Water Cooling: It's better down where it's wetter

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Water Cooling: It's better down where it's wetter

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Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Alereon posted:

I am, and honestly it was a mistake. Air cooling will always provide better cooling with lower noise levels because heat pipes move heat more effectively than pumped water, without the noise of a pump. Water cooling only makes sense in situations you need to pump the heat to a remote radiator due to space constraints, like in SFF PCs. On the plus side, putting a water cooler on your GPU lets you exhaust heat from the case in a manner similar to a blower, but without the noise.

Maybe compared to all in ones but not a custom loop if done well. My aquaero is able to run all my fans in the 300rpm range and my d5 pump can be turned down enough so its inaudible.

Granted im using 840mmx60mm of rad space for a i7 and a single 980ti lol. But thats the point.

Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 11, 2016

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 22:37

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 03:32

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PerrineClostermann posted:

People talk about pump noise, but even when I was testing the loop and had only the pump running I couldn't hear anything. I believe it's a ddc pump; I used an ekwb l360 kit.

By the way, kits are a great way to save money on building a custom loop.

Cause you have a good pump

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 00:06

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Lolcano Eruption posted:

The problem is that everyone assumes that Corsair makes good CLCs but they're garbage. Cooler Master, NZXT, Swiftech make some good ones. EK if you're baller.

Corsair and Nzxt coolers are both made by coolit and asetek and coolermasters are or were direct copies of asetek.

Basically two companies coolit and asetek make almost every all in one closed loop on the market whether it's on a GPU or a couple.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 03:34

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PerrineClostermann posted:

Failures?

You have more points of failure than air coolling. Though AIO companies like corsair and nzxt will replace failed components that fail as a result of a leak it is a case by case basis. Dont know about other companies like coolermaster.

For the most part custom loops are fine once initially set up and leak tested cause the components are higher quality.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 16:18

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

THE DOG HOUSE posted:

Is there an AIO that has two pumps ?

Not that ive ever seen. Coolit and Asetek make most of them and they both do pump on block. Antec has a design that puts the pump in the fan hub.

These things are being produced as cheap as possible so throwing another pump in isn't worthwhile not to mention issues with space and noise.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 17:23

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

THE DOG HOUSE posted:

Oh I worded that badly. Is there a AIO with two, er blocks? I'm not sure the correct word. If there is one cheap enough I might bolt it to the side of a RVZ02 mitx case and watercool my gpu and cpu lol

EK predators are available with quick disconnects and you can order prefilled gpu blocks to attach to them but qdc connectors are big and an rvz02 is way too small.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 17:53

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

MaxxBot posted:

I've been thinking about the EK Predator, the stock blower on the Titan X is inadequate and my Hyper 212 on my CPU doesn't seem to cut it like it used to even when I keep it free of dust, which makes a big difference. Being able to replace both coolers with one solution that actually works well would be nice.

As nice as the EK predator is, id just tell someone to go custom loop if they are gonna start doing multiple components.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 18:21

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

THE DOG HOUSE posted:

I looked and looked and didnt really find what I was looking for, which was a basic AIO with two blocks instead of one. It's simpler for me just to buy two cheap AIO's. As for fitment... I'm planning on mounting them to the outside lol.

If you want to go AIO with 2 blocks you do this

http://www.ekwb.com/predator/

and a prefilled block. Basically any EK block can be purchased prefilled. Then you just connect it inline with the cpu and radiator.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 19:46

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 20:05

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

dougdrums posted:

I have two machines with the cooler master AIO units in them. They're probably unacceptably loud if you're not deaf. One of the pumps died after about two years of constant use, but cooler master sent me a newer model in its place.

I bought them mostly because the pump has a lower profile, it is easier to work around, and is generally convenient. I know that I could have gotten something cheaper that would do the job, but I'm too much of a stupid american to realize this apparently.

It also humors me to have a computer with a radiator, because it is completely unnecessary for something that sits in my house.

