Help with 1st setup

[bulkie]

I've aquired all the parts that I would need for my 1st w/c rig. Just removed 2 hdd/fdd drive cages in my antec 1080amg so that I can fit in the SS3 rad on the front of the case. Before I proceed any further, just wanna check if there are any possible errors I'm making in my proposed setup as seen in the attachment.

Any suggestions/advise would be cool.

[Aardil]

Depending on what pieces you are using, I dont see any problems.

Really need a few details, type of pump what blocks ( GPU and CPU), What size tubing?

Post some details and what you are trying to achieve, then we can make a few suggestions.

Aardil

[bulkie]

Here goes :

WB = Cyclone EvoS
GPU = Fusion HL
Rad = SS3
Pump = Eheim 1250
Tube = Only eheim for now (about to order some clearflex) 1/2 ID

[Aardil]

ok my thoughts are this:

IF all you are water cooling for is quiet operation you should be fine.

If Over clocking is your final goal, ther are a couple things that would help a bit.

Either way ( if you have room) I suggest a spacer between fan and Rad, it will help cool the water in the rad by eliminating the dead spot in the middle of the fan.

You may have to use a variable pot to raise or lower the fan speed. full 12 volts is best for cooling but noisy. Around 6 or 7 volts is usually a good trade off between noise and air flow.

Any 90 dregree fittings are bad, try to make your bends with the tubing. I see you have a couple drawn on top of your Rad, if thats the way it is made then not much you can do about it, If you are adding them try to think of a way to eliminate them.

One additional thought:
The hose leading from GPU >Pump inlet , If any way possible increase the diameter of that section hose, this will insure that the pump will have a good supply of water, It will act like a mini reservior. Since you are going 1/2 inch with the rest of the system, I suggest 3/4 hose here.

I also am assuming that the flow is :
Pump > Rad > CPU > GPU > Pump


Hope this helps
Aardil

[bulkie]

Originally posted by Aardil
ok my thoughts are this:

IF all you are water cooling for is quiet operation you should be fine.

If Over clocking is your final goal, ther are a couple things that would help a bit.

Either way ( if you have room) I suggest a spacer between fan and Rad, it will help cool the water in the rad by eliminating the dead spot in the middle of the fan.

You may have to use a variable pot to raise or lower the fan speed. full 12 volts is best for cooling but noisy. Around 6 or 7 volts is usually a good trade off between noise and air flow.

Any 90 dregree fittings are bad, try to make your bends with the tubing. I see you have a couple drawn on top of your Rad, if thats the way it is made then not much you can do about it, If you are adding them try to think of a way to eliminate them.

One additional thought:
The hose leading from GPU >Pump inlet , If any way possible increase the diameter of that section hose, this will insure that the pump will have a good supply of water.

I also am assuming that the flow is :
Pump > Rad > CPU > GPU > Pump


Hope this helps
Aardil

I'll be using a shroud for the rad fan. Hmm maybe I should add a res to the hose leading from GPU>Pump?

[Aardil]

My concerns on the intake side of pump are based on the fact that the Enhiem 1250 has a 5/8 inlet and a 1/2 outlet.
I wouldnt want to reduce the intake down to 1/2. Enhiem made it with a 5/8 for a reason.

Using a true Reservior would work but it will take up more room and you would still need the 5/8 hose to connect Res to pump. Also from what I see you were/ are using a fill "T".
I would check around ( mcMasters) for a couple feet of 5/8 or 3/4 hose. Also check your local auto parts stores for a reducer, Goodyear makes a plastic reducer from 3/4 to 5/8 and I am pretty sure Clear flex can stretch over a 5/8 fitting, If not I know Tygon can.

I really think you would be better off with the larger hose over a true Res, In your particular set up.

[bulkie]

Hmm I'll take some final measurements and see if I can squeeze in a res just before the pump.

[killernoodle]

Originally posted by Aardil
My concerns on the intake side of pump are based on the fact that the Enhiem 1250 has a 5/8 inlet and a 1/2 outlet.
I wouldnt want to reduce the intake down to 1/2. Enhiem made it with a 5/8 for a reason.

