Hardware Watercooling 101

Sound:
It's easier to get a quiet water system than an air system. You can get a bigger radiator, add more fans and run slower. It's tough to put 2 120mm fans on a CPU heat sink. The larger the fan the more efficient it is, especially at lower speeds. I went from a loud single CPU fan to 2 silent 120mm radiator fans and an almost silent pump. SO much quieter. Notice I said "easier", I know you CAN get a silent air cooled system, but it's easier with water. And with water, the cooling doesn't change as you move components around. The air flow through the case becomes much less critical.

Leaking:
I put together my very first water cooled system (see the WaterPlant in my sig). Only leak was in the homemade reservoir (long before actually trying to run the system). It's a pretty complicated single loop system (36 connections, 6 components cooled). Worked perfect first time. I was expecting it to be much more difficult, but it was really quite easy. Just takes attention to details and double-checking everything.

Efficiency:
Anything that effects efficiency, like tubing size, 90 degree elbows, etc. are points to consider, but not necessarily laws to follow. If you get enough cooling to keep your system in the specs you need, that's what matters. I have all 1/4" tubing connecting 6 components on a single loop in my PC and 7x90 degree elbows in the external cooling system, with 10 feet of tubing in between (total of about 30 feet of tubing). It works fine. If it DIDN'T work fine, then I would start looking at those efficiency factors. However, I just have an old AMD 3200 and it's not overclocked.

Basically, I'm just commenting that watercooling is not as difficult as it might seem. This article has some very good information, and it's good to try to understand all the concepts (I'm going to carefully read the whole series!). But you don't have to understand everything the article says in depth. Don't let the complexity of the underlying principles scare you away. Keep reading. When you build you first one, just keep it simple and use common sense based on what you've read. As you get more adventurous, you (and I) may need to come back and read through it again.

 

One thing I forgot to mention; It would be good to list some of the products/manufacturers to avoid and provide justification for that as well.

I'd avoid using Koolance & ThermalTake (e.g. Bigwater) products because they 1) have a weak pump, 2) only use 1/4" tubing (I prefer 1/2"), 3) use cheap/poor waterblocks, and 4) use aluminum radiators (at least Koolance does) resulting in a mixed metals loop, which can corrode/damage the components.

 

Couldn't have done it without you, Nexxo and Firehed. Thanks for all your help, guys.

And thanks for all the great comments so far, everyone, I'm glad to know this is something you've been looking for. It's taken a LOT of planning, but water cooling is here to stay on this site.

 

How in the world are you cooling all of that on a single radiator with a single fan at 7v? When I was doing my initial research, the TDP of my processor and graphics card nearly exceeded the radiator's capabilites, and that was running the fan at full speed. I just don't see how you can cool all of that on a single-fan radiator, not to mention all of that plus a power supply. My watercooling noobness is showing, isn't it?

I still think that if you put the same amount of thought and consideration into an air cooling setup, noise becomes a non-issue.

-monkey

 

All I can say are that figures don't mean everything. I've not got the PSU in there yet, but nothing would stop me putting it in. Oh and the fan might be at 5v, I'm not certain.

I work on the basis of try it and see, then fix it later if it doesn't work


As for the noise. I reckon you could make an aircooled computer quiet. But you won't be able to put the HDD into an enclosure without turning it into an oven, unless it's watercooled. In my system the HDD made the most noise before it was cooled too.

Plus, as much as I love my quiet system, I enjoy the fun of watercooling!

 

I agree that figures can be misleading. Based on projected figures, I originally had thought that my components would run just fine, but Nexxo and pdf27 plugged in the raw numbers and shed some light on the difference between manufacturer specs and real-world numbers. In my case, the numbers didn't give me any increased cooling over my current air setup. My mileage varied.

Watercooling is pretty neat. One of the reasons I wanted to do it was because it looks really fun, but I just couldn't justify the cost given the limited returns I would have obtained.

-monkey

 

the only thing that's holding me back from trying this out is the concern of pump failure, i know this is the least likley source of problem, but if your CPU HSF dies, you have monitoring software... answered my own question...

... anyway... ... is there any method to test line pressure / HSH /flow rates, to make sure it fits within the pumps tollerances?

 

Don't worry about the pump. I've ran an AMD 64 3500+ with watercooling without a pump in the system. Temps went up to 90 degrees but it worked. And if it doesn't, most modern CPUs have thermal throttling and/or will shut down when it gets too hot. Your CPU wont die. With GPUs though, its usually a different story.
Also, if you buy an Aquacompter Aquastream pump and connect it to an Aquaero, you can set the Aquaero software to shut down the pc on pump failure.

 

I keep meaning to invest in some quality watercooling kit, but for the same price I could just buy higher end components.

 

Wheres the photo of my loop in there?

 

a question about leak testing... for pumps that are powered off the PSU, how would you turn everything on for 24 hours without connecting at least the motherboard?

 

Plug a paperclip between the green wire and a black wire on the motherboard connector.

 

I never had a pump fail on me; then again I never used a cheap pump. IMHO; stick with DangerDen, Swiftech, EK-Waterblocks, Hardware-Labs, and LIANG components and you'll be fine. The kits on the market generally only perform on par with (or slightly better than) a good heat-pipe cooler.

 

Powering an ATX PSU Without a Motherboard

Hope that helps

 

One thing i have to say

You say how water is better then air at conducting heat away
However, if we look at the loop
CPU -> heatsink (waterblock in a loop) -> water -> radiator -> air
For air: CPU -> heatsink (usually a block of copper if you pay enough) -> air

Now as you said metal is much better at conducting heat, and they both end up going to air anyway
Why add all the complexity of the water loop in, when you can do it all in metal at the spot of the heat

You don't actually cover this, and you say how water is so much better then air, but in fact, the air doesn't actually move the heat from the heatsink to the area where its dissipated, the metal does

The only reason Ive found that water is better, is because you can have such huge surface areas on the radiator, which you cant get on air cooling (for some reason)
So really, watercooling allows bigger, heavier heatsinks, and that's the biggest advantage

 

Not only that; but in a standard HSF the heat must first travel through a solid mass at the center of the heatsink before it enters the fins. With a H2O loop, it's effectively like having the fins mounted directly to the surface of the CPU (the heat doesn't travel through the water, but rather the water moves the heat from the CPU to the RAD). Also, the radiator fins are significantly thinner than those in a HSF, and as such heat is more easily dissipated through them.

 

but isn't the conductivity of copper a lot better, so why isn't it better to have it go through a lump of copper rather then through water ?
Why can you not build a HSF with very small fins like a rad ?

 

because physically moving the heat away is millions of times faster than letting it go through via conduction. unless you have a machine that presses copper blocks to your CPU, takes it somewhere else to be cooled and sticks another block on repeatedly...

you can have heatsinks with extra-thin fins, but it still doesn't solve the problem of being able to fit very large fans on... 120mm is pretty uncommon for CPUs, and 2x or 3x 120mm is, well, unheard of. they just won't fit. there's also the problem of the location: the CPU cooler has to be by the CPU. unless you plan your case out very well, the fan is, for the most part, recirculating the air and heating up the inside your case. you can put your radiator right by the exhaust, ensuring that all the heated air is ejected out of the case.

and thanks for the PSU info, guys.

 

is there better liquids than water?? that are safe?? what about liquid metal?? radiator fluid?? freeon(SP?)?? imagin an air conditioned system

 

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