water cooled system

[wolfie]

hi
thinking of building my new build a water cooled system.
have any of you done this? is it worth it? im getting tired of this 747 next to me. are they any quiter? ive looked at the koollance. are they any good. thanks for the replys. i just need some thoughts from you guys.

[RayH]

You'd better be prepared to fry your whole system. You get a leak in it and you're talking trouble. Cooling too rapidly can cause condensation.

People do it all the time. So it can be sucessfully done. But you have to be more careful than meets the eye.

[wedor]

I have several water-cooled systems, they are more problematic to set-up initially. The rapid cooling/condensation problem only applies to peltiers/air-conditioning set-ups not water. Rapid cooling is not the problem, lower than ambient temps are, water cooling does not have this problem. Water will not exactly "fry" your system but a leak can be very troublesome. I have had to recover from 2 leaks that soaked the motherboard and all components. If I had a camera I'd post pics of my latest set-up, it has everything enclosed in the case with the only apparent outward signs being the 120mm fan grille on the top of the case and the radiator fins above the power supply in the back. I have a T-Bird 1400@1588=144*11 (it would probably go faster I just ran out of time to play with it) at stock voltage on a K-266R+ with 4*40 IBM's in a RAID 10 array in removable drive enclosures, 768megs Mushkin Rev3+,Plextor 12/10/32, Pioneer DVD, in a Superpower full tower case. The water cooled stuff is from Be-Cooling, with a single 120mm Panaflo on the radiator. Temps used to be lower but now max out at 40c under heavy load, I think the insides of the water system need to be cleaned out. As you can see this is not a good set-up for those who like to put their system together and just blow some dust out here and there, much higher maintainence than your average system. If you are into Over Clocking and don't mind the extra work it's fine. The premade systems like the Koolance may also be a much easier route, I can't say as I've never owned one.

[wolfie]

thanks guys. maybe just a little hobby on the side.
wedor: how quit is yours?

[wedor]

Well it is quieter than my old air-cooled systems but due to the size of the case it no longer fits under the desk. Since it is out in the open now it is louder than it would be if it was back under the desk. If I was to use some other ducting I'm sure I could reduce the noise even further. I could also use a rheostat to control the fan speed to cut the noise. I only have 2 other fans, a front intake and the PS fan. I could get rid of the front fan without much heat build-up I'm sure.

[fred]

I wanted to build a non-force cooled system. In other words, just using alloy to conduct the heat away to heatsinks with no fans. This would include a PSU too, so it would be completely silent. I don't think it would be very difficult and it certainly would be interesting to do.

[wedor]

Do a search for "heat pipe" cooling systems.

[wedor]

Oh by the way, if you want more water cooling stories do a search on this forum for my name and read my "Adventures in water-cooling" post.

[HAL9000]

I have to agree with wedor here, pure water is actually a very poor conductor of electricty (so sterilized water is recommended), so a leak is actually unlikely to cause permanent damage. It may cause more work for cleanup, but the parts will usually survive.

2 examples, one computer related, one not:

1) A fire in the dorms at the university where my shop is located resulted in one person's computer being totally drenched and sitting in about 16 inches of water. The monitor was powered on at the time and drenched as well. I poured the water out of the laser printer. All the parts were dried and carefully cleaned. A new toner was put in the printer. Everything has been running fine for the past 6 months and still going strong.

2) I was out flying RC helicopters with a friend who was breaking in a new motor. He had a flameout and not enough forward speed to make it past the creek back to the field and crashed in 10 feet of muddy water. We rigged up a drag line to snag it and pull it out from the bottom. It had been submerged for over 30 minutes. When we pulled it out, the gyroscope was still running. We pulled all the radio equipment out, took it apart and let it sit in the sun to dry. While it was drying, he pulled out his electric assist glider to fly. Hitting some strong thermals, he had a hard time keeping the plane down and folded the wing at about 800 feet of altitude. So where do you suppose the body of the glider rocketed down to... you guessed it, the same spot in the creek. We had to drag it out in the same manner as the heli as it stuck its nose about 6 inches into the mud. Well, same drying procedure. By this time, we put the heli back together and he was up and flying again.... well away from the creek, with no damage to the electronics.

[ed8150]

why do people say you should use distilled water? is it that the medium of electric transfer in the water is the minerals that reside in the water instead of the water itself?

i have designed my own water cooler, a very different design from what is traditionaly used but i think it has the potential to work better. which brings me to a couple questions.

how good is the transfer if you have 2 sheets of copper and put them touching each other? should i use some thermal grease to facilitate heat transfer?

i have heard aluminum radiates heat better but copper conducts it more efficently. is this true? does anyone know a website where i can find the properties of the two metals?

has anyone thought about using freon in lieu of water in their water cooled system? what are the properties of those two when it comes to transfering heat?

[HAL9000]

You should use distilled water to prevent corrosion. Minerals in the water will actually attack the metals in your cooling system. This can either eat away at the metal, or build up a layer of scale which will reduce heat transfer.

Using freon is more of a refridgeration system. Simplified explanation, you need to compress the freon which will produce heat which you will need a radiator to dissipate this heat. Then you need to allow it to expand rapidly to create a cooling effect (this will be a gaseos state) and run this through your cooling block. Take a look under the hood at your airconditioner on a car on a hot day and watch the ice buildup from condnesation. You don't want this kind of trouble in your PC.

