FINALLY Watercooling :)

[Kill-Switch]

Woohoo, my system is now watercooled :)

It's taken months of wating on orders to be delivered and a few days of setting up, but it's finally done and running.

I'm curious now about temps.

Running fully loaded MBM reports 62 degrees on the CPU Sensor (and very slowly rising), yet only 53 on the CPU Core. The Asus temp monitor reports the Core temp only (at 53 degrees also). Which one do I refer to when looking at temps, I'm guessing it would be the core temp as the sensor temp will be affected by warm air inside the case and be off slilghtly.

Is 53 degrees Core temp good for a fully loaded watercooled system?

If you need a full read out of my whole system to give accurate answers then just holla ... also I'll be trying to get some pics so I can show my system (it's nothing special though).

[WesM63]

Kill switch,
Those temps sound a lil high. But then again ambeint temps are everything to a w/c system. What are your case temps?

btw, 53C? or 53F?

[Kill-Switch]

I'm not sure what my case temps are. The only sensors I have in there are on the motherboard and there's only 3 ... one is the mother board temp (34F), another is the CPU sensor (now at 65F) and hte final one is the CPU core (now jumping between 53F and 54F).

A couple of notable points could be that I have the fan on the BIX sucking air through it and into the case. The BIX & Fan are located at the bottom of my case ... so the warm air is most likely being blown across the motherboard. Other than that I have no fans extracting air, I would rather not put fans back into the system as that is why I went watercooling in the first place.

On a final note I would expect the temps to maybe lower and settle down once the AS3 has been giving time to settle on the processor and waterblock ... maybe?

[WesM63]

Kill-switch,
I thought u ment 54C, that's high. 54F is good. They sound better now. I'am just used to everything begin in C.

[Kill-Switch]

Ooops, stupid me. Temps are actually C not F :eek:

So they sound a bit high?

The core temp is way down compared to when I was using air cooling, back then it was around 65C - 70C.

[lechumbl]

Hi Kill-Switch,

I must ask some very stupid questions:
Did you use thermal paste between the W/B and the CPU?
Are you sure the W/B is squarely sitting on the CPU?
Is the pressure tight on the CPU from the W/B?
Is the W/B sitting level on the CPU?

With your water setup, you should be around 35 degrees C or so under load, maybe a little higher.
If you are indeed running as high as you say, I would certainly look for the issue causing the heat-up.
You are not in danger of frying anything, but one of the reasons to watercool is for lower temps and the other is it is more quiet.

Take care, and let us know how it is going.........

[Kill-Switch]

Ok, stupid answers coming up LOL

1. I used Arctic Silver 3 betweem the Waterblock and CPU
2. I'm not 100% sure the waterblock sitting squarely on the CPU, it looks to be though.
3. Unsure on this one, I followed the instructions for the waterblock (Swiftech MCW 5000-A) which said to loosen the screws on the retention things until they (the screws) were about 1.5mm above the clip. So it should be as tight as it needs to be.
4. As with number 2 it appears to be seated perfectly but you never know.

My main reason for watercooling was to quieten things down a little, I'm was (initially) less concerned about cooling ... but I am growing more interested and concerned now LOL.

I took the side off of my case and slowly the temps dropped a degree or two on the CPU Core and 6 or more degrees on the CPU Sensor

[Kill-Switch]

Just thought I'd upload a pic of my watercooled system. It's nothing special, and picture doesn't do it any favours because the digital camera I used really sucks under anything but perfect daylight.

[lechumbl]

Hi K-S,

Tain't nothing wrong with that rig.
Looks good and it is nice and clean.

Good job!! :thumbsup:

Take care........

[Drake]

Aye, great to see another joining the watercooled ranks :thumbsup: nice job!

[ralf_c]

good looking rig, welcome to the wc club.

[ralf_c]

i have a question to ask, do you know if its possible to screw threaded hosebars on that block

[lechumbl]

Hi ralf_c,

Are you talking about 3/8 or 1/2 inch brass or plastic barbs?

Take care........

[ralf_c]

hi lee, well the blocks looks very good to me but i am not crazy about those plastic bars the block comes with so i was thinking if i get one i should replece the fittings with 3/8 or 1/2 brass hosebars threaded at 1/4

[lechumbl]

Hi r_c,

I looked at the closeup pic on Swiftech site and it looks like they can not be replaced.
BUT, if you look at the MCW462-UH block, it has the plastic barbs already on it.
I think the cooling is the same as with the MCW5000.
The "experts" will have to correct me, maybe.
Check out this link: http://www.swiftnets.com/ .

Take care.........

