How stupid is this? I've been looking for a place to put a 120mm rad in my HTPC and I've thought about using the PSU's fan for cooling the rad since I have room next to it. I'm not worried about the fan performance since watercooling the HTPC will be sort of overkill, I'm worried about killing the PSU in some way. So, am I nuts? Has it been done before?
If water cooling is overkill and you have to go to such lengths to acheive it.... why are you bothering? And do you mean bolting the rad to the outside of the PSU casing, so that the psu fan draws air through the rad into the PSU?
This is what the setup I meant. The case is a silverstone lc17 with a mATX motherboard which leaves room for the rad next to the PSU. I'll have to turn the PSU around since the fan faces the side of the case. And I'll move the 2 80mm fans to the front and side. The main reason to watercool is because I have the stuff I need laying around and need a use for it, and I beleive watercooling will make less noise than the amd 60mm screamer that sits on top of the underclocked sempron.
It might not kill your psu straight away, but the extra heat would definitely reduce it's lifespan, and would mean the fan is always running at loud speed because of the heat. I'd say instead of water cooling, just roughen the fins of the standard heatsink with ~80 grit sandpaper, taking care not to get the base scratched, and then lap the base. Whack one of your 80mm fans on it with an appropriate shroud, and run the fan at a silent speed = cool temps I would still flip the psu around so it helps vent the case, and make sure the front 80mm is running at a silent speed.
The rad would have to be right up against the mobo and you would need to build a duct (got a friend whos a tinsmith?) that would direct the air out of the case through the (removed) pci brackets (air movement right to left).
