Cooling Oh god, the noob's going to WC

Hey all

As the title suggests I'm moving over to watercooling, so far I'm close to getting the entire thing for £82 (£100 is the limit, really) and I've got a couple of Qs:

1. A 12v DDC Laing pump should be enough to handle this loop, right?
-Pump
-CPU
-Car radiator (1980s Mercedes 190E, radiator in good condition)
-Res

If not I'll just head to B&Q and get a pond pump or similar

2. How will I go about mounting the car res? it'l be external but should it go on the motherboard side or the other side and what method would you use? (I'm guessing DS tape won't quite cut it in this situation)

2½. Will the car res be enough to cool a Q6600 passively? And how much overclocking potential does it have if I do without frying?

3. Do you actually NEED a fillport or will an open barb in the top of a res with a cork stuck in it do for refilling the loop as necessary?

I know a car rad is overkill and I can just get a Corsair H50 for the CPU, but eventually I'll be cooling my graphics card and chipset as well (when funds allow me to)

Thanks all
-Sharn

 

Woah - you mean the heater core radiator, right? Not the actual engine radiator?

 

I mean the engine cooling one, it's clean as a whistle and it does the job

 

i would buy a radiator that is meant for a pc as the car radiator is so big that you are going to need lot sof fluid just to fill it up

 

Hmm, in that case I may get the Air Con one as well if it's more likely to fit... I'll probably just distill some water and use that to be honest so coolant price isn't a major problem

 

Awright let's do this...

1. For the normal components and even more blocks and Radiator's I'd have to say yes, but I'm not sure for the Car radiator. It adds an unpredictable component to the cocktail...

TBH, I'd also go for a normal PC rad - a 240 mm Rad will cool your Q6600 just fine and you'll have some headspace for OCing. Of course there's always the adventurous aspect when trying things such as car radiators, still I'm in doubt if it will pay off in the long shot.

2. Seriously, without even pics or a size in mm or m (O___O) we can't say anything. Same goes for 2 1/2, but I'd say it's always risky passively cooling a quad core CPU, no matter how big the rad.

3. A fillport is a convenient way of adding and draining liquid, which will be essential if you really are going to use that car rad. They are not expensive, and save you much work. If that was your question, I suppose it was. (I suppose you didn't mean to ask if you need to have a opening in the loop to get water in it )

 

omg, poor pump. you are going to need something a bit more substantial.

 

Yeah - the heater core radiator is a much more appropriate size and is designed for a similar system (no ram air cooling, small fans, small fluid volume, low flow rate, small pump, similar fluid/ambient temperatures) unlike the engine radiator (depends upon ram air cooling - widely spaced fins etc, huge fan, huge fluid volume, rapid flow rate and volume, massive pump, and hugely disparate fluid and ambient temperatures, so high efficiency isn't needed).

Use the heater core one. Or a motorbike one, that'll do.

 

Right, bloody good job I asked then hopefully I get the heater core radiator today at college so I'll post pics when I'm home tonight

Thanks PureSilver and n0va, consider yourselves +repp'd

 

Don't worry too much about coolant costs - deionised water is about £1/litre at Halfords, and you don't actually need that much for a radiator. Just add biocide and you're sorted.

 

I wouldn't bother with sterilised water either as I've been running my systems on tap water for years without any issues. It may be cheap, but money saved is money earned after all.

 

I think the best compromise on cost is flushing the system very carefully before you use it, then using distilled water and a touch of biocide and/or silver mesh filter/coils of silver, which you can get in aquarium stores, as cleaning agents. The flushing's hugely important because car heaters are much, much tougher and harder to block than PC components, so they aren't manufactured to the same tolerances or with the same care. Leak testing should be a mandatory 24 hours here, or preferably pressurize it with a bike pump to 10psi and come back in two days and see if that's dropped.

Good luck! - Sub'd

 

I've used a combination of tap water and antifreeze for years, and I have noticed no issues whatsoever. But As I started out with watercooling I have learned some lessons the hard way. For instance; don't ever use garden hose for your loop - trust me on this, just don't. Make doubly sure you have good seals, and use high quality hose - which is where I'd put my money rather than spend it on sterilised water. But of course, go the route which you are comfortable with. And good luck, it's great fun!

