water cooling

phrakture · 2005-05-02 14:40:49

ok, so I have a new uber-computer:
ASUS P5AD2 Motherboard
- onboard gig-ethernet + 802.11g
- DDR2 600 support
- onboard 8 channel audio (CMedia)
- onboard SATA raid controller
- PCI Express x16
1024 Megs DDR2-533 Kingston HyperX RAM
Geforce 6600GT PCIe (yeah I went a bit low here)
P4 3.0GHz w/ 2MB L2 cache
150 GB Hitachi SATA drive
Some schnazzy DVD -R/+R/+RW/+ABC/+XYZ

Anyway, I currently have the OEM heatsink on the processor - and 2 120mm fans (front and back). Idle it runs at about 95F and hits abour 110F under decent load.

As soon as the temperature hits around 100, the motherboard's fan controller kicks in and the fans start sounding like crap. Well, I usually have headphones in, but my girlfriend notices the sound.

I bought a new Zalman cooler (see the thread before this one) for the CPU and am going to install that tonight, but I've been looking into water cooling.

Does anyone have any experience with high quality watercooling? If I do this, I'd be sure to replace all of the fans (well, except for the power supply) - that is, I'd need CPU and Video Card (maybe RAM and Northbridge?) cooling.

This is kind of a discussion thread, about hardware and whatever - suggest what you want... I'm looking forward to it.

johnisevil · 2005-05-03 00:48:33

Personally, I wouldn't go with watercooling if all you're worried about is noise. If your system ran abnormally hot, that's when you'd really want to consider it.

phrakture · 2005-05-03 00:59:01

well, is 110F too hot for that setup? I'm not too sure, as I've never had a front panel temp read out like this 8)

LavaPunk · 2005-05-03 00:59:05

I disagree. In my opinion water cooling is one of the best ways to reduce noise by a considerable amount.

Moo-Crumpus · 2005-05-03 07:28:42

Can you tell me a bit about fresh install of arch linux on your sata machine? I wondered if it does well, and bought no sata yet.

cactus · 2005-05-03 07:35:28

my sata went off without a hitch. Just the regular ide 2.6 kernel and everything is fine.

shadowhand · 2005-05-03 09:44:51

Water cooling done right can be quieter, but is probably overkill. Water cooling done wrong is just as noisy, or worse than fans.

Here's what I would buy first:
Case fans by Zalman or Papst
PSU by Silentmaxx or Q Technology
An Antec Aria case

After you get all that put together, then look again and see if you need water cooling. If you just jump to h2o, you're not going to be fixing the major problems (case fans, PSU, and case make a much bigger difference than the CPU cooling).

shadowhand · 2005-05-03 09:45:20

Oh, forgot. http://www.quietpc.com/ is a decent place to shop.

iphitus · 2005-05-03 10:42:38

110 is a decent temp afaik, going by an approximate of 40C = 100F

My laptop usually idles between 40-60, so i reckon you're alright with that temp.

T-Dawg · 2005-05-03 11:30:22

yeah, mine runs at about 115F.
When you get into the 130's, start worrying.

iBertus · 2005-05-03 13:17:32

as a general any temp is ok just so long as everything works. just as long as you don't exceed the thermal limits written in your processors specifications you'll be fine. as for the noise, i personally feel that water cooling is too big a pain in the ass unless you have serious cooling needs. i'm in favor of the silent fans and power supplies already discussed above.

phrakture · 2005-05-03 13:49:55

Pink Chick wrote:

Can you tell me a bit about fresh install of arch linux on your sata machine? I wondered if it does well, and bought no sata yet.

it went fine - only issue was that I forgot to switch from devfs to udev naming scheme and the machine didn't boot the first time with udev (/dev/discs/dics0... to /dev/sda1)

IceRAM · 2005-05-03 15:43:34

phrakture wrote:

it went fine - only issue was that I forgot to switch from devfs to udev naming scheme and the machine didn't boot the first time with udev (/dev/discs/dics0... to /dev/sda1)

Something annoying: whenever I broke my MBR (well.. I did this some time ago), I had to change back lilo.conf to the old naming scheme because lilo on the arch setup CD doesn't understand the udev naming scheme (the CD is not made with Udev, I believe). Not sure how Archie does this.

Moo-Crumpus · 2005-05-03 15:56:26

phrakture wrote:

Pink Chick wrote:
Can you tell me a bit about fresh install of arch linux on your sata machine? I wondered if it does well, and bought no sata yet.
it went fine - only issue was that I forgot to switch from devfs to udev naming scheme and the machine didn't boot the first time with udev (/dev/discs/dics0... to /dev/sda1)

Like this http://bugs.archlinux.org/?do=details&id=2668 ? As sata behaves like scsi, it might be the same issue.

phrakture · 2005-05-03 16:46:45

yeah - same issue... but that's it... other than that it was a breeze (well, I had a faulty power connector at first and the drive wasn't getting power... but that's another issue)

phrakture · 2005-05-03 21:57:24

I've decided to go with this:
http://www.nanocoolers.com/products_cooling.php

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
LOL

tmadhavan · 2005-05-04 07:36:31

Maybe, or what about one of these

MNKyDeth · 2005-05-04 08:55:35

As for another serious note on the water cooling it is much simpler than most people beleive. Check out dangerden.com as they supply everything you would need.

With using 120mm fan already one in the front one in the back you should have a big enough case I am assuming for some small radiators to fit in those spots then just mount the 120mm fans to the rads.

Now as for stuff you will need:
Pump = Higher flow rate the better, but sometimes equals louder pump

Tygon Tubung or clearflex tubing = 1/2" creates better flow rates wich is more desirable but 3/8" is very adequate aswell if your case is tight.

