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Thread: Water cooling advice needed

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    Member holoflux's Avatar
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    Water cooling advice needed

    My 3 month old Aqualia watercooling unit died on me yesterday - I'm pretty sure that the pump has stopped running, but it's difficult to tell as it's kind of hard to get at. Anyway something's not right as the cpu keeps getting hotter and hotter. So . . .

    Lets bin the Aqualia rubbish and get something better. I don't want it to be too big and it'd be great if it looked good, or at least neat and it needs to be powerful for peace of mind.

    So I'd like some recommendations - what's the best peforming, most compact, money-no-object, sexy little off-the-shelf watercooling system out there at the moment?

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    Member ichorid's Avatar
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    corsair does a nice one

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    Ultimate Member Giblet Plus!'s Avatar
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    Re: Water cooling advice needed

    Originally posted by holoflux

    So I'd like some recommendations - what's the best peforming, most compact, money-no-object, sexy little off-the-shelf watercooling system out there at the moment?
    There are no really good commercially availible kits.

    How much money are you spending? For $200 or less, you could have quite a nice custom setup. "Custom" doesn't mean more work, it just means you're buying parts seperately.
    This is where my signature would go if I wasn't so lazy.

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    Member holoflux's Avatar
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    Interesting - I've never really got into this before and considered 'custom' to mean making it myself out of cardboard tubes and washing up liquid bottles. The truth is that I don't mind making it myself - in fact I'd rather do just that, but there are limits - I don't want to mill my own parts, create my own mouldings in my private blast furnace that I built specially, etc. . . . So I like the idea of buying seperate components and assembling them into a 'custom' system: could you give me some ideas for what might work well? Budget-wise lets say $300.

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    Ultimate Member Giblet Plus!'s Avatar
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    Okeydokey:

    Waterblock:
    The best out there is Cathar's Cascade waterblock, which you have to purchase directly from him here.
    $100

    Pump:
    The Danner Mag 3 is probably the best pump for a more restrictive block like the Cascade. You can buy it online, or possibly at a local petsmart. You'll also have to pick up barbs for it from a local hardware store.
    $40-$50

    Radiator:
    You want the biggest radiator that will fit in your case. Car heatercores work extremely well as watercooling radiators. Dtek Customs sells presetup heatercores with shrouds that are ready for 120mm fans. If you want something big enough for 2 (or 4 in a push pull setup) fans, a heatercore from a 1973 Chevy Caprice works very well. You'll have to make your own shroud for this core.
    $20-$50

    Fans:
    Use your favorite 120mm fans. 38mm thick fans are better because they create more static pressure than 25mm thick fans.

    Tubing:
    My favorite tubing for watercooling setups is Clearflex 60. You can purchase it cheap from McMaster under the PVC Chemical Tubing name. You want the 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD tubing.
    $10

    Hose Clamps:
    Buy these from a local autoparts store and use them everywhere possible.
    $5

    Filling/Bleeding:
    A T-fitting is the cheapest way to do this, but some people like reservoirs. Here's a great guide to making reservoirs.

    That should be about it.
    This is where my signature would go if I wasn't so lazy.

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    Ultimate Member mobo57's Avatar
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    Like the idea for building my own w/c unit. What about blocks for the chipset, memory and vid cards?? Where can I get these?
    Profanity: a weak mind trying to express itself forcibly.
    http://www.thegopnet.com

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    Member holoflux's Avatar
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    Had to say excellent reply Giblet Plus! - will get this together as suggested and put up some pictures. Thanks.
    Last edited by holoflux; 09-02-2003 at 09:14 PM.

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    Member holoflux's Avatar
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    Originally posted by mobo57
    Like the idea for building my own w/c unit. What about blocks for the chipset, memory and vid cards?? Where can I get these?
    Do you really need water blocks for all that lot too? - the cpu in my rig is generally much hotter than anything else. The Northbridge gets a bit warm too and is fairly accessible I suppose, but getting water cooling to the memory has got to be a tricky exercise. If all that lot was put together as part of the same closed system, it would mean that the water gets heated from several different sources and so the whole thing would surely run a good deal hotter? I guess it could be done with seperate circuits if that proved to be the case, but that takes the complexity up a level too. I'm sticking with CPU water cooling for now, but would be interested if anyone has other ideas.
    Last edited by holoflux; 09-03-2003 at 06:03 AM.

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    Member ichorid's Avatar
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    you need to watercool everything else if ur a total nutter/ thetre overheating.

    adding extra blocks for other components will just reduce overall efficiency and raise the cost.,

    your choice man

  10. #10
    Ultimate Member Giblet Plus!'s Avatar
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    There's no real point in watercooling memory. There's usualy little point in even putting heatsinks on it.

    Some people watercool their video cards and northbridges. You can always add on more blocks whenever you want.
    This is where my signature would go if I wasn't so lazy.

  11. #11
    Member cheekymonkey's Avatar
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    There are other waterblocks that perform as well as the cascade block in certain applications, personally I would prefer the following setup:

    DangerDen Maze4 CPU Waterblock (approx £40 in UK)

    Eheim pump either 1048 or 1250 depending how high a flow rate you want (approx £40), these are powerful yet silent and are known to last for years without failure.

    DangerDen GPU block (approx £30) if you want it

    DangerDen Z chip Chipset block (£30) if you want it

    Radiator, theres tonnes out there and where you put it has just as big an effect as how well it dissipates heat on the performance of your cooling setup.

    1/2" tubing and fitments for better cooling, clearflex again.

    Pump relay - very important if you dont want the hassle of having to remember to switch the pump on or off every time you switch the pc on/off. Loads of people forget to turn the pump on and wonder why the temp starts getting high.

    Not only does all this look good but it all performs well too
    take a look at some real hardware mods:

    www.condoms.co.uk

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    Ultimate Member mobo57's Avatar
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    Holo:
    check out the vapochill. With your system you may be hitting 4 gz's with one of these!

    http://www.vapochill.com/
    Profanity: a weak mind trying to express itself forcibly.
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  13. #13
    Member holoflux's Avatar
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    Gulp . . . want one.

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    If you don't care if it fits in the case, I bought a senfu2, (nice tank, radiator and tubing) mag drive pump, and Danger den maze3. Spent 220 bucks, and cools like crazy!

  15. #15
    Ultimate Member Giblet Plus!'s Avatar
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    Originally posted by Cybercuz11
    If you don't care if it fits in the case, I bought a senfu2, (nice tank, radiator and tubing) mag drive pump, and Danger den maze3. Spent 220 bucks, and cools like crazy!
    Senfu = ****

    Here's my setup, which was also $220:

    This is where my signature would go if I wasn't so lazy.

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