Using a true Reservior would work but it will take up more room and you would still need the 5/8 hose to connect Res to pump. Also from what I see you were/ are using a fill "T".
I would check around ( mcMasters) for a couple feet of 5/8 or 3/4 hose. Also check your local auto parts stores for a reducer, Goodyear makes a plastic reducer from 3/4 to 5/8 and I am pretty sure Clear flex can stretch over a 5/8 fitting, If not I know Tygon can.

I really think you would be better off with the larger hose over a true Res, In your particular set up.

True dat. My mag 3 has *real* 1/2" threads on both the intake and outlet. The outlet is a male connector, so it is already scaled down to about 1/2" ID tubing size, so restricting that is not a problem. My intake, however, is directly connected to the resevior with a dual threaded 1/2" pipe fitting, so it is like having a much larger intake diameter than outlet diameter. Can we say no restriction

[bulkie]

Ok i changed my plans slightly and heres how it's gonna go as seen in attachment. I'm gonna use some clearflex 1/2 ID(boiling water technique) and squeeze it into the 3/4 inlet barb of the eheim. Added a res as well in the new proposed setup.

Is the config alright?

[Aardil]

I am afraid you missed my point

Stretching 1/2 inch tubing over the input of the Enhiem is just as bad as no res at all.
Your are restricting the input side of pump unless you go to a bigger hose size.
Having a Res in line anywhere is pretty much useless (other than as a air trap) if the hose feeding the pump is still smaller than what the pump calls for.

Also according to the latest diagram you plan on using a push/ pull fan set up on your rad, Both sides must be shrouded if it is to work correctly.

Aardil

[Aardil]

I am thinking more along the lines of this


Use either 5/8 or 3/4 hose between Rad and pump inlet.
Your "T" fill can go almost anywhere but would probably work best after the output side of CPU block

Aardil

[fhorst]

Yep, that looks like a good setup.

Just one thing to add.

Can you place your bay res a bit higher?
This will help bleeding your system.
You might be have now some air at the cpu block.

Best way "always" is to have you res at the top, and the pump at the bottom.

On the other hand, once your system is free of air, it does not matter that much. (I once moved my res at the bottom and the pump up, just to see if it make any difference, but my temps stayed the same.)

[V12|V12]

Hrmm... I think it would be better if you had the cool water line running directly from the HCore outlet, since the pump is going to add a little heat to the outgoing water entering the CPU... Also, you could consider splitting the lines so the GPU gets it's own separate water line, the cpu's outgoing water line is just to be near max'd with heat and the GPU will get a nasty hotwater bath, though it will be better than air cooling... still nice ideas though, and get rid of ANY bends that you can!

[rocketmanx]

I've often wondered about the commonly suggested routing fo going from rad ->cpu -> nb -> gpu.

I question why the suggested route puts all of the heat from the cpu (probably the hottest component) into the nb and gpu? If you run it across the cpu first and then run all that heated water across the other 2 (nb especialy) then why water cool them? Seems as though the nb will wind up being hotter than it was w/o water cooling.
I haven't been able to check this but it makes sense.

[Aardil]

In Theory, the CPU is the hotest component and needs the best cooling, so it is first in line. NB while is questionable if really needs cooling, is kind of a builders choice. W/C the NB for silent running or use the fan that came on it. Either way on most MB's the NB doesnt really get hot enough to make a noticeable differance in water temp. My self W/C for silence mainly so I W/C the NB and The GPU. If it makes my system more stable and I can get a few more FPS's out of it GREAT, if not still great, one less fan howling at me.
It seems to me with the rash of video cards this past year, the GPU should be more of a concern about heat than the NB, I W/C both and cover my arse

Aardil

[rocketmanx]

I agree with Ya Aardil.
My main thought is that the nb may be better off with nothing on it, as compared to running a water block. In other words if you want fanless a simple HS without a fan may be a cooler setup than a WB.

I also think the gpu is a big concern. I think a dual loop system with the gpu/rad on one and the cpu/rad on the other only meeting on each side of the pump. So you would have no NB block and 2 rads.

[WAJ_UK]

unless you have a really low flow through the circuit the temperature of the water out of the water block won't be much different to the water going into it

[Gooserider]

A couple of assumptions to start off -

1. You have decent flow in your system (at least one gpm, more is better)

2. Neither your GPU or NB blocks are terribly restrictive.

First off, bulkie, you need to have an inlet hose ID of AT LEAST 3/4", whether it comes from a res or not.

