well, i haven't posted a whole lot here, but i do consider myself somewhat of a regular to the site, so here's my $.02 worth. i definately want to affirm the whole electronics idea that was brought up earlier, also the mods section as well, although not your typical weak *this is how you drill a blowhole* mod, i mean good grief! I'm a pretty serious DIY'er so i like the idea of being able to make it myself as opposed to buying it. No disrespect to people who do buy their stuff, but building it yourself entails certain braggin rights. :-D i'd like to see a continuation of the sort of thing that Airspirit has been doing (eagerly awaiting phase III of that project), or total system improvement. more reader projects would be cool, ie. seeing what you guys out there are doing to improve your machines. anyway, that's all for now.

I don't really understand where the problem is Joe, The site is fine and one of only two that has the type of discussion / topics that interest me. The other as Brad said is OC forums, but recently the more technical stuff seems to have migrated here. The water-block design & construction forum was / is a gem and you really should make more of it imo. Why not have a topic of the week detailed on the main page with pics etc, not just a link, (that wouldn't require much work).

From the feedback I get water-cooling is far from slipping away it's becoming more important for those after EFFECTIVE silent cooling, something air just can't do, and many are getting the urge to dip the toe. It doesn't matter how many people post "I have a silent system with x many SILENT fans" because I for one will never believe it!

Recently I wanted some general feedback on the CPU Splitter block I was making, where on the whole internet did I choose to post it?........... :dome: ............ the reasons should be obvious.

Don't try to diversify and dilute what you have here by going in too many other directions, when what you have is something unique. There are so many other superb topics I've linked people to, here are just a few recent ones I can think of:-

Thoughts on water pressure & flow rate

Metallurgist? Copper annealing discussion

P4 direct die water cooling

If as you say the forums are what make the site, then make more of the forums :)

The only thing I'd like to see is more on is the v modding details as it's an area I'm not good at. I know it's something Xtreme do but their articles are often hard to follow and missing important data.. I'd like to v mod a FX 5800 ultra as I have one effectively cooled but I don't have the info or ability on the electronics side to know the voltage points to mod or test.

To counter those about $500 video cards, I really don't see this being any different than buying a top end CPU as the cost factor is similar, and assuming you have a use for the top end 3D card you are getting more for the money imo. The 3D card usually contains a GPU that's probably as complex to produce and advanced as a CPU, not to mention state of the art expensive ram, PCB and other components..................So it's a bargain then :p

amen to that,

lemme put it this way, i would have NEVER started building my own WB, if it wasn't for starters, the crazy ass articles posted here (nm if they are years old, copper is copper) and to finish it up the WB construction section. that is indeed a gem

I agree completely.

The technical level of the postings here, is far higher than at any other forum I know of.

I do still think you need to have a watercooled babe of the day, but otherwise I like the site pretty well as is.

I like the idea of specialised websites, don't spread yourself to thin.

When I want to read about casemodding I go to www.pheatonforums.com and when I want to read about cooling I go here.
There are far too many sites that try to be little of everything and fall flat on their faces...

How about trying to get a WB / watercooling kit reviewed once a month or mayby even more often, sure it is nice with these huge WB roundups with a lot of blocks at once but the rate of one every second year or so is not the best to keep the traffic flowing. Spread them out over the year and you will have a nice flow of content with no extra effort.

Hey guys thanks for all the input!! The day I posted this, I went to the dentist to get some fillings, well they ended up yanking a tooth because they drilled into the nerve... fun all around... So I have been sorta silent in here since then ;) Besides for the Matrix coming out and me spending my off days checking that out also.

Anyway, yeh I do appreciate the input and fully agree with not trying to make the site something its not or spreading the topics too thin. I am happy to see the majority of people are happy with the site.

I am pondering some stuff still, but really what I am looking at now is a bit more emphasis on the forums part of the site, and just keeping everything else as is for now.

PC noise
 

I think you should start focusing on pc noise, don't we all hate it? How can jou make your pc as quite as possible? How cheap can you do that? Do you have to use watercooling or aircooling?

Re: PC noise
 

Thats not bad actually. What about seperate forums for Performance water cooling and quiet water cooling and the same for air cooling. Maybe to many forums, but being this is primarily a cooling site maybe it would be good here...

