Cooling Help w/ Building a Custom Water Cooling system

want to custom build my own coolant water system for my PC. I don't over clock my PC, I am doing it to eliminate fan noise(Dual Core Opteron system produces alot of heat and makes fan run high) and also because it looks so cool. I have some questions if anyone can help:

1) Which brand is better, Alpha Cool or Koolance?

In my loop I will be cooling CPU and 2 hard drives(thinking about doing northbridge but dought it since I don't game).
2). I read on Koolance site that they recomand 3/8 hoses because in some cases 1/2 hoses can hurt preformance, how is this so?

3). How do I know what power/size pump to get? If the pump is to strong the flow of water will move to fast to cool off and if the pump is to weak then the flow of water won't move enough to cool.

4). How do I know what size radiator to get to cool my system but also to match the pump flow since it causes restriction to water flow?

 

1) Alphacool and Koolance are both great brands, which one makes equipment that suits your needs better?

2) There's not really much point in watercooling normal hard drives - you're better off with a silent fan blowing gently over them. HDD's have been shown to last longer when they're not super-cool anyway, and HDD blocks are just as restrictive as NB blocks.
1/2" hose has a bigger bend radius (i.e. the smallest bend you can make with 1/2" is bigger than the smallest one with 3/8"). It used to be that 3/8" cooling used to be noticably poorer than 1/2", but now the gap is marginal.

3) Pumps are a pretty easy thing to choose - it comes down between two different kinds. The smaller, high-pressure ones, or larger flow-orientated pumps. Pretty much the two most popular internal pumps are the Laing D5 (aka Swiftec MCP655), and the Laing DDC (aka Swiftec MCP355).

I went for the MCP350 (a slightly older version of the 355), mounted in a special resevoir that fits into a 5.25" drive bay at the top of my case, and it's a great little pump, I've had no trouble at all with it.

4) What size radiators will fit into your case? A single 120.1 (i.e. 1*120mm fan mounted on it) radiator should be able to cool that processor sufficiently, but that doesn't leave you much room for expansion. A 120.2 rad will probably be your best bet, as it'll mean you could use the same loop for cooling any CPU around, and probably a graphics card as well without too much trouble.

HTH!

 

Thanx. I'm going to make the everything external...I think it looks better. Here's a question though...since I'm not overclocking and not gaming, do I need to put a fan on my radiator? Since I do not want to use fans on my radiator, does this mean I need to buy the largerst one possible? And if I do but a large one, will I have to buy a pump powerfull enough to push the flow through a large one which will mean a pump that is loud?

 

I think the best way is to buy a properly silent fan, a big radiator won't need that much air movement to keep it nice and cool, and you'll never hear the difference.

 

I have a cat and I am worried about him bitting one of the hoses or a leak may spring and he will drink some of the coolant. Could I use distilled water with alot of color die or would alergie grow?