Cooling Taking the plunge but have questions

Taking my first step into water cooling and have decided a good quality kit would be a wise solution for a noob. The Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" is the kit that seems to be a good performer and at a good price too. So the questions:

I really fancy fitting an Aqua computer Aquatube into the loop - is this adding problems. I’m sure I saw that 10mm fittings are available for the AC rez. This is assuming I have correctly identified the Swiftwech as being 10mm OD tube.

Will be adding VGA block to cool Geforce 7800GTX by the way and this lot will be sitting in a Lian Li V1100 plus. I fancy the Rad mounted (top) in the case with a sexy grill. This of course does away with the rear mounting Swiftech method and I realise the air surrounding the rad when fitted as per the kit standard will be warmer in the case. Dunno if the fans pull through the rad on the kit. I was thinking of having the fans pull through and into the case.
If I mount the rad internally.

I am not a serious overclocker, I have an X2 4400 at 4800 on air at the moment and this makes me happy enough, may look to pushing further with WC but nothing extreme.

That’s about it – maybe I’m looking to run before I walk and should live with the kit as is for a while. – Your comments on this welcome

Thank you

 

and your questions?

 

The questions are in there -

Is it a good idea adding the the AC rez
is the 10mm OD tubing universal across swiftech and AC rez
oh, and the internal mounting of the rad as opposed to the swiftech method of external mounting

Hows that ?

 

that ac rez might cause restrictions (someone confirm this)... innovatek has a similar rez with larger fittings... AC like to use 8mm od/6mm id tubing(or that's what their plug&cool is about)but all the stuff that comes in the swiftech kit should fit together(obviously)... and mounting of rad is a little bit how you prefer it as long as it has the ability to get air through(I've seen some bad examples but not going to mention who and how)

 

I'd recommend the Innovatek Fass-O-Matic which makes life easier as it uses 1/4" threads

 

Yes I have seen the Innovatek res and it is very similar and this is worth looking into.

The V1100 has had some bad press about heat owing to the noise insulation etc
but they "say" this has been addressed in the plus version - there is a nicely finished extatactor fan that is part of the kit now.

I assume that the Swiftech when mounted on the rear pulls air through the rad. I would think that if I mount the rad internally I should make sure the fans pull air from the outside and blow over the rad - would you agree with this Leeum/AWACS ?

 

it depends... do you want the heat into the case or not? there are quite a lot of stuff needing the case to be fairly cool

 

Seems to me that Top Nurse made an offhand comment on modifying the Aquatube with larger fittings and inducing problems with air bubbles being sucked right through the rez and back into the pump inlet.
The Aquatube is designed for a smaller-bore, lower flow system after all, so I can see how such a mod might upset the dynamics of the design.

Isn't the Swiftech kit natively 1/2" (the pump certainly is).
I'm sure that with a bit (maybe a great bit) of effort you could stretch 10mm hose over the larger barbs...I've never tried.
If you want a small bore loop though, why not just go with AquaComputer stuff and make life simpler?

Rad placement seems to be down to case dimensions and personal preference.
Ideally, the rad is able to access fresh, external air.
If I understand your plan correctly, you want to pull air down through the core and into the case...seems counterintuitive to me.
Flip the fans and have them pull through the core and exhaust through the roof grill. The downside of this is that you are working with the (presumably) pre-heated air from the case interior rather than the more ideal outside source.
I don't care for roof mounted rads in general because of the longer tube runs they tend to require, but that's just me.

 

This is an awkward question I agree. There will be the usual contributers to the case temperature and of course that will all go to making the rad warmer. This has to be considered even before the question of pulling or pushing air is considered. My way of thinking is that it would be better to pull colder air in over the rad and expel it out of the caset using the case fans than to pull air out of the case over the rad which is already heated by the above mentioned components - I hope that makes sense. I'm not explaining my self very well.

 

clocker has got it in one.

I've got an Aquatube which has been re-bored with 1/4" threads for some 1/2" hosetails. Bleeding the bubbles out was a total pain! When I first fired up the pump the water turned into a mass of froth as the bubbles were being pulled back into the pump inlet.

I finally got it sorted by running it with the case motherboard side down but it took a while. I think it's easily fixed by having one barb at the bottom and one at the top side so the bubbles have to rise to the top first. As there's only two re-tapped thread on mine I didn't have a choice.

If you go for the Fass-O-Matic you can do all that without any problems

 

not really, you will still experience the same problems...

best thing, which ever one you decide to use, is to completely bleed the system of air by taking time to cycle the pump, refill slightly and complete until the system is as free from air as possible.

I run a fass on a D5 with a dual rad and a TDX...

I also have a aquatube but it'll never use it with large bore, that's just silly imo.

 

Interesting... I have an Aquatube on large bore (3/8" ID inlet in the side, 3/4" ID outlet in the bottom), at 1.73 litres/min. flow, and I never had any problems with bubbles, whether using water or Fluorinert...

 

Once the system is bled, there shouldn't be too many troubles with bubbles (sic.). I remember someone on here saying they ended up putting a bit of sponge (eg, the one that comes with an Eheim pump for submerged use) in the res to trap the bubbbles. Or, Aquacomputer do what is basically a short tube that directs the inlet to the res so that it sprays on the glass, both looking pretty and separating the inlets and outlets so there's less chance of bubbles being sucked stright back in.

(I had the same idea as Leeum and I run mine with the inlet on one side and the outlet on the bottom, or maybe the other way round)

 

Could it not be a matter of orientation with the Aquatube ?
If on its side (window facing out from drive bay area) and the outlet is from the bottom side and the inlet from the back, there is not a lot of water space between the two ports. It seems that the outlet would almost be forced to pick up some bubbles.

- just a thought

 

I got Enak to make an adapter plate for the AT so i could fit a CSP-MAG pump to it. It gives you one 1/4" threaded port and sorts out any bleeding problems. Props to Starbuck733t for coming up with the design.

Details on this thread on wizd.

 

Well as it happens I went 1/2 DD stuff in the end - its all just come
Having got access to a full machine shop I got to thinking about the DD fill port/fill port rez and have drawn up a cunning plan for a unique rez.

If interested I'll keep ya posted.

I really appreciate all the input guyz.

Merry crimbo