Elsewhere, I've seen electronics being cooled with distilled water, as it is less conductive. I really don't know much about the topic, but I figured there was distilled water or some other non-conductive liquid in those AIO units, is that not the case?

AIO units often have an ethylene glycol mixture because they use aluminum radiators and copper coldplates which will corrode each other. Saves them money.

Custom loops can use distilled water and a biocide because any decent custom loop products are copper/brass/nickle which will not react with each other.

There are some companies that make aluminum radiators for custom loops but its basically no name ebay chinese poo poo and thermaltake (do not buy thermaltake custom loop poo poo)

Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Aug 15, 2016

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 14:54

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

dougdrums posted:

The ones I bought were old stock, I think I paid ~$60 for them. I saw that the new models go for $100 which is ridiculous afaik.

Depends on the size. 120mm can routinely be $50-$60

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181030

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 18:36

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Gibbo posted:

Is the radiator thicker than that picture makes it look? The one there makes it look like a slim rad. And I double checked and I was thinking of the cryorig h7 when I was making the size comparison. I get those two mixed up.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't put a pump that only cost 60$ in any system I built so there's no way in hell I'd put in a pump that represented a fraction of that cost as part of a whole unit

Yea, my d5 costs as much as many 240mm rads.

Prescription Combs posted:

Looks about like that in person. it's 27mm deep.

And thats the enclosure. Not the actual radiator part.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 19:56

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Once the five year warranty is up is replace it

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 13:14

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

NihilismNow posted:

Does anyone still run bong style watercoolers? Those supposedly got really great performance but were a bit of a pain maintenance wise.

This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsQKyAswAPI

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 19:50

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Welmu posted:

Radiators: it possible to use bottom fillport as an inlet and two ports at the top as outlets (that lead into a reservoir)?

Thats designed to be a drain port. If you want a radiator like that you get a crossflow.

http://mnpctech.com/pc-computer-alphacool-ek-bitspower-hardwarelabs-heatkiller-liquid-cooling/cross-flow-radiators/

# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 16:45

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PerrineClostermann posted:

I've seen some loops sharing a reservoir between a cpu and gpu loop.

But its a single continuous loop. It doesn't break off into multiple paths.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 22:28

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PerrineClostermann posted:

The order of your parts in a loop doesn't really matter much, right? Other than having your res feed your pump.

Correct

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 15:31

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Yea I changed the jumper so my pentium 60 ran at 66mhz

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 02:57

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

headlor posted:

I'm unreasonably proud that my first attempt at watercooling something worked:

No drain

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 14:49

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

headlor posted:

You're probably right. Lowest point on the loop is the best spot for a drain I would assume?

Of course, my upside down radiator is still going to be full of fluid.

Your radiator probably has a drain port on the bottom. put a elbow and tvalve there, and then put a y fitting off the reservoir and put another tvalve off it.

or do a 4 way fitting and put a tvalve and a water temp sensor there.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 15:33

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

headlor posted:

Yeah the radiator has a drain port on it. But cos it's upside down it's at the top without a lot of clearance from the case.

I think I'm going to do a v2 at some point with everything shuffled around and more consideration for draining and filling. But hey, first attempt and it cools the cpu, so still a win.

Ahh yea i see. My rx480 i just realized only has ports on one side. My EK front rad has one drain port on the other side of the other ports on the rad.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 16:39

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

If it has a low FPI then you can still use slow fans.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 18:04

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

I use ek clear coolant concentrate but mayhem's x1 is fine also. It's usually one concentrate bottle plus 900ml of distilled water. NOT deionised Water

# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 01:49

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Powercrazy posted:

What's the advantage of a drain? Why not just use the pump itself to clear the system with a res at the bottom?

I made a custom water cooling system back when the C2Ds were the new hotness. I ran a single loop, CPU -> GPU water cooled, Peltier system with a single pump and radiator and reservoir. The volume of the system was ~6 liters. It's still running fine today. No Quick Disconnects, just 3/8" OD tubing that I bought from the hardware store for <1$/ft and used pipe clamps. Most expensive parts of the build were the CPU/GPU waterblocks which were around 150 for both. Pump was 35, Reservoir was 5, radiator was 20.

