Cooling Water cooling adventures in the bosom of mother nature

Well, it seems there are a couple of outlets in Ohio, but I don't see any in Idaho or Washington. Have a look: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0308629 (At the top in the green box you can switch between outlets...). Oh and another thing; they don't say, on their website, which revision boards the block fit. When I first bought my current block I bought a rev.2 block because I figured my card was so new it had to fit - it didn't. I need rev.1 blocks and have e-mailed EK inquiring about the part number for their rev.1 blocks, but surely the webshops selling them should also state this.

 

well thats depressing. none of those states are anywhere near me. the closest store is about 14 hours away in california...that might be a little hard to pull off

thats a great price though. googling around, i cant find the same block for under $50 anywhere.

too bad they wont ship

 

Ahhh...you said "Oregon", I thought you said "Ohio". Damn. Oh well.
Yes it is a very good price, so it is very unfortunate that they won't ship. The cheapest I've found their blocks elsewhere is on e-bay, but even there I'll have to pay $39.99 for the cheapest one.

 

hmm, maybe ill call them tomorrow and ask really nicely if they'll ship. cant hurt to ask right?

EDIT: the kansas city store has an open box one thats missing the thermal pads (for the ram i presume) for $6.96

also, the description says its for reference cards. if your card is a newer card, its probably non-reference....but then youd think the rev.2 block would fit....hmmm...

 

Wow, didn't see that one. That's awesome.
My card has a rev.1 board so I think the reference blocks are perfect, but the whole rev.1 vs. rev.2 thing was somewhat confusing. Would be awesome if you could manage to sweet talk them into shipping it out. At $7 it's not that big of a deal if it doesn't fit - though shipping across the atlantic will run the total price up a bit

 

ill bet even with international shipping itll come out less tan buying one locally.

ill let you know what i come up with tomorrow

 

Great - really appreciated.
The blocks weigh in at just shy of 800grams.

 

So, got any news for me?

 

i was hoping to catch you on the creative server since its finally been updated.

i called them, and listened to terrible country music on hold for 15 minutes before i gave up. who would have thought theyd be that busy? ill try them again tomorrow at a different time of the day and/or maybe try one of the other stores that have a block in stock.

 

Oh bloody hell!
You have my deepest sympathies man - I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy!

 

well, i called the minnesota store and sat on hold for 10 minutes (at least they dont have any hold music). then i called the kansas store again and got right through. i managed to schmooze the guy a bit (turns out he has friends in both norway AND washington - small world!). he said he would have liked to help me out, but the literally dont have a shipping center, so theres just no way to ship things out from their store. so unfortunately is sounds like its not happening.

sorry J, i tried

 

Aww, I see. Still, sounds like a helpful and nice guy though.
Anyhow, thank you for the effort - it is highly appreciated. I guess I'll trawl the web further in search of a better deal than those I've found so far.

 

Ahh, so finally I've got my second GTX285 installed (sans waterblock obviously), however I had a d'oh moment as i realized I would not be able to use the crossfire bridges included with my motherboard. So I will have to go out in search for an SLI bridge tomorrow. Now though, I will give a couple of games a go with the second GTX285 as a dedicated physx card. Or could I use the crossfire bridge in place of an SLI bridge?

Oh, and installing the second 285 robbed me of a SATA port

 

As you have such a large volume of water, you might not need any radiators. You could attach a large heatsink directly to the tank, so any heat building up there will quickly go up the heat pipes and out into the nice spring/summer/autumn/winter air. I am thinking of some large diameter rods that sit in the coolant, attach to a big copper or aluminium (British spelling) plate, which then goes off into separate scavenged heatsinks.

 

Hm, that's not a bad idea that. Will have to consider this.

 

Flow Sensor

An idea for a flow sensor for you to look into:

http://autometer.com/cat_gaugedetail.aspx?ref=search&gid=3188
At the end where you have the pvc tubing clamped on, insert a T junction point downwards. Fit the pressure sensor from the gauge into it and run the gauge up to your desk. The gauge is mechanical so it doesn't need any electricity to work. I doubt you will see more than the 35psi that it is rated to. Just an option to think about.

 

^ genius

i will be doing just that when/if i ever get to enter the world of liquid cooling.

 

I have looked at those, and while they certainly look good I'm not entirely certain they're suitable. I will however run with the idea, and see where it might take me. If I did go this route however, I will rather install the gauge into a planned control panel for my cooling system. We shall have to wait and see how it turns out. Thanks for the input though.

Edit: Now, finding an SLI bridge has proved to be difficult. There is only one major hardware retailer in my city, but their webshop doesn't list SLI-bridges as being in stock. So I've registered an order online with another supplyer, but they don't have them in stock either, so it's registered as a backorder. I will go to my local retailer during lunch today to ask if they have one that came with a DOA card or something like that. I'd hate to wait another week - or more - for an SLI birdge!

 

Hi. Great set up.

Would like to ask is something like this feasable in an indoor set up. Does the volume of water improve the cooling potential of a traditional internal pump/rad/res/waterblock build.

It got me thinking about putting the res/pump in the bottom of a cupboard out of the way, with suitable ventilation.

 

you can run SLI without a bridge cant you? i thought i read somewhere that (especially on older cards) the performance hit was almost nil.

zort, the water volume would keep the system cooler for longer on cold start-up, but after the water is up to temp, it will still require the same amount of surface area for heat dissipation as a "normal" setup.