Suggestion: Make articles out of forum threads. That way, visitors could get the information without spending hours browsing on the forums.

Trying to convert some of my forum threads into an article as we speak (was working on that before your comment though Hara)

That's good ;)

An Idea that popped into my mind just now is a "waterblock competition" in which various designs are pitted against each other and judged montly by a select team of judges. If you want I could elaborate.

I think this place and all the people are great!!
 

Just seeing what has been going on here is what has inspired me to make the system I've been making and share my ups and downs as I progress as well as helped me decide what parts to use and how to integrate them.
I like the site pretty much the way it is. The best part of this place is the interaction of the people here to develop and refine a concept and then build it.

I think the level and depth of the topics here are the best indication of what the people like. (And the level of devotion / inspiration to what they do.)

There are very few forums that are this helpful.
nforcershq has some, the amdforums that I have been in (abit/asus) have some of the same people and they have also been very helpful. This is in part because they are focus groups for a given topic - they are not trying to do many things. (Sorta like this board). :D

Being the tweaker that I am, the idea of quiet mods sounded good a few replies back. They seem to mesh in with what we mainly do here anyway.

Once again thanks to Joe, Phaestus, and all those wonderful people in the forums that have gotten me to this point!!!

I don't post much, but I visit often just because the level of intelligence is much higher than other sites. Also, a much stronger DIY, anything is possible attitude.

I compare 'ProCooling' to other sites as 'Scientific American' compares to 'Popular Science', just a better, much higher level of information (Joe's WB review comes to mind). Forum topics usually go much deeper into theory and fine details.

I followed projects like DH3, the Rock, etc. Thanks to you guys I'm building my third watercooled rig, a couple of Swiftech 5000 WB's on a pair of 2.4G Xeons. For my office workstation, no less. I just want quiet!

ProCooling needs to build on it's strengths.

With all that said, here's my input:

1. More electronics and in depth circuit discussion.

2. Look at aircooling in a much deeper way. As brought up in several posts, a quiet aircooling system could be designed with less fans and proper ducting. Something has always bothered me about putting fans low on the front and high on the back to make a huge current through the case, but the heatsink fan has to make the air turn 90 degrees, hit the heatsink, spread out, then exhaust out the back. Can you imagine all the bad eddy currents an regions of dead flow? Think of a car with a radiator mounted horizontal below an opening in the hood, how could you get good flow? This might cause completely different thinking in heatsink design. Crossflow maybe?

3. Look into quiet, efficient water cooling systems. I get questions everyday on how to build a really quiet machine. Small, compact systems that really work. And last the life of the computer (3 yrs?) with little or no maintainence. Maybe not quite here yet, but with a little development it could be possible. Absolute maximum cooling is not always required.

That's my 2 cents!

Thanks Tweek,

I am personally big on effective and quiet air cooling right now. I am in the process of saving up to build my Dual 2.8Ghz Xeon rig (w/ 3GB of ram, and a nice array of 15k 36GB U160/320 HD's). I know those things will crank heat, so I am looking at ways of cooling them without water (because the machine runs 24/7 I dont want the maint. headaches of a H2O system), and because I think I can do it with air if its designed well enough.

Also the Xeons will tollerate some higher temps and remain stable, I dont plan on OC'n them at all (wiht 4 theoretical 2.8Ghz CPU's who needs to OC? :))

So when I get that project started you will prolly see some articles happen covering my experiementation with air cooling designs.

How about a forum for "Open Source" designs for water blocks, electronic circuits, ect.... These Open Source designs could be used however the user wants or a License can be provided for how the creator expects it to be used. That would give newbie makers a place to start and then maybe expand on those designs. I know I have a few CAD files that I will probably never use again and wouldn't care if someone else used them and would also take advantage of electronic circuits from others.

Would there be interest in a project like this:

1) CAD drawings along with an explanation of the theory behind the design were solicited from you guys
2) a mfgr rapid prototypes the best designs
3) I tested the prototypes

I was recently approached about this by a mfgr, and I can see this going both ways. On the one hand, people are basically giving up the design of their block to a company who will profit from it. This is bad. On the other hand, I would bet we could add something like

4) Change parameters like copper/water ratio, channel/fin/pin thickness and density, baseplate thickness, etc to completely optimize the design

and then everyone would learn a whole lot from the process. I can see this kind of setup working well as long as there is some mechanism in place for people to receive some renumeration for their designs if used at a later date.