[wedor]

I don't think it's simply a matter of putting freon in place of water. AC systems are under pressure and have a lot more parts in them than meet the eye.

[Blakhart]

Wolfster, you may as well leave your sys as is and build a new P4 sys that can be faster AND quieter at the same time.
But if you must indulge your WC lust(like I must indulge my dualie fixation) then please by all means, get a wc and let me know how goes it?
My XP1700 is under the desk, and it is talking to me.
When I lay down to sleep, I can still hear it!
Darn fans.

[onearmpprhngr]

I have a liquid cooled system and use a 50% dilution of RV (Recreational Vehicle) antifreeze with water. It is nontoxic and has a corrosion inhibitor in it. Also, it comes in a cool pink or blue color.
I use a cold plate from a beer tap for a heat exchanger. The pump is from an aquarium setup so it is virtually noiseless.

[Furius92]

I believe creating new cooling systems using freon is illegal, as it eats away at the ozone layer. Don't get involved with it... it's not cool stuff.

[audiyoda]

Not to get off the subject, but one alternative to noise without going to a liquid cooled system is using components designed to run quiet. I've rigged my entire studio setup with products from www.quietpc.com/ -- I almost want to put my flower cooler heatsink on display it's so darn cool looking.

I tested everything in my studio before install using a dB meter --I put the mic right on the front of the case and it read a constant 71dB -- with the new PS, heatsink/fan, vidcard HS, and case fan -- dB went down to 60.5! That's an amazing drop -- and well worth it for what I do.

-Craig

[wedor]

There are quite a few different types of freon and it has many uses, R-12 is the most notorious, this is the type used in older car AC. The problem is not in a closed system but rather when the freon leaks out. A far greater problem is it's use as an electronics parts cleaner, countries that make a lot of these use it to clean them, a lot of that freon evaporates causing a much bigger problem than the small amount that leaked from cars. The new 134a freon in cars is more ozone friendly. The problem still remains in PC cooling is that it is not just a matter of pouring some in a system and pumping it around, it needs more sophisticated equipment. So for all but the extremely able it will never be a do it yourself option.

[Blakhart]

Hey that is using your noodle there, Audiyoda!
I am going to look those folks up.
Speaking of ozone depletion, every time the shuttle goes up, the chemicals in its exhaust gases eat a hole in the ozone layer that is 10k kilometers by 3k kilometers, in the direction of drift.
What hypocrisy.

[Furius92]

Not to get this off topic, but don't you think space exploration is a bit more important than using freon as a coolant? There's only one way to get into space, but there are certainly other options for coolants.

[troysvihl]

As far as the ozone, I wouldn't worry about it. A computer cooling system isn't going to be using much freon that you have to worry about the ozone hole. (it's acctually quite a pseudoproblem)

I may be wrong, but I don't think using already-existing freon is illegal. I think it's just illegal to make and sell it. Even if I'm wrong on that, it's highly doubtful that you'll be prosecuted for taping a few cups from an old refrigeration unit and using it in the privacy of your home.

So if you want to give it a try, then go for it.

That being said, I think you're going to be wasting your time because freon's heat-transfer characteristics aren't as good as water. And freon has to be kept in a closed-circuit so that it doens't evaporate. With water, you don't have to worry about evaporation because it's not that difficult to turn on the faucet and get more. Freon is more expensive, and with the sales ban it's going to be problematice to replace.

Freon's popularity in cooling systems stems from it's stability, not it's heat-transfer capability. Freon is a very stable molecule; it won't break down when in the constant cycle of heating/cooling and pressurizing/depressurizing. Also, since it's stable it's not toxic and won't kill your family if your cooling system develops a leak in the middle of the night, unlike Amonia which was the refrigerant of choice pre-freon.

Since water-coooled systems don't use a compressor, there's no need to worry about breaking down the liquid you use due to pressure changes. And water's just plain better at transferring heat. Water holds more heat per gram than almost every other liquid. And it gives up that heat rather quickly, although not as fast as, say, an alcohol.

why do people say you should use distilled water? is it that the medium of electric transfer in the water is the minerals that reside in the water instead of the water itself?

Yes, it is the minerals that conducts electricity through water. Pure water is an insulator.

However, distilled or steralized water is NOT pure water and will conduct electricity quite well. To get water to the level of purity to make it an effecive insulator requires expensive equipement and pure water can't be stored for very long. Really pure water is acctually quite coorosive, so once the water comes in contact with metal, it will dissolve a bit of it and become a conductor once again. (it will even do this if it's stored in plastic for more than a few months; it acctually leaches impurities from the plastic.)

[wedor]

You can still get R-12, but you need a permit, the other types of freon are readily available to commercial users. R-12 used to be sold everywhere, even little do-it-yourself car AC re-charging kits. It is illegal to sell it except in large quantities now and the price has gone through the roof, it is not uncommon for it to go for $50 per pound. It is scheduled to be phased out in the near future in this country, but I think it's still widely used elsewhere. Again the largest problem with evaporated freon is in electronic parts cleaning in countries like China, the car AC bit is a drop in the bucket.