 

oh.. bear in mind that the original MB190 heatercores (if that's what you plan to use) are made from aluminium (at least the dual row, oval tube one with turbulence creating strips inside).. Could be an issue depending on what other stuff you're going to use in the loop.

 

Axly has a good point; galvanic corrosion is a pretty unpleasant thing for a rig to suffer from.

 

Oh crap, I was hoping it wasn't alu... with it being so old I was hoping for steel or similar (It's heavy, but galvanic corrosion would be non-existant... I'd hope)

Would using antioxide grease stop the corrosion? Or at the very least slow it down? Otherwise I mightaswell just give up now... especially as alu waterblocks seem to be fecking hard to find (And I've already spent my money on a copper block)

On a side note: the guy who's rad I'm getting wasn't at college today, so no pics unfortunately

 

Ok, quick update, after buying almost everything off the For Sale forums (thanks all ) I've got a few questions (and this is probably turning into a mod... I can see this going south already but ah well)

General
1. Higher size barbs, do they mean higher flow rate?
2. Is there such thing as a 180 degree barb? my radiator is facing up as it's meant to, and I'm not keen on having something as unstable as the tubing going 180 degrees (I do know that if it kinks, I'm screwed), unless anti-kink coils actually work and aren't just prettiful?
3. Anyone recommend somewhere good to get barbs, tubing and jubilee clips (I think that's what they're called)?
4. Does this setup seem ok performance-wise?
Pump>CPU block>Res>Rad
5. Does dying the water affect performance at all?

Blocks
6. I have a D-Tek Fuzion CPU block, is it better to use compression barbs for a higher flow or the normal ones?

Reservoir
7. XSPC 250 something or other... it has a heatsink all around the outside. Anyway, Is it possible to mount this where the 140mm fan goes? eg. horizontally in the case hanging off the fan grill or will the weight be too much? it's a 280ish ml res. the only problems I can see is if the fan grill gives way (I may take it out completely and replace it with a stronger, thicker one), and that the place you fill it is a screwed at the (would be) top of the reservoir, so would the pressure cock it up if horizontally mounted? If so I'm sure I can find another way to mount it.

Radiator
8. I've got a dual drive bay rad, but it doesn't quite fit in my drive properly (it's sticking about 2 inches out of the front), I'm pretty sure the grooves that support DVD drives are getting in the way, filing them down won't hurt my case will it?
9. Is it worth getting another 80mm fan to go at the front of the radiator to help push air through? (at the moment I have two pulling air through, they're surprisingly quiet) And if it is, how would I mount it? (there's not exactly any fan mounts on the front)
10. Is it worth adding a dust filter (see: pair of tights) to the front of the rad? I'm not sure how it'll stay on (unless I find a way of mounting the aforementioned fan)

Pump
11. I'm getting a Laing DDC pump (pretty sure it's 10w), will it be powerful enough to do the loop mentioned above? Considering the pump is at the bottom of the case (antec 300) and the res will be at the top.

Other (the answer is HELLYEAH, I just want to hear it )
12. Do we think I'll be able to mount the entire thing INSIDE my Antec 300? (The idea is rad in the bottom two 5.25" bays pump in the bottom three or four 3.5" bays), res as described and the block obvious

Thanks in advance for reading the wall of text

 

Are you scraping the car rad now?

- I saw something similar to this on 'systm'.

No, even if you play to re-add DVD drives in the future the screws alone should hold it.

Out of interest, what case are you using for this?

 

I am, I had chance of the dual bay rad that would actually fit inside my computer, I'm planning on all of it going inside an Antec 300.

And thanks, I figured as much but wanted to make sure.

 

Anti-kink coils help, but they aren't strong enough to support a sharp bend. A thicker tubing like 1/2inch will be harder to kink anyway than, say 3/8inch, though this also means they're harder to route. What case are you using? You could add a little slack in the tubing to allow it to route without kinking.

I use watercooling uk for barbs, in my case 3/8inch stretched over 1/2inch barbs with jubilees on them.

I reckon it's worth keeping the loop clean (ie proper flush and deionised water) as others have said, it's a bugger to clean once it's filled up. A little biocide also helps, Petra's shop do liquids like Copper Sulphate, or you can get the silver coils to put in the reservoir.