Ok my PC is in the corner of my room, and theres a window sill not too far away. What I'd like to do is have a 120.3 radiator on the window sill, cooling the PC. However the tubing currently in the PC is 1/2" and stretching that out, about an extra 1meter or more will result in a massive pressure loss. So will using some thinner tubing (Better for looks/hiding away) fix this? Also what about the power for the fans?
Thinner tubing will cause MUCH more pressure loss than thicker tubing. New generation pumps have a bigger pressure head than older ones so this is less of a problem, but it's still there. Besides, 1m of 1/2" ID tubing will be responsible for naff all pressure loss. The algae that will grow in your system once you've got all that lovely clear tubing exposed to light will, however, cause a great deal unless you've got a decent biocide in there...
Translation: Don't worry about any pressure loss - you won't notice. But make sure you have an additive to kill all the nasties. As for fan power, hack up a wall wart.
Just use some 1/2" tubing and it'll be fine; I've heard of people doing the same thing with longer tubing runs.
whaaaaaooo!! I've had the window open a little bit tonight as it was a bit hot, and felt the temp of the rad. SO COLD! Can't wait to get this set up with tubing and fans. Still a bit sumped on the power for the fans. The wall wart sounds good, just don't really know what to do.
Basically, just get a 12v (or variable) power supply off eBay, and hack the end off. Cut the connectors off your fans. Strip and tin the wires. Solder the wires to the PSU in parallel, apply heatshrink and plug in.
This is a good idea... I might do this if i ever pour money into my system again - since i've got two 120mm metal framed AC 24v fans doing nothing!
If you've got an external 3x120 rad, you can run it passively quite safely unless you have some insane heat output on your rig. I've run some pretty hot hardware on a pair of 120mm rads passively and it was maybe a single degree warmer than with the fans blasting.
really wow, well that would be awesome. I remember when I was at i27 I wont this "Desk fan" which was basically a 120mm fan with a grill over it, that connected via USB. That would do as well. Oh yeah, well it'll be cooling a overclocked 4800+ x2 and a 8800GTX
If it's going to be getting the coolant temperature below the room temperature be careful about possible condensation around the CPU socket area, don't want problems with water.
With a G80 in the loop, that'll probably be difficult in a room with a sensible temperature. To be honest I'd just get a radbox and jam the rad on the back - it's much less hassle than putting it out the window, and far more reliable, after all, temps don't really matter that much tbh.