Ok back to slacking now...

There would have to be limits, no? What if the design is poor, or weird/unpredictable, or a copy of an existing commercial block?

Could we license the design, and draw a dollar from the sale of each?

What if the design requires an extensive amount of machining, like Radius?

I would assume that traits such as:

obvious copy of existing designs
very expensive to machine
obviously not a good performer

would take a design out of the running. The originality is a pretty tough one to call though. Most of the designs are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and one designer is feeding off another.

No idea at all about licensing. I am mildly interested in this idea, but want to make sure that the readers don't get screwed over or taken advantage of. I can see this getting messy fast.

Ok, then let's take a look at it from the other end:
How many blocks total, does this manufacturer sell each month?

If the design is good, and it ends up selling in high numbers, I think that the nominal licensing fee would reward the designer, but without having any idea of the potential numbers, it's quite a mystery!

I really like best the ideas offered on hardware & quiet or at least low noise systems.

Near the end of the first page was a post regarding the hardware aspects & how to perhaps revive interest in the Pro-Geeks by expanding it in this direction. And the low noise or quiet cooling solutions area could also be a part of that.

I don't think electronics alone is enough if you wish to see the site grow to any really notable degree.

I wouldn't mind seeing a CAD Support forum. I see a lot of people wanting to learn CAD or improve upon what they know and see a few around here that know considerable more than most. Might help the progression of block designing and even complete system designing.

Ditto that! You could also throw CAM/NC software into the mix (though these will have a relatively smaller audience). I may be of some help here as my group at work supports CAD (CATIA, SolidWorks) and CAM (WorkNC and some others) for a rather large manufacturing company.:) I also have contacts with knowledge of other packages. :cool:

You might just want to have a forum dedicated to "Cooling System Design and Analysis Software" and see if any subdivisions are useful/required.

Bob

Perhaps a sister site devoted strictly to overclocking? This is something that is becoming more mainstream as well, and I think that it could draw another audience. Naturally, it wouldn't be meshed into the Pro/Cooling site, but perhaps a sister site like Pro/Clocking? Just link them at the forum (a link at the forum bottom to the complimentary forum) and on the homepage (a bar with all of the Pro/Family links, one of them to Pro/Cooling, one to Pro/Clocking, one to Pro/Pimping, etc). You don't necessarily need to dilute one area in order to expand into another in this kind of setup, but rather it allows for specialization between forum areas. Have one place devoted to cooling. Have one place devoted to OC projects. If those discussions spill into cooling, point to the sister forum. If they want to know how to pimp their hos better, point them to that forum. It could work. If you do a hardware review site, consider the name Pro/Nothardocping.

Someone mentioned building their own heat pipes. That would be difficult. Most heatpipes have a vacuum to allow liquids to change states at a lower temp. The vacuum can be adjusted at the factory to alter which temp range they function at. (usually 40-60 deg C)

Welding a copper tube with liquid in it and at the same time maintaining a vaccum would be impossible for most enthusiasts. Unless of course you close the pipe with a fitting, then suck air out with a pump.. hmmm :confused:

As for ideas for this site... How about getting more into the modding besides cooling. Like fan controls, lcds, and other "cool" mods that actually have compelling functions.

Windows and stuff are kinda getting lame lately, except for the really creative ones. But how about making switches for changing the hdd primary/slave configurations for multi-booting. Or modding power supplies and things not normally modded.

Well, keep brainstorming :D

Heat pipes are not high vac devices

heat it up with a couple of foil heaters, benz-o-matic, hot plate whatever. drop your liquid in and seal it with a press,(I have a small Hand press I bought off of Harbor frieght ) Hammer, vise, simple valve . You could set up a single valve and do multiple pipes if you wanted, no problem. I have done it for a little test I was running- used rolled up paper towel for a wick

It works like the old vacum thermos bottles. heat it up, seal it and when it cools you have a 50% vac.

I think you could even make one up with a good rubber stopper. Heat it up seal it with the stopper. Then take a needle and a syringe and inject a few drops of liquid.

Not a big deal really considering some the acrobatics people go through buiding blocks and modding systems.