I'm not sure if this is overkill but... Say one were to have two barbs for an add-on radiator. Anddddd... During the summer, of course they would just be straight-through with a small bit of tubing. Besides making it easier to fill when you have an internal pump, would this not be a good idea: In the winter around here, it gets coooold. I hate it. But why not put it to my advantage? My PC is very much near a wall in the basement with a small window above it. But forget the window... Why not just run some tubing outside to your outside radiator, and hook those two tubes coming from it to your extra barbs? Yes, the radiator already in the system would work against everything, but provided that you used antifreeze, the PC would be nice and cold during the winter using nature's own form of sucking heat away from warm objects... such as people, and radiators. Someone tell me this is a stupid idea before I decide to incorporate those two extra barbs into my radiator enclosure.
Not stupid. Alot of people do it. Some people even put a resivior underground to get the effect all year round
How cold does it get outside, just bear in mind that if you have a good antifreeze mix, the fluid could be returning into your computer at a low enough temp to cause condensation on your hoses and blocks, if that drips down onto something live...
A. Not stupid, probably a lot of people do this with in-ground copper pipes.. B. Make sure you have antifreeze as said before. C. Then again, if you need antifreeze it might not be a good idea to do it, if your cpu block gets below dew point in your house condensation will start to form, which is not good... just as long as it isn't too cold outside this shouldn't be a problem
Like I said, with the outside radiator running into the inside one before going internal, it should warm up the sub-zero temps that may happen, to above-condensation levels. I'm thinking, perhaps an auto-pc-shutoff would be useful, based on a humidity sensor near one of the tubes. I have one, it is sold by humirel, costs $30, and outputs 0-5v based on relative humidity (0-99%). If the RH goes up above a certain threshhold set by the average humidity, then we would know! Or, even better, I'm sure there is a calculation for at what temp water will condense based on starting humidity and temperature. In other words, an equation, a temp sensor in the incoming line, and a temp sensor for the case as well as a humidity sensor (probably RH). Actually, since the humidity sensor auto-calculates relative humidity, I just have to remember at what temperature water will condense given a certain RH. The fun part is that I have already built an automation box that lets me switch high-current outlets as well as read from up to 8 temp or humidity sensors. It works off the parallel port and I have written interface and automation software for it, however I am working on a USB version too.
Hmm... this time around I'd have to say it's not a bad idea but... you must also consider the following... Pumps have something called a head flow (or something >.<), which is the maximum height above the pump it can push a fluid, so unless you have a strong arse pump or the window isn't very far away, you might have problems... then again, a siphon effect might happen, and help suck the water up the hose, through the radiator... and etc... I dunno, I don't even watercool, I'm just referring to science