A res is a good thing, but isn't essential. If you do have a res, it should be feeding into the pump inlet (via a big hose)

Ideal flow route is pump -> rad -> CPU -> other blocks -> (RES) => pump (= signifies a large ID hose) however this is not absolutely critical. (BillA claimed in one of his articles that the exact sequence didn't make much difference)

If all the blocks are about the same level of restriction, it is best to place all of them in series. If the GPU or NB (or other) blocks are more restrictive than the CPU, it may be good to split the flow coming out of the CPU and run the other blocks in parallel, so as to get more flow through the system as a whole and the CPU block in particular. It is probably best to set up to do "bucket testing" and try different block combinations to see what setup gives the best flow rates.

If at all possible, NO component should be installed in such a way that it can trap air. Aardil's proposed design is mostly OK except that it has the rad mounted upside down, turning it into a giant airtrap that could vapour lock your entire system.

It's impossible to avoid them entirely, but try to arrange the system so as to not have mini loops where the coolant goes up and then back down as this can trap air. The 'perfect' setup has the pump at the bottom, the res at the top, and all the other components in a line so the coolant is flowing uphill all the way to the res, then straight down from the res back to the pump. You'll probably never get this, but it's something to try for, as it will be self purging, and never trap air where it can cause you problems.

There are a great many misconceptions about heat and temp changes in a WC system, I suspect because people try to compare them to the WC system in a car....

The temp change in the coolant going through the system is only going to be a few degrees. The CPU, which is the biggest heat generator, will add about 1/2 to one degree C. The other blocks will add considerably less. The rad will dump MOST of the heat picked up by the blocks until the coolant reaches an equilibrium point where the rad will dump all the heat picked up (Ignoring secondary path losses) The equilibrium will be somewhat above ambient, probably about 10-15*C Likewise, air flowing through the rad will pick up no more than 1-2*C, so there is little reason to be concerned about blowing air from the rad through the rest of the case.

The CPU generates the most heat in a typical system.
Next is the GPU, which depends greatly on how fancy a card it is, ranging from negligible to almost as much as the CPU.

Typically a distant 3rd is the NB. Many would say that WC'ing the NB is almost not worth it, especially if one has gotten rid of the heat frequently dumped on it by the CPU's HSF. Over on SPCR, the general concensus is that there is no need to have active cooling on the NB, it will do fine with passive cooling, especially if the stock NB HS is replaced with a Zalman oversized NB HS.

Hard drives are another item that some folks like to cool. Again they aren't big heat generators (Seagate says a 15Krpm Cheetah puts out about 18W) but they benefit from a bit of cooling, though it doesn't take much.

Actually the biggest heat maker is the PSU, but very few folks try to WC that because of it's complexity and the problems of handling the different voltages running around in it. (See Bladerunner's setup for an example of one person doing a great job of WC'ing a PSU)

Hope this has been useful...

Gooserider

[Aardil]

Gooserider:

My quick drawing, I must agree would most likely be a very large airtrap :shrug:.
The purpose of this design was to try and drive home the point that it HAS TO HAVE a larger intake hose. So I drew it up using the shortest length hose and fewest bends possible.
This is probably alot closer to what would really work

Again I state : Enhiem made the 1250 with a larger inlet for a reason, DO NOT reduce it to 1/2 inch and think it will be ok.
Aardil

[Gooserider]

Aardil:
Gooserider, My quick drawing, I must agree would most likely be a very large airtrap . The purpose of this design was to try and drive home the point that it HAS TO HAVE a larger intake hose. So I drew it up using the shortest length hose and fewest bends possible. This is probably alot closer to what would really work

I agree Aardil, the new improved drawing is much better... The only thing I would possibly do is make sure the hose coming out of the CPU block looped up a little bit above it before heading down...

I may be over paranoid, but I worry about air getting caught in awkward places in the loop, so I try to set up my loops so they are self purging if possible. If I can't get that, I at least try to make any air get trapped where it is visible and will do the least possible amount of harm. Since air trapped in a CPU block can drastically reduce it's cooling ability and cause system damage, I want to get any possible air out of the block and into a tube above it. (If not doing a res, that loop up is a great place to put a "T-line" for purging and filling.

Gooserider