Whenever I drained it, I'd just siphon from the reservoir, and use the pump to clear the system. Reservoir was the low point in the system naturally anyway. It was great and 100% silent. When I finally replaced my ancient 5400rpm hard drive with an SSD, I didn't even know my PC was on. Also I had the radiator outside of the case with single 120mm fan for cooling.

Sounds like a good way to run your pump dry. Your res feeds your pump. You are either going to be pushing a ton of air with your pump through the system or leavea ton of fluid inside.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2016 22:40

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Amazon also has lots of stuff through third party sellers. Some of it prime.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 13:11

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

atomicthumbs posted:

what if you just hook up a laser cutter chiller to a cooling loop

If you cool below ambient you will get condensation.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 18:09

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Mofabio posted:

Oh man this thread brings me back. I spent summer after freshman year of high school trying to watercool my first PC, a 1.2Ghz AMD TBird. I'll never forget:

- Attempting to make a waterblock with junkyard copper, old wire, a dremel, JBWeld, and a soldering iron. Luckily the thing fell apart while lapping the base, would have been a timebomb.
- Attempting to make a giant evaporative cooler and trying to assure my parents that the humidity wouldn't rot my room from the inside-out
- The guy at Napa Auto Parts who was so incredibly down to help a strange child identify dimensionally-appropriate heater cores
- Learning that silicone tubing is water vapor permeable, trying to figure out why my water level kept dropping and why the pump would pull air after 3 months
- Slicing the gently caress out of my hands with a box cutter while building a reservoir out of junk to fix the above problem, starting my DIY scar collection
- Like so many future projects, doing a mediocre job and quitting at 90%

You kids today don't know how lucky you gots it, with your AIO's and your off-the-shelf phase change.

We had off the shelf phase change back then. Kryotech homie

Fragrag posted:

Reading this thread while on vacation in South East Asia makes me have crazy ideas on water cooling my hot rear end bedroom at my grandma's until I remember LinusTechTips did it and it was an absolute disaster.

Build a swamp cooler

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 16:16

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Harik posted:

He ended up doing that at his actual house, I think. Rack of poo poo in a closet and thunderbolt out to the desks. I'm torn on it myself - I don't want to hear my system running, but if I did water cooling I'd absolutely want to be able to see it - not just to show it off, but to watch for leaks or other signs of problems.

I can't be too hard on him for the storage meltdown - he hosed up originally, realized it was a problem, built a proper server to copy it to - and was mid-replication to a properly configured system when it failed on him. No wait, I can be. "moved a server before it was completely backed up" and the ever-hilarious "installed a critical server in a construction site WITHOUT A UPS" are perfectly great reasons to point and laugh.

Of all the thread-relevant things he's done, I think my favorite was A) build an oil-immersion fishtank PC and then B) move it cross-town in a moving van without draining most of the oil into a drum. It developed fractures and they had to drain and repair it.

Watercooling can be practically silent. Run lots of rad space and very slow fans.

I run a 480 and a 360 rad for an 980ti and an i7-4790k. Fans run at 300rpm during regular things. bumps to 700 or so during gaming.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 21:52

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Harik posted:

What'd that setup run you? (Just the cooling portion) I'm trying to ballpark a reasonable budget for this.

Oh that's easy - because I've got three machines and I wouldn't mind keeping one out for show while I toss the others off somewhere to be neither seen nor heard. I mean, I could pay to throw near-silent air coolers on them all but that's just not as fun.

Not including GPU block ive probably got ~$900 in just the watercooling. Add another $160 or so for the gpu (block + 2 fittings)

Keep in mind my setup is pretty high end. You can get cheaper pumps and blocks and fans and things.

