Planned first rig...

[Atragon]

I'm trying to put together a watercooled system, the noise level of my current case is rather high, along with temperatures.

My goals are:

1: A quieter PC...preferably a max of 4 fans including the 2 power supply fans

2: A cooler PC...I'd really rather not be running my CPU at 65 degrees C under load, and almost 55 degrees idle

The case: a rather nice Addtronics 7896A

The fans: 120mm and 80mm front case fans, 80mm and 60mm exhaust fans on back of case, 80mm fan blowing onto CPU heatsink, CPU heatsink's fan, GPU heatsink's fan, 2 power supply fans (enermax whisper power supply)

The system: Athlon XP 2100+, 512MB PC2700 Samsung CAS2.5 @ CAS2, Gigabyte GA-7vrxp, MSI GF4, Ti4600, Aureal SQ2500, 3Com 10/100 ethernet, liteon 40/12/48 CD Burner, 16X DVD drive, 3.5 inch floppy, maxtor 7200rpm 80GB HDD. 350W enermax power supply


What I'm looking for in a watercooling system is probably CPU, GPU, and maybe chipset blocks, a radiator (probably a black ice extreme), a pump (silent is good), and a resevoir. I'd ideally want 1/2inch ID tubing

I'm thinking of mounting the resevoir near the top of the case, just above the power supply, the radiator at the front of the case with a fan pulling air through it, and the pump also on the bottom of the case.

What I'm looking for is some advice on what waterblocks to get, what type of pump to get, a good resevoir to get, if I should get two pumps, and how to connect it all together.

As a note, the reason why my CPU is running so hot is because of a power regulation problem with the motherboard, I've got to crank the core voltage.

[lechumbl]

Hi Atragon,

First, let me say: :D :D WELCOME :D :D to LN. It is great that you found us and are posting already.

Secondly, Maze3 is the best waterblock.
Eheim 1250 pump is the best for your needs, quiet and strong enough to move the water around quite nicely.
Make your own resevoir out of about anything that is water tight. I have seen people use a water cooler jug, what 5 gallon of water? Some make a smaller resevoir from anything handy.
I use 1 pump and 1 resevoir. Some use two.

If you look at my system pics at the bottom of my post, it will give you an idea of my temps and placement.
I have two 92mm fans on side to pull in cool air, and two 92mm fans on back, and 1 on top to pull out hot air. My temps are very low.
I run from radiator to CPU to pump and back to radiator. Some run the other way around.

Hope this helps and WELCOME again.

Take care.......

[dicki]

welcome to the board!

theres so many options with water cooling... do you have any idea on your price limits because that will dictate what you can buy

regarding tube sizes in my opinion it doesn't really matter what you choose as long as the componants are matched... if you have a majority of 3/8" barbs go 3/8" through out and vice versa

swiftech do a complete range of water blocks, cpu, chipset, and graphics cards obviously all matched... pair that with a powerful radiator like the BIX and a pump like the silent and powerful eheim 1250 and you will have an excellent system.

i'm one of the people that runs things the otherway round like lee said

i prefer to have the pump as the first thing in my system and let it push the water round rather than pulling it.

res - pump - waterblocks - rad

dicki

[Atragon]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys.

I was looking at the swiftec blocks but the fact that they have the quick release connectors with the relatively small diameter tubing that this permits me is turning me off.

Also, I'm looking at having to pump the water up about 2 feet from the site of the rad to where the res would be, so would two pumps be better?

As for a price limit, it's not quite the sky's the limit, but it's pretty lofty (I'm willing to go up to $800 CDN)

[NorthernYankee]

Since Lee and Dicki have given you lots of good info I will just welcome you to the board m8.

--NY

[dicki]

if your spending that much just buy a quiet power case... they are the mutts nuts

regarding tube sizes one of our esteemed mod kms ( ;) ) has a big comparison table showing his experiments with small, large and mixed tube size setups... might be an interesting read when he posts it

dicki

[mdzcpa]

I have one of those Swiftech quiet power (http://www.liquidninjas.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=5) cases dicki was mentioning. It isn't the best choice for extreme water cooling, but it does do surprisingly well. It is almost silent and runs things nice and cool. I beleive the key to the effectiveness of the system is that it is well balanced (pump size, tube diam, waterblock and rad flow, etc).

