Outdoor radiator watercooling
 

So I decided to hop back into watercooling yesterday. I still had a few parts left over (read - crap I couldn't sell because it was too crappy) and I decided to see what I could do. I have a Duron 1.1 on a crappy little MicroATX board in the NanoCube case right now. Aircooled at full load, it was hovering between 59c and 63c.. Kinda insane. So anyways, my spare watercooling parts consisted of a crappy little 4x4 OCWC radiator (why did I end up with so many of those things??), Rio 400 pump in that DTek reservoir I used in my hard drive watercooling article, and finally, a first gen Maze2 (at least, I think it's a 1st gen...). I knew the radiator wouldn't be worth a damn with that Duron, and I've always wanted to utilize the free winter cold air outside, so I decided now was a good time. Anyways, I drilled 2 holes through my wall and ran some hose outside, and I have the radiator hanging on a pole outside my house. I also ran some power wire out and put a 92mm fan on it. Got it all setup, and it's not as good as I had hoped. But it's the best that radiator has ever done, heh.. I'm going to grab a better radiator and pump soon, which should get the temps down where I had expected to see them. Anyways.. It's now running 30c at full load, outdoor air temp is right around 0c, give or take 2c.. The block and reservoir are VERY cold to the touch, but not collecting any condensation. I may pull the block back off and try to re-do the thermal paste, I may have messed up there. And it could just be that the warm air in my room is keeping the crappy socket probe from realizing how cold the CPU really is. Anyways, definitely not scientific temp readings, but definitely better temps. :)
I don't have a decent digital camera at the moment, so the pictures I took suck ass.. But here they are anyways... :)
No antifreeze in the water yet, I figure it's going to need to cool much better before I worry about that.

Re: Outdoor radiator watercooling
 

What exactly are you living in, a woodshed?:eek:

i guess u already summed up the possible reasons why the temps aren't that good...

crappy temp reading
crappy rad

with the rads i got in parallel, res temp is +/- 3°C over ambient. so in your case (imagine...) water temp would be a staggering 3°C. in the summer u would be in trouble though.

glad to c the legendary unaclocker getting some fun out of it again. maybe u can surprise us some more in the future?

I have a fluke multimeter with a thermocouple at work, I think I'll bring it home tonight and see what the backside of my block is.
As for what I'm living in, it's a house, I'm just renting. :> hehehe I figure I'm not the type of guy to get angry and punch a hole in the wall, so I'm entitled to a pair of well placed DRILLED holes. ;)
Nah, really, it's a beat up old mobile home that's getting scrapped inside of a year. :)
Anyways, I'll get back to ya on what temps I find at the back of the block.

Rock on Una!

I need to get out and do the same thing before it gets too cold to be outside :)

Everybody in Bremerton lives in woodsheds ... the better to grow your medicinal marijuana in ... the sheds just seem to get a little nicer the farther from the Naval base you get. Another little baby child was born in the ghetto ....

MmmHmm.. Okie dokie. :)