water cooling

[Spud1]

ok i want to watercool my PC. i have a fair amount of room in my case, basically there are no PCI slots in use so all the space that they take up (5 of em i think) + about 1" is free down the bottom of the case. floppy drive can go if needed too, so theres plenty of space i think.

now the question is what do i buy? is it easier to get a full kit or is buying separately a good idea, and if so, which bits are reccomended.

i only need a CPU block atm (ie no vga/nb) but i will want to add more blocks when i get more £££. I found this kit

ThermalTake AquariusII™ Water Cooling System (WC-000-TT
)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...r_Cooling.html

on overclockers for £80 but i've no idea how good it is

also whats the noise like from these systems? the quieter the better and ofc the cheaper the better oh and i need some clear pipes with UV dye

lastly can you just use normal water or is a special liquid needed?

cheers

~Spud
(PS im really only asking for info but if anyone does have bits to offload i'd probly be interested )

[Darkmatter]

Id say the best bet is to get a kit, the Asetek WaterChill seems to be the best. Wouldnt bother with the ThermalTake, its cheap, you gets what you pay for.

The veterans of water-cooling will probably say get separate parts.

The Waterchill kit is meant to be very quiet due its its low power pump, doesnt cause major resonance in the case. The fan used on the radiator can be turned down and again is very quiet.

Other than that i cant really

[Austin]

Hopefully there's some good info for you here ...

http://www.techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2327

http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp_p10.htm

[luke313]

Beware...cheap watercooling kits are WORSE at cooling than expensive air-cooling systems. You could pay 80 pounds for that T/Take aquarius kit and have higher temps than using a SLK-900 which is cheaper (40-50 pounds).
The DangerDen kits are the best, but are also quite expensive, and are mainly for more experienced techys. www.over-clock.co.uk stock watercooling gear.

[ERU]

Some links that may help you are:

http://www.extremecooling.co.uk/site/index.do
http://www.over-clock.co.uk/home.shtml/
http://www.thecoolingshop.co.uk/tcs/home.asp
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/2...ooling-01.html
http://www.coolercases.co.uk/

[Spud1]

yeahi thought that Danger den were the best, methinks i'll just save up for one of their kits, cheers for teh help guys

[KAIN]

I'd say buy seperate parts, tell me what you want to cool and I'll spec you a setup

As personally I'd say go for the DTEK LRWW over an Dangerden offering for CPU block. Want to watercool just CPU or GPU and Northbridge as well?

[unrealrocks]

One of the kits thats been mentioned before (AseTech WaterChill) I'd choose, its quite cheap (prob best from www.kustompcs.co.uk ) and works well!

[liquid-fix]

Originally posted by KAIN
I'd say buy seperate parts, tell me what you want to cool and I'll spec you a setup

Sorry to slightly hijack, i would like to cool an XP1700+ @2ghz and a gf4 ti 4200 in an abit NF7. How much am i looking at? An how easy is it to install one of these?

[KAIN]

Pump Hydor L30 £40
Depending on Internal or External Rad mounting and whether you want to check Scrappy/Auction Sites anywhere upto £80 for a radiator or down £25 inc Fan
CPU Block DTek LRWW £55 or the Thermochill looks a good bet at £40
GPU Block Maze 4 GPU £45 or Maze 3 GPU £36
Hose £20

£160 +

Installation is very straight forward, I've never had a difficulty. As long as you take your time and think about what your doing you will be fine.

[SilentDeath]

www.pclincs.co.uk have prices about same as over-clock so might be worth a look..

how good is the thermochill cpu block compared to maze 4? im not getting one though, im making my own (silver base ) but thats gonna take a while but ive got an atlantis block to use temporaly (the top is slightly cracked though)

i could have mine working this week all i need now is a rad and res, i was gonna look at a freezer to work as a waterchiller, and other ways but think ill give up on that idea, anything unusual will take time, and i wanna get this done quick cos i dont have much spare..
what res's are good? dunno what there really for exept filling and unfilling easyly, and a bit more water to heat up...

also i need a rad that performs well with no niose... i would get an evap tower but the humiditiy would annoy me

are the thermochill 120.1's any good? i have space for a .2 or .3 if i didnt moount it in frint of my case...
my dad thinks i should build the rad from cheap copper pipe, elbows and copper sheet (made from extra pipe) but i cba due to too much effort required...

this is what i got already:
eheim 1250 pump
atlantis CPU (top is cracked, dont leak yet though) and nb blocks
materials for gfx block (silver base, copper elow, solder, barbs)
tubing (got small amount, waiting for extreeme cooling to dispach more atm)
i also made/making protection circuit to turn on/off pump with pc/turn pc off if it fails

need:
res, rad, hdd blocks, gfx mem blocks

[liquid-fix]

Hmm quite an expensive operation, this noise is dricing me crazy though. Christimas is coming \0/
Fix

[Austin]

It is expensive and not without its complications. If quiet is top priority then it is worth considering going for a std air cooling system but with quietness being the priority over perf. The SFF cases like SHuttles are known to be quiet whilst offering all 99% of us need. Otherwise you can look to building a quiet air cooled PC. You can passively cool NB and even gfx card with little trouble. If you can find a case offering 120mm case fan mounts that's a big bonus over the std 80mm ones, larger fans move more air even at a much lower (hence quieter) speed. SO the only things which should be causing any noise inside your PC are the PSU and CPU HSF. You can buy something like ThermalTake's quiet PSUs or else try some PSU fan modding (ouch). For the CPU all you should need is a good candidate and try undervolting to reduce heat, most XP2500+ Barton will o/c to 2.0ghz (around XP2800+ inc 400FSB) and do so with LOWER voltage (1.55v?). That should be enough to use a Volc11 on a low setting or something a little pricier like Zalman Flower (ALL copper) or pro HS like MCX etc. Worth considering. Here's an oldish article focusing on underclocking and undervolting to keep things quiet without paying out the cash (or complications) for things like watercooling...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/module...rtid=33&page=1

[louis]

the thermaltake one is rubbish ive got one dont bother!

[Austin]

Originally posted by louis
the thermaltake one is rubbish ive got one dont bother!

I take it you're referring to ThermalTake AquariusII™ Water Cooling System (WC-000-TT) as TT PSUs are great, right?

[SilentDeath]

theres no point in spedning extra on cooliing if ur going for quietness, and want to use air, because its the hdd that makes 90% of the niose (even with quiet hdd's) and the ONLY way to make them SILENT is to watercool them then wrap them in as much niose recuction foam as will fit in ur case

hdd watercooling is rare atm, with mostly home made ones, but koolance make a hdd water cool block.

with cpus, water wont give u MUCH more than air in terms of performace, in performance terms this is the order i would cool things (taking into account the niose of them before):

GFX card (gpu and mem), HDD's, cpu, nb

psus can also be watercooled (which will also slightly inc there capacity, due to being colder) but any decent unbranded psu will be silent enuf anyway (without changing the fan), and 350w is plenty for 99% of systems... still ppl waste money on fausly labled "550w" qtecs...

kits like the ThermalTake AquariusII are aimed at ppl that know nothing about w/c, which makes it safe for ThermalTake to assume that they can sell a crappy kit, to any of them, and there right. buy this kit and u will get worse than what an expensive air cooling setup will give u.