oosik
10-24-2002, 11:21 PM
Thought I'd pass on some minor lessons learned today while finally installing the water cooler.
My reason for water cooling is for no other reason than I had the money and was interested in doing something new. I've had the water kit sitting around for about 2+ months and finally got to it.
The biggest pain-in-the-buttocks during the install was trying to make room and making the series of holes and cutz necessary. Besdies the fact I live in an apt and have little room for such projects.
Getting the correct set of hardware was one of the chores. One problem I ran into was the GPU cooler block, come to find out, was not intended for GF4 cards. I was still able to install it but will search out the proper part.
The biggest problem I ran into was trying to start the system, getting 3-4 seconds after power on and the system would shutdown on it's own. My experience was telling me it was reaching the 85*C limit I set in BIOS a while back and turning off. Though I went ahead and checked all connections and retried starting a few times with same results. I removed the CPU block, noticed the Arctic Silver 3 on the CPU hadn't been disturbed with the block installed. Then noticed no thermal paste transferred onto the block. This told me there was no contact and that the CPU was hitting the temp limit and BIOS did it's job and shutdown. I thought I had tightened the block tight enough but I guess I didn't. Besides, I had placed a shim on the CPU reading that it would protect the CPU base from cracking with pressure applied. Well I removed the shim and reinstalled the block, tightening a little more than I did the first time.
Lo and behold on the next power up, it booted fine. Now I don't know if the shim is to blame or me not cranking down on the tightening knob enough was the issue. The way the block attaches, I could see how someone could tighten down way too much and do damage which was a concern of mine.
As a result, the jury is out on the shim theory as far as I'm concerned.
One thing I really noticed switching to the H2O was the lack of noise from my system, aka CPU fan! Now I didn't think my CPU fan was all that loud to begin with. I was way wrong. Even with the 120mm fan for the h2o radiator, it's still very quiet and that fan pushes some serious air.
As it stands now I still have the side cover off due to having the pump power cord plugged it. My plan for the pump-power mod is to get the same type of 3-prong power receptacle as you have on the back of your power supply and mount that to the back of the case. This would allow me to put the cover back on and having everything look a bit more professional. I'm also considering on using the "aux" power connector from the power supply, that I don't use and have it power a relay to kick the pump on when power is applied. This saves me from forgetting the pump is running if I shut my system down and makes sure it gets turned on.
This was nothing more than passing on info to all in the event someone comes along with issues that I ran into, someone would be able to guide them.
My temps during the initial build:
mobo: 38*c
cpu: 40-43*c
Now:
mobo: 38*c
CPU: 27-29*c
I'm going to run the cpu through it's paces and see what the temps do. I'll let ya know if your interested.
Later
oosik
My reason for water cooling is for no other reason than I had the money and was interested in doing something new. I've had the water kit sitting around for about 2+ months and finally got to it.
The biggest pain-in-the-buttocks during the install was trying to make room and making the series of holes and cutz necessary. Besdies the fact I live in an apt and have little room for such projects.
Getting the correct set of hardware was one of the chores. One problem I ran into was the GPU cooler block, come to find out, was not intended for GF4 cards. I was still able to install it but will search out the proper part.
The biggest problem I ran into was trying to start the system, getting 3-4 seconds after power on and the system would shutdown on it's own. My experience was telling me it was reaching the 85*C limit I set in BIOS a while back and turning off. Though I went ahead and checked all connections and retried starting a few times with same results. I removed the CPU block, noticed the Arctic Silver 3 on the CPU hadn't been disturbed with the block installed. Then noticed no thermal paste transferred onto the block. This told me there was no contact and that the CPU was hitting the temp limit and BIOS did it's job and shutdown. I thought I had tightened the block tight enough but I guess I didn't. Besides, I had placed a shim on the CPU reading that it would protect the CPU base from cracking with pressure applied. Well I removed the shim and reinstalled the block, tightening a little more than I did the first time.
Lo and behold on the next power up, it booted fine. Now I don't know if the shim is to blame or me not cranking down on the tightening knob enough was the issue. The way the block attaches, I could see how someone could tighten down way too much and do damage which was a concern of mine.
As a result, the jury is out on the shim theory as far as I'm concerned.
One thing I really noticed switching to the H2O was the lack of noise from my system, aka CPU fan! Now I didn't think my CPU fan was all that loud to begin with. I was way wrong. Even with the 120mm fan for the h2o radiator, it's still very quiet and that fan pushes some serious air.
As it stands now I still have the side cover off due to having the pump power cord plugged it. My plan for the pump-power mod is to get the same type of 3-prong power receptacle as you have on the back of your power supply and mount that to the back of the case. This would allow me to put the cover back on and having everything look a bit more professional. I'm also considering on using the "aux" power connector from the power supply, that I don't use and have it power a relay to kick the pump on when power is applied. This saves me from forgetting the pump is running if I shut my system down and makes sure it gets turned on.
This was nothing more than passing on info to all in the event someone comes along with issues that I ran into, someone would be able to guide them.
My temps during the initial build:
mobo: 38*c
cpu: 40-43*c
Now:
mobo: 38*c
CPU: 27-29*c
I'm going to run the cpu through it's paces and see what the temps do. I'll let ya know if your interested.
Later
oosik