter its the fans you choose. Especially if your just cooling your cpu but then you got noisy fans in the back of your case.....It really kills the point unless your just going for the "look". For example you can have everything water cooled and super quiet but then you can have super loud fans cooling your radiator which would sound like a jet engine if you don't buy quieter ones.

And true....water and electronics don't match..... Again i mostly did my cooling setup for the look since im a hobbiest.

I'd say unless you want a tuby look or can't spend a LOT of money on the best water cooling parts, just get the top of the line air cooler. It will save you some time and money. I find that going cheap on water cooling wont get you as much performace as going top of the line air, which costs a lot cheaper too.

[Furai]

The thing with water cooling is that water can be transferred faster than through piping (in a pc anyway), and can fall to lower temperatures, therefore allowing for better cooling within your build. Some will debate this, but I've found it to be true with my last water cooling set. I just bought a new one that has yet to arrive, and it was rather expensive ($374.99), but looks to be well worth the price as long as i install it correctly.

[gods_son_is_me]

In my computer classes, they always said that a CPU fan and one case fan is sufficient in most situations. Maybe a 80mm fan in the front, but that's only if all of your drive slots are used.

Extra fans or cooling is only used for enthusists or serious overclockers. I wouldn't regomend it. I'd use that cash on another 2 GBs of RAM (if you're running 64-bit) and another fan. Just set it on low.

[Cricket]

Maybe a 80mm fan in the frontIf you're only going to install 1 fan, it's better to install it on the back as an exhaust fan to remove warm air from the computer. Cool air will naturally be drawn in from the front.

:) Cricket

[phigdon]

I have a 80mm on the back and i put in this PCI fan.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835888602

with it running my system runs at about 32C to 38C. I have a vacant 5.25 and was think of this as a front fan alternative.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3301340&CatId=805

or something like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185019

I like this the best, but I wont be able to use until I upgrade to a full tower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999169

[Alaron]

If your CPU is running in the 30s C, you don't have to add any more fans. It is plenty cool. Save your ears and your wallet; enjoy the system as it is. :)

[Cricket]

with it running my system runs at about 32C to 38C. Are those system/case temps or the temps for the CPU/processor?I have a vacant 5.25 and was think of this as a front fan alternative.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3301340&CatId=805

or something like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185019

I like this the best, but I wont be able to use until I upgrade to a full tower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999169No need to go crazy with the fans, it's better to have a well thought out case cooling setup than just throw in as many fans as you can.

When I first started building computers back in 1997 I got the cooling bug too. In one computer I had 18 fans and it was horribly noisy. Today I only install the rear exhaust fan and nothing else (expect the fans that are part of other components...CPU heatsink, video card, power supply, etc...) and I don't have any cooling related problems (freezing, lockups, weird video stuttering or bizarre image displays, random reboots or shutdowns, etc...) with any of our three computers.

I'd start with just the exhaust fan and then monitor system performance. If the computer runs stable, all is well. If you start to get any of the above mentioned heat related problems then it's time to add more fans (in wisely chosen locations).

:) Cricket

[phigdon]

38C is the processor. i did run PCProbe that came with the mobo, but i keeps muting or disabling the sound on my system. the mobo consistently runs in the mid to upper 30s even under load. I was just playing DS2 for about 4 hours and the temp was at 43C, the highest its been since i put in the PCI fan. its dropped to 37C since I turned off the game.

is there an onboard GPU cooler available?? i did use a small fan from walmart blowing directly on the mobo and it worked well but it took up a power plug and with all the junk I have to plug in power plugs are at a preimum.

[shadowpr]

In one computer I had 18 fans and it was horribly noisy.
:) Cricket

Any Pics?

That must have been some build.

[Cricket]

Any Pics?

That must have been some build.Haha...sorry, no pics...didn't have a digital camera back then (1998).

The specs were pretty up to date for the time...a PII 400MHz Slot 1 CPU (not overclocked), a Shuttle Spacewalker 440BX motherboard, 235 watt Sparkle power supply, 128MB PC100 SDRAM, Matrox G100 video card, Soundblaster ISA sound card, US Robotics ISA modem, 6GB Fujitsu 5400 RPM HDD, CD-ROM drive (I think it was a 12X), TEAC floppy drive and Win95B. It was my second build and I had read somewhere how heat was a computer's enemy so I went nuts trying to fit in as many fans as I could so I could keep my computer from frying itself to death (haha...it didn't even run that hot).

I used two 3 fan 5.25" bay coolers, one intake fan on the lower front of the case, one 60mm exhaust fan (haha...that was the size of the fan port), I used thermal epoxy to attach those little aftermarket northbridge heatsinks with the tiny fan on the northbridge, southbridge, the soundcard audio chip and some big chip on the modem (not even sure what it was), the Matrox had a passive heatsink but I used screws to attach a 50mm fan to it, I suspended a 80mm fan diagonally (using fishing line) under the hard drive cage so that it would blow air up towards the CPU, I mounted a 80mm fan under the hard drive cage (with nylon zip ties) to blow on the Fujitsu HDD and another 80mm fan in the empty 5.25" drive bays to blow air at the PSU. I contemplated putting in a blow hole (it was something new at the time that I had read about on HardOCP) but didn't have a Dremel then. Side fans on the door didn't exist at the time so I didn't of doing that. I had a few other smaller fans (60mm, 50mm, 40mm) suspended here and there in the case so I wouldn't have any dead spots...haha...

The case was a 21" high Chenbro Value that had a one piece top that you slid off to expose the interior. It was a solid case and with all those fans inside it weighed a ton. I'm surprised the 235 watt Sparkle Power handled everything plus all those fans with any problems...haha...I had so many "Y" power cable adapters in it for all the fans that the wiring was an absolute mess but I felt sure the computer was being cooled properly.

After running it like that for maybe 2 months I got sick and tired of the noise and pulled all the fans out except the front intake and rear exhaust fans. That computer served my wife and I for almost 6 years (with various upgrades here and there).

In my current computers I just run one exhaust fan along with the power supply fan for my case cooling and find that's all I need.

:) Cricket