would this work for water cooling?

[mt50]

hi, i'vejust been reading on another forum, and came accross this post(hope it's ok to post it here)

Bought a Zalman CPU Block for watercooling.

Bought a storage container (holds about 4 gallons) and 8mm clear hose from B&Q.

Dug out my old pond pump (4500 litres per hour).

Put the pump in the now water filled storage container and connected the hoses to the CPU block and tested for leaks.

Put it in my system this morning.

Ran for 20mins under full load.

Ambient temperature was 21c
CPU temp (full load) was 35c

Now its cooler and quieter!!!

now this to me seems like
A) very cheap to get started with water cooling.
B) could all go wrong?

so that got me thinking, all that should be less than say £50 to buy? so is it a good idea to do that or is it daft?

thanks(i've not got any idea about watercooling so this seems a good idea to me)

[Firelord]

If your going to do watercooling tbh imho you should outlay the cash and get a decent kit even if its a budget kit.

Either the O-cUK Garage kit or the Thermatic kit would suit your needs and are on a budget. They can be found - http://store.over-clock.com/Full_Kits.html#a334

Either that or go for second hand parts and make a decent setup

[Steve]

So basically no rad, just the heat gradually escaping from the tank of water?

I'm not sure about that. I certainly wouldn't do it as I want my watercooling setup to be contained within the case.

[SilentDeath]

wouldnt work. your basicly saying that a large surface area of copper with a fan blowing on it (air cooling - slk800 + fan) would perform worse than a small surface of water disipating heat passivly? not a chance.

Add a heatercore, which cost £10 used from a car breakers, and then you have something working. Hoever scrap the zalman block, its crap. A better block could be made from solidified turd with water passing through it.

Unless your able to make a container with proper barbs, that doesnt leak, then forget the storage container. You need water to go freely from it into the pump, and it also needs to be the highest object in your watercooling to collect air. In other words, it needs to have barbs, and sealed apart from an opening in the top, which the criticool res manages very well.

Pong pumps mostly are not rated for continuos use, and even if they are they are designed for non restrictive systems, you will find your w/c to be restrictive so the pump wont last too long. Also the pump will be niosyer or dump more heat into the water than its taking out. Stay with good pumps.

I advise people to buy a proepr w/c. Doing it DIY takes ages and mines been a work in progress for many months. Currently cba to start DESIGNING my cpu waterblock. The nb and gpu ones are done.

[turkster]

Yeah i think using an old pond pump is not the best way to go because it is quite likely to fail at any time. Seeing as its old you never know what might have happened to it during its life.

Probably the reason you are getting relatively good temps with no radiator is because of the high volume of your resevoir. If it is holding 4 gallons there will be lot of potential heat capacity in that. After a longish period of use the water will heat up and the CPU temps will rise .
I dont think there is any reason why a resevoir like that wouldnt work effectively as long as your not bothered by the space it takes up. Having a non sealed system like that is asking for an accident but should still work, although as Silent Death said the res really has to be the highest point in the system. You should definitely add a radiator/heater core though.

[mt50]

ok, thanks for the replies guys. i think i'll stick with air cooling then. until my next pc upgrade when i can go for a complete kit.

just how noisy are watercooling systems?

[SilentDeath]

That depends on the space for disipating the heat.
Watercooling without a radiator acts as a heat pump, but with nowhere to dump the heat - it will slowley rise as turkster said, probably beyond useable levels within an hour or 2.

Radiators are less efficent than a cpu cooler typicly, becuase there is not much temperature differnce between the water and air temp unlike with air coolers.
Also typical heatercores and good commercial rads all have very high air resistance.
I would say for air cooling or better niose levels you would need atleast 1x120mm rad, but for silence 3x120mm is best. im using 2x172mm but with a single silent fan and it works well. Note that im basing that on probably about 150-200w of heat (2.2ghz tbred 1.8v, 9700 gpu at 1.7v 460mhz, nf7-s 220fsb 1.8v + one 7200 rpm hdd)

If you want a compleatly silent system you can make a rad DIY quite easly. You need about 10 meters of 15mm copper pipe cut up into lengths slightly smalller than you want the overall length. You then using loads of T connectors solder them together into 5 or 10 passes of pipe, spaced out a bit - to allow the air to get to it. A couple of silent 120mm fnas will make this perform very well. The problem with this is it doesnt look to great and probably wont fit in your case either.

[Rave]

Asetek have just brought out a basic w/c kit- it should cost less than £80 when it goes on sale. Comes with CPU WB, rad, hydor pump and all the hoses wtc. you need.

I'll hopefully get one after I've come back from my holiday.

Rich :¬)

[Apex]

mmmm funny thing about the pumps is that the ehiem are pond pumps to start with ! so saying there not made for constant use is bs tbh m8.....

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Apex

mmmm funny thing about the pumps is that the ehiem are pond pumps to start with ! so saying there not made for constant use is bs tbh m8.....

Yeah I've had pond pumps running 24/7 for most of the year. The shafts wear out after about a year or so - particularly steel ones. The ceramic ones last longer, but aren't keen on vibration and can crack - that's usually how they break anyway.

Still, who would leave a w/c pump running for a whole year without checking it?

I think the problem isn't constant usage, but more circuit resistance.

[Apex]

Not seen a steel shaft one.....only ever had the ceramic one's still got a ehiem one going after 2 years in the pond.