I have recently fitted the QP case with the swiftech GPU waterblock with excellent results. The full review of the MCW40 GPU block will be up by the end of this weekend.

You can probably build a better system from scratch, but you'll need to do your homework (like your doing now) so you don't have to go through a big learning curve...that can be expensive and frustrating if you're not up for that.

And....welcome to the baord:)

[dicki]

not to mention the time... the QP cases save so much in time alone that i think they are worth it and liek mike says they show that tube size and pump strength isn't everything the system has to be balenced or it won't work

building your own rig is definatly more satisfying though... and with the kind of money your looking at you could build an amasing system

dicki

[Atragon]

I'm trying to keep costs down, I've got the cash to spend if I need to, but I'd rather not if I don't have to.

Most of the prebuilt rigs I've seen are all somewhat on the expensive side, compared to a custom built one.

[mdzcpa]

Yep...it's all about time and money.

You can certainly spend less on a custom built box...and get one that outperforms a pre fab H2O case too. But it needs to be done carefully and you need to take your time doing it. Slapping together a bunch of parts never works (at least not for me:) )

That's the real advantage to the QP. It is a complete package which is nicely optimised. So for minimal time invested, you get up and running with a good H2O system. That's the original reason i went with the QP myself.

Now, I have found that I have already developed a desire to mod the QP for increased functionality and performance. But it has given me a nice base to "launch" from. Eventually I will have swapped everything out for different parts over time, but I'll be doing it with much more knowledge and personal experience than I had when I got the QP 6 months ago.

[Atragon]

Ok, I see your point, but then again, most of the QP systems cost quite a lot (especially the ones with the GPU block). If I were to custom build, I'd save a lot of cash, and also, learn a fair bit by doing instead of just snapping my system into the case.

[mdzcpa]

Atragon,

Don't get me wrong...I'm certainly not trying to talk you into anything:) The idea is to pick what is best suited for you. For me the QP was a good choice...I only drone on about it because it does such a great job cooling for a prefab case...most users don't expect that much performance from a pre fab solution.

If you plan to build your own and save some $$ and get some hands on experience...you've certainly come to the right place for help. Some of the best water cooling users I know hang out here.

I'll let them chime in here as they have more experience than I in assembling the right combo of parts for success the first time around.

:)

[Atragon]

Well, what I've firmly decided on so far is the rad (a BIX). I'm not sure what fan to put on it...but it's got to be quiet. And it will fit without trouble...I could almost squeeze in a van heater core in the front of my case...only thing in the way is the harddrive cage (dimensions of available space are 18cm wide, 10cm deep, 25cm high)

The res is uncertain right now, I've got a large space available for it, 15cm wide, 20cm deep (at most, preferably 15cm deep), and 14cm high (15cm if I cut the divider at the top of the case).

the pump's going to be able to go in one of 5 places;
1. co-located with the res
2. sitting between my DVD and CD drive (there are 2 empty 5.5 inch drive bays between them, I've also got a mounting bracket available for that space, it's about 14cm wide, 16cm deep, and 8cm high)
3. sitting at the back of the case beside the expansion cards, the space is 5cm wide, up to 30cm deep, and up to 20cm high
4. co-located with the rad
5. sitting under my vid card, right next to the mobo, and just infront of my sound and network cards (10cm wide, 10cm deep, 10cm high)

I've currently got nasty cable clutter around my IDE sockets on the motherboard, however tube routing will not be too much of a problem given the layout of the passthroughs in the mid-case seperator.

I'm worried about not getting enough flow out of a single pump to push the water through the rad, into the blocks, and up into the res fast enough. I'm not sure where a second pump would go...but would the added push help it out?

[Player0]

You should get a pump large enough to run the whole system, you dont want two pumps. You should locate the pump as close to the resevoir as possible.

[speculative]

Sorry if someone mentioned this before, but I would say don't put your pump inside your reservoir, because the pump generates heat. :) I like my setup, but if I could change only 1 thing I'd separate the res from the pump to avoid this.

-speculative

[dicki]

i'll ditto what everyone has just said (and say the eheim 1250 is definatly man enough for the job) and add that you should aim to have the resovoir as the highest point in the system if you can... it helps when your trying to fill and bleed.

or you can get the handy swiftech fill & bleed kit

dicki

oh ought to add... panaflo fans are excellent, very quiet :)