[ralf_c]

thanks for the info lee, i like that block specificaly because of its look, not crazy about the other swiftech blocks so i'll get the mcw 500 in the near future to cool my p3 rig

thanks

[ralf_c]

kill switch what eheim pump are you using, is it the 1046

[mdzcpa]

Nice set up there Kill-Switch:D Glad to see you go the way of liquid.

Temps do seem a bit high. Make sure your getting good pressure from the block onto the CPU...block pressure is one of the most important aspects of cooling with a waterblock when it comes to cooling results. Very carefully try applying some *even* pressure to the block with your hand and see if temps drop using MBM. It only takes a few seconds to see a drop. If it happens, you need to tighten the block further.

Otherwise....a sweet set up:D

[Kill-Switch]

Thanks guys for the comments :) It took a while bu I finally made it :)

As a possible solution to the temp problem I put the two exhaust fans back into the case, I can barely hear them (the 120mm fan does a good job of drowning them out LOL) and my temps seem to be settled around 57C on the CPU Sensor and 52C on the CPU Core. I'll give mdzcpa's idea a shot and see if I do indeed need to alter the pressure on the waterblock.

Originally posted by ralf_c
kill switch what eheim pump are you using, is it the 1046

Nope, it's the 1250 :)


I really need a good digital camera. The pic doesn't even hint at the UV light in the case and the clear blue UV dye in the water, which at the time of taking the picture was glowing beatifully.

[Kill-Switch]

Ok, I've fiddled and messed with everything and I'm not getting an improvement in my temps. I'm using the Swiftech MCW 5000-A waterblock which has simple to follow instructions to have it firmly in place ... you just loosen to screws about 1.5mm to put the springs on full tension and that's it. I did try lossening and tightening more to see if it would make any difference but it didn't. I did push on the waterblock, on one side I was able to get the temps to drop 2 degrees but as soon as I let go they went back up ... messing with the pressure on the retention clips didn't get the temps down any lower ... I'm thinking this system used by Swiftech isn't the best.

I read Swiftech's site and they say all kinds of things about inaccurate temp readings. One important thing they mention is ambient temperature, which I can safely say is fairly high in the room where my system is. This could be one of the factors leaving me with higher than normal temps.

I think the big test will be leaving the system running over night to see how hot it will get.

[Kill-Switch]

Well I left it on over night and the CPU Sensor reached about 60C while the CPU Core remained at about 52C.

I've been thinking. The fan on the rad suck air into the case which is heated up by the hot water thus the temp inside the case will be about as hot as the water. Now I've attached a couple of fans to suck the air out, but the hot air I see as a problem as it still has to pass over the internal components.

I was think that I could flip the fan around on the rad and have it blow air through it and out of the case. I could also flip the other two fans to suck cool air into the case. Would this maybe lower the temps a little?

[lechumbl]

Hi K-S,

I have my fans PULLING in cold air from the outside of the cases.
If you take the warm air from inside the case and blow it across ithe rad, it will not cool as well as the colder air coming from the outside.
You may need to put a fan or two on the top of the case, to remove the rising hot air.

Food for thought.

Take care..........

PS......... Yes, I know, the reason to go water cooling is to get rid of some of the fans. BUT, you don't need a hurricane fan to remove hot air on the top. A quiet fan (92 mm) is all that is needed.

[Kill-Switch]

I have a spare 80mm fan laying around so I'll hook it up tomorrow and see what difference it makes to the temps.

[lechumbl]

Hi K-S,

That will work, it doesn't take much to draw the hot air out of the top.

Take care........

[Atragon]

Just to provide a bit of comparison for temperatures, I'm running an Athlon Xp2100+ at stock speed with a vcore of 1.87volts (due to slightly faulty voltage regulation on my motherboard)

Cooling is a stock HSF unit with the following case fans: a 120mm and a 40mm intake fan on the front of the case, a 40mm fan exhausting right beside the mobo's backplate, a 80mm fan blowing air down onto the CPU, a 60? mm fan exausting air from above the PSU, and the PSU has a pair of fans, one pulling air into it from just beside the CPU's HSF, and one exhausting air from the case.

Temperatures are as follows, under load I get about 68 degrees C on the CPU, idle I get about 63 degrees C. A thermistor beside the PSU's air intake reads between 36 and 39 degrees C depending on loading.

Temperatures are measured through MotherBoard Monitor 5

System is as follows:
Xp2100+ (stock speed, stock HSF)
Gigabyte GA-7VXRP
1GB PC2700 RAM (at CAS 2.5)
MSI GF4 Ti 4600 (stock speed, stock HSF)
Aureal SQ2500
3-Com Ethernet Card
Lite-On 40/12/48 CD-R/RW drive
DVD-ROM Drive (unknown make)
80GB Maxtor DiamondMax
200GB WD hd (8mb cache)

I've been considering watercooling for quite a while, both to lower temperatures and to reduce noise.

I now return you to the regular topic.