I have just taken my first steps into water cooling with my second PC mod, an in-desk (drawer) PC. I have a question though, what kind of air flow should I be looking for to cool the radiator? The set up I am using is: Acetek Black Ice Micro 80mm Dual radiator two Akasa 80mm fans doing 2500 rpm and 28.76 CFM XSPC 5.25" Bay Reservoir with 12v Pump With under 1.5m of 3/8" tubing The over all volume of liquid in the system is about 750ml (This is not top end stuff I am sure, but I don't have much wealth to play with...) How long should it take before the reservoir is noticeably warm to the touch? The idle temperatures are initially better than using a stock heatsink, but after 1-2 hours running idle temps get into the high 40 degrees. Do i need better fans? Any advice is welcome
what are the specs of your pc, and have u done any overclocking? will help to know what temps u should be looking at
It's not overclocked, and the spec isn't exactly high end either: Mobo: ASROCK N68PV-GS CPU: AMD Athlon X2 2.7 GHz RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR2 667 GFX Card: none due to very tight space HDD: 120GB (IDE) OD: Pioneer DVD 303S Internal DVD Drive OS: Windows Vista Home Basic The CPU block I am using is a Alphacool NexXxoS XP Bold Cooler. Hope this helps
The res shouldn't really be noticeably warm to touch at all. When I touch my res it just feels like plastic, it isn't especially cool or warm. Do you have good airflow into the case, other than the two 80mm on the rad itself? I wouldn't expect major things from a 2x 80mm rad.
to be honest here the problem isnt the fans its the size of the radiator ideally if you can opt for a larger rad and run slower fans you will get better results. But you also need to make sure your getting good air flow to the rad whatever size it happens to be. Maybe a few pictures to give us a better idea?
I'm sure that a bigger rad would make a world of difference, but the drawer has limited scope for large things, measuring W=730mm D=350mm H=82mm. The pipes coming off the cpu block only just have enough room to curve without kinking due to height restrictions and the radiator is on supports hanging out of the back of the drawer to allow clearance, and some air movement. I have added a 120 fan horizontally near thee front to allow fresh air into the space, which has lowered and stabilised temps by a few degrees lower, which is a huge improvement. Would a low profile 120mm rad work any better than my current 2 x 80mm? If so i could fix one where my new fan is. I'll try and add some photos, but my camera isn't keen on shots of things that are closer than a metre away, so they may be a little fuzzy.
Photos Ok then, here's the desk/computer, all nice and tidy like I wanted it, with no masses of cables etc: Here's the computer on; this is before I added the large fan: Here's what's inside the drawer, with new addition of large fan: How the rad is mounted... quick and dirty, just how I like it: A interesting shot of fans, one psu and the other is the 120mm: Cable "management"
It sounds like you could easily fit a Black Ice Stealth horizonally on the floor with some 25mm fans ontop
as the rad is mounted on its own bracket could you not just wack a dual 120mm rad there and make a slightly different bracket for it?
I guess so, but i didnt really want big things hanging off/ out of the drawer, but i'll look into it. You don't think that a single 120mm rad would be better than my current dual then? or even in addition to it, inside the drawer?
tbh the width of the dual 120 rad would not be that much more then theone you have atm so you probably would not see it. As for adding the 120 inside you could try it with the current rad but as it would be right next to the psu i dont know how good it would be. then there is the pipes to consider.