Radiator = Make sure the inlet and outlet mach the size of the tubing you are purchasing. typical car radiators seem to do a better job at cooling than custom made PC rads. But, in your case a custom made pc rad would work great as most can mount to a 120mm fan area. Also side note, if cooling lots of ht objects like the cpu, vid and gpu at the same time don't skimp on the rad or get 2 of them if you can.

clamps pads miscellaneous = Make sure you get good clamps and put them on all of the ends of the hoses to help stop possible leak points. buy a rubber or foam type pad to put under the water pump to absorb vibration from the pump on the metal case. It may be worthwhile to get some auto-dye wich glows green, add a drop or 2 to the water and have a black light or ultra-violet light to spot leaks easier. buy bottled water wich is distilled and de-ionized. Water + electricty can mix, the stuff in the water does not mix with electricity. Decide if you want to use a T pipe for filling the water or if you want a resivoir setup. If you fo resivoir make sure you have the space in your case for it.

A few other notes. When using copper blocks and say aluminum rads or any mixed metal configuration make sure you use something to prevent corrosion. Regular car anti-freeze I beleive has this but I use redline treatment wich is a anti-freeze helper. I beleive dangerden sells this aswell. So, for one Litre of Bottled water use 1-2 spoonfulls of anti-corrisive and 1-2 drops of dye. I also add in Rubbing alcohol 97% or better 5-8 spoon fulls as it helps to keep plant life from growing on top of the anti-corrosive.

Dangerden Maze 4 cpu, chipset and vid card blocks work good, the RBX style coolers are good aswell but take up much extra space as they use a Y adapter to bridge two channels of water. So for a simpler and yet very efficient setup maze4 would be the way to go.

If you ever change cpu styles or vid card styles it would be just like buying a new heatsink for about $50 you can get a new one for the new style per say.

As for cooling other stuff beyond the cpu chipset and vid card it my be harder to find stuff for it but I am sure somewhere out there, there might be something.

Hope this helps.

Woops forgot one important thing. Leak test the system for a day or until you feel comfortable that there is no leaks before hooking it up to your hardware as this can save lots of trouble and hassle down the road.

johnisevil · 2005-05-05 16:39:50

I still say watercooling is overkill unless you really need it. I've been really impressed with my socket 939 athlon 64 3000. This is my current output from lm_sensors.

[john@metatron ~]$ sensors
w83627thf-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore:     +1.14 V  (min =  +0.70 V, max =  +1.87 V)
+12V:     +11.55 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)
+3.3V:     +3.31 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)
+5V:       +5.04 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)
-12V:     -14.91 V  (min = -14.91 V, max = -14.91 V)
V5SB:      +5.08 V  (min =  +0.89 V, max =  +0.43 V)
VBat:      +0.13 V  (min =  +0.53 V, max =  +1.02 V)
fan1:        0 RPM  (min = 168750 RPM, div = 2)
CPU Fan:  3110 RPM  (min =   -1 RPM, div = 2)
fan3:        0 RPM  (min = 168750 RPM, div = 1)
M/B Temp:    +21°C  (high =    +0°C, hyst =    +0°C)   sensor = thermistor 
CPU Temp:  +26.0°C  (high =   +80°C, hyst =   +75°C)   sensor = thermistor 
temp3:     +15.5°C  (high =   +80°C, hyst =   +75°C)   sensor = thermistor 
vid:      +0.975 V  (VRM Version 9.0)
alarms:
beep_enable:
          Sound alarm enabled

eeprom-i2c-0-51
Adapter: SMBus Via Pro adapter at 0400
Memory type:            DDR SDRAM DIMM
Memory size (MB):       512

eeprom-i2c-0-50
Adapter: SMBus Via Pro adapter at 0400
Memory type:            DDR SDRAM DIMM
Memory size (MB):       512

This is using the stock HSF in a Raidmax Scorpio case with 3 fans. Nothing special about my setup.

phrakture · 2005-05-05 16:45:22

so because it was asked - I replaced the OEM proc fan with the Zalman, and it made a big difference - however, I now know that most of my sound problems come from my power supply - it's a $200 PSU and I think it has some issues... I'm going to email the place I bought it from today... it may be too late to replace it (the fan wobbles... and the connectors are loose - it's got sockets on the PSU so you only connect the cords you need... less mess)

After that I think the video card is the next big noise problem - any simple way to quiet a video card fan?

Arch Linux

#1 2005-05-02 14:40:49

water cooling

#2 2005-05-03 00:48:33

Re: water cooling

#3 2005-05-03 00:59:01

Re: water cooling

#4 2005-05-03 00:59:05

Re: water cooling

#5 2005-05-03 07:28:42

Re: water cooling

#6 2005-05-03 07:35:28

Re: water cooling

#7 2005-05-03 09:44:51

Re: water cooling

#8 2005-05-03 09:45:20

Re: water cooling

#9 2005-05-03 10:42:38

Re: water cooling

#10 2005-05-03 11:30:22

Re: water cooling

#11 2005-05-03 13:17:32

Re: water cooling

#12 2005-05-03 13:49:55

Re: water cooling

#13 2005-05-03 15:43:34

Re: water cooling

#14 2005-05-03 15:56:26

Re: water cooling

#15 2005-05-03 16:46:45

Re: water cooling

#16 2005-05-03 21:57:24

Re: water cooling

#17 2005-05-04 07:36:31

Re: water cooling

#18 2005-05-04 08:55:35

Re: water cooling

#19 2005-05-05 16:39:50

Re: water cooling

#20 2005-05-05 16:45:22

Re: water cooling

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