Watercooling Had to remove one of my 2 x liquid cooled 560Ti from the loop

Because I sold it. My loop has about 4 metres of 12mm ID tubing, 500mm heatsink tower res and PA 120.3 rad. A lot of coolant. Several litres. Removing one GPU from the loop was a simple matter of turning off the 3 shutoff valves to stop flow, then removing both GPU's and disconnecting the tubes. Lost half a teacup of coolant in doing so which is minimal. I could never think about having to drain my loop as I did in the old days. In fact you could go one better and get clamps that stop the flow of water but of course shutoff taps permanently in place are very good.

So it was a simple matter removing one GPU!

So how many people here drain all of the coolant before adding or removing bits?

 

I don't have any cut off valves. When i come to replace this 480 with a 580 very soon it's gonna be a WHOLE drain.

Can't wait!!

 

I guess if your coolant needs a change then full on extreme drainage is the way to go.

Back in 2004 my water systems were intensely whacky. I'd mod a camping ice box and fill it with 5 gallons of tap water, a little redline water wetter and away I'd go.

I've calmed down a lot since then.

 

I have a single valve placed below my Phobya Balancer 250 reservoir to drain off the liquid.

Question for you feathers; What shape and form of shutoff taps do you use? Simply for drainage my ball valve is brilliant but I'd never place it within the loop because it would curve the flow rate without question. Pictures would be nice!

Also can't for the life of me figure out why compression fittings are supposed to be great. I tried a couple and they were terrible compared to my barbs which I find very easy to play around with. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

 

I recently bought a few sets of QDC fittings to avoid that. Still need to buy a few more though, I currently have 3 modern systems to cool, with a fourth coming soon, and will have 3 bench systems set up pretty soon. As I plan to create one big, complex loop (which may includue creating a TEC water chiller and taking 2 or 3 systems sub zero), QDCs are gonna save a lot of hassle when switching out components (as well as avoiding another exploding PSU!).

 

Now you are my kind of person.

I still have one of my TECs from the old days of P4 chilling.

Used to have Danger Den Maze 3-1 and then the not so good 4-1 with TEC block.

I miss those days but at a certain point my power usage reached 650 watts which on a P4 system was excessive.

 

What tubing you use affects how easy compression fittings are to use. One lot of clear tubing I bought (I had 10 meters of it!) is too stiff to easily use with them, but all my other tubing is soft enough to lend to ease of use. Barbs and compression fittings when used with good quality tubing should be pretty much the same for normal use.

 

I run a single loop for my CPU and GPU's, so I use Koolance QDC's to give me access to all my components without draining the loop. There is absolutely zero spill, don't know how I managed without them.......

 

I'm still relatively new to overclocking and benching systems (hence why I'm going to be benching some older systems, for the experience). TEC waterblocks are few and far betwen these days, I only know of one which is readily affordable, and it's only listed as being for socket 1155/1156. A TEC chiller will be fun to build, even if a little power hungry. By the time I get to that stage, I may buy a SS or start using LN2 as well

When I build my SR-X build later this year, it will need at minimum 2 x 1250W PSU, with 2 top end processors (hopefully unlocked by then) and 4 overclocked high-end Kepler cards I remember the first PC I built, a 486 SX33, when a 250W PSU was considered overkill

 

Slightly off topic I know, but I would highly recommend an SS over a TEC, they just aren't worth it IMO, especially with modern systems :/
Get an SS, you won't be disappointed, I wasn't

On topic:
I drain my entire loop if I ever need to change anything, lot of hassle, hence why I don't really change anything in my loop very often (the reason why I don't have my gpu under water)

 

That's a really nice test-bench build. Tidy.

LOL! You really don't wanna see pics of my build! Me and tidy are like a politician without a scandal. Having spent several years now on bit tech forum I realise that my build is excessively messy. I made very little attempt to tidy it on the mobo change last year because I know others can do it so much better so I just go for functional. My valves are plastic hose taps bought on ebay. The're outside the case along with my rad, reservoir and pump which sit several metres away by open window. I have been too ashamed to show anyone the plastic tubes linking my 2 x 560Ti SLI. I came to realise that on a future build I have to be much tidier and not use plastic UV jubilee clips everywhere and if I use SLI then use the link bridges or whatever they are.

Now I have only 1 x 560Ti since selling yesterday and actually the other is also sold but I have to wait until payment arrives at bank before shipping. Sold both here on marketplace.

I have always had UV tubes to make the UV hose glow but I got so lazy on last rebuild I haven't even bothered with the lighting!

I know what u mean about compression fittings. First time I used them some years ago was with smaller tubing, the tubing was rather rigid and the tube would pop out of the compression barb. I have a hard disk waterblock using compression fittings and that has never been a problem. I think compression fittings can work very well especially if the tube is nice and soft. Most of my connections are long barbs and UV jubilee clips! I have 2 x long hose barbs on my Swiftech apogee waterblock. Short stumpy barbs on the remaining 560Ti. I prefer the plastic UV clips to the metals ones now but I agree with the others here who have told me clips and barbs look ugly. If you want neat then it must be compression.

Jeez! I made experimental peltier water chillers. There is a guy on the internet who machines peltier water chiller blocks for this purpose. He has created very long thin blocks for multiple peltiers. Would love to make an effective chiller using an array of low voltage pelts. I no longer want the power consumption associated with running even a single 270w peltier for example. Phase change aquarium chiller would be a good option.

 

I'm using 1/2" Alphacool Barbs with 7/16" hosing and it works perfectly. It will not budge without the use of a little heat application from my hands and some horse power to install the hose. Also the barbs are very well made; they have ribs that seem to work just fine without the use of clips!

Now I just need to find me a Palit/Gainward GTX 460 with EK water block and this backup PC will have it made!

 

I used to use hose barbs without hose clips but I had to wrap PTFE around the barbs in order to do so. Depends on the tubing and barb size/design I guess. I still use PTFE on the barbs and I do find I need the clips especially if the barbs are short.

 

Last loop I had I drained the whole system, didn't bother me so much at that was just some distilled water.

But when I add some of this stuff to my loop, I will be adding some QDC





bloody awesome eh?

 

Blast I should have said, I have dibs on red, I'm sure we can share?

The red will go nicely in my black and red themed build

Only problem is it's £15 a litre I should be getting some on wednesday, so if I can get my WC loop back up and running before I head off to the states at the weekend, I shall make sure to take some pictures

 

£15 a litre?! Ouch.

I've never used QDC's mainly because de-ionised water and a few kill coils or some silver biocide is so cheap. A big 5L bottle of water from the car shop lasts for ages and only costs a few quid.

Having a drain and fill port in my case means the time taken to empty, flush and fill the loop is minimal, granted it would be quicker with QDC's but I would have to add a QDC in between every component in my loop to make them worthwhile.

Can't help but think that the cost outweighs the benefit for me personally.

 

Hmmmm EVGA GTX 580 HC Classified?

and yeah not cheap, but bloody awesome

 

Water from car shop? That will kill your pc if it leaks.



At the very least you should be using bi-distilled but why bother when you can buy inert coolants like this...

http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...a=X&ei=4h56T7_zIMf80QXvnMGSDQ&ved=0CEoQ8wIwAQ