480mm $120
360mm $100
7fans $140
pump/res combo $160
aquaero 6 controller $160
tubing $20
cpu block $80
fittings $50 not including gpu
drain $50
fluid $20

Now granted you dont NEED an aquaero 6 but boy is it amazing. The fact that it can completely control your loop without any intervention from the pc is heavenly.

Im using a $600 Caselabs case but i think you can fit a 480 and 360 into a $90 fractal define S (or maybe its 2 360s, or a 480 and a 240) but you get the idea.

Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Sep 9, 2016

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 22:48

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Nah I have ek Vardar f3 120s.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 23:41

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

They are. Biggest problem is limited pwm range but they work fine in voltage control and the aqauero let's you fine tune it. I think u can get then to run at like 200rpm if I want. The maglevs are nice cause they can do pwm from 400-2200rpm.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 23:47

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PerrineClostermann posted:

Does anyone know of a good fan controller?

Aquaero 6 if you are baller.

Aquaero 5 LT if you are not.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2016 20:45

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Moey posted:

Do you have any pictures of your setup?

Here ya go

Aquaero in the front runs everything. Only thing it relies on the pc for is gpu and cpu temp and it doesn't' actually use those for anything. It does all its fan control based on water temp and ambient temp.

Redoing the drain this weekend so its not just hanging down like that.

Ahh, redid drain finally

Don Lapre fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Sep 24, 2016

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 00:30

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

PromethiumX posted:

I feel like one of those radiators might be completely unnecessary.

Radiator all the space. They arn't very expensive and you really never have to replace them.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2016 13:35

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Moey posted:

That is quite the nice setup. I don't do any pc gaming, but would love to build a custom loop like that.

I wonder how many nerds have watercooled their whitebox home server?

I think Linus has a water-cooled server in his rack om linustechtips

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 01:34

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

well why not posted:

i think his home pc (and maybe his wife's) are rackmounted watercooled beasts. DIdn't he run cables through a wall for perfect silence, too?

Yea, he had a advertising deal with belkin at the time so he was showing off their optical thunderbolt cables i believe.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 16:05

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

TERRIBLE SHITLORD posted:

There is movement in the liquid in the reservoir but the tubes themselves don't show any movement at all.

You shouldn't see any movement in the tubes unless you have air bubbles moving. You can get a flow indicator which is just a spinning x usually but yea, if the res water is moving a little on the top then it's flowing.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2016 19:03

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

rage-saq posted:

Reminder: don't use prime95 as it's all SSE accelerated and causes a small part of the COU to get to like 90c.
Intel Xtreme Tuning Utility has a good load test

Unless you are going to use apps that use them.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2016 19:23

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

headlor posted:

I'm going to rebuilt my 'babies first watercooling' setup I did a while ago and add some common sense stuff like drain valves. Also thought I'd add my gtx 1070 into the loop while I was at it because the fans are noisy af.

So some novice questions:

1) is a 240mm by ~50mm deep copper radiator enough to safely cool CPU and GPU? It's got a couple of 120mm fans on it, and the components only have light overclocks (25-50% or so)

2) any better bit of software for managing fan speeds vs temp than speedfan? It's ok, but is kind of binary. 'Under target temp, drop to min rpm' or 'slightly above, 100% FULL SPEED AHEAD BRRRUUUM'. Ideally something I can design a curve for would be good.

Rule of thumb is 120mm per component plus one. So 360mm minimal. Also the more radiator space the lower you can run your fans.

For fan control I recommend an aquaero. The baller ones with screen are about $160 but you can get one without a display for $70-$100.

It's a standalone computer that can run a pump and fans. You can hook multiple temp sensors to it and have your fans spin up based on an ambient water temp Delta.

Works completely independent of the PC once set up. No need to worry about changing it with new hardware or anything.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2016 13:40

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 03:32

Don Lapre: Mar 28, 2001; If you're having problems you're either holding the phone wrong or you have tiny girl hands.

Ml120 basically has to run true pwm

# ¿ Nov 27, 2016 04:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Water Cooling: It's better down where it's wetter

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