i missed this whole discussion.. but from what i'm reading, i've got a few things to say.
we're all newbs, to one thing or another. I am a pro at some things I do, and a newbie at other things I do. I've done LN2/Dry Ice cooling before I've even done watercooling. Hell, I've played with phase change longer than I've had with a plain watercooling, and TEC's more than that. I am not a pro-know-it-all overclocker, yet I was the first to bring an AXP-M to 3GHz, and currently hold a record AXP air-cooled 3dmark score. I review products, and write articles for FastLaneHW.com. I do not know everything, but when I don't know something, I'll try my best to listen to what someone else has to say and I'll do my research.
right now, I'm debating with others on the negative points of having raw aluminum in a closed watercooling loop with other metals. I myself, haven't experience anything major of having raw aluminum + water + different metals, yet others have. I'm experimenting many different things right now to see what is true, and how I could do that.
people are telling me to nickel plate aluminum, yet in my experiences and what my colleagues tell me, is to stay away from nickel + aluminum, as anodizing is the ONLY real way to protect aluminum. i'm researching the pros/cons of each solution right now, and deciding what is best for me.
Look at what has happened to XtremeSystems.org. of what once was, an INCREDIBLE user base of highly skilled overclockers/tweakers, is now overrun by newbs. constant linking and forwarding to the site has had a huge infilitration of newbs wanting to win olympic sprints before they know how to crawl. and it's annoying, because i know, i just didn't ask a million different questions in a million different threads. I spent a whole 6 months researching products before i built my first computer! after that i spent a whole nother 6 months before i even raised my FSB speed a single MHz. I've been doing this since Dec 2001, and it's slowed down a lot, because of the amount of people that don't want to do what i've been doing. i've been starting to loose interest in computers because there is nothing really "new". finding forums like Procooling and what XS once was, are hard to come by nowadays, and I worry, because for someone who wants to stick with it like myself, it's becoming harder and harder by the day.
