Does anybody actually use their watercooled PCs for anything ?
 

I've read hundreds of posts in this forum and the one thing that really stands out, is people seem to be always making compromises to fit watercooling to the detriment of their PCs.
My self I've gone down the route of having my watercooling stuff outside the case so that I can use the case to it's full capacity as regarding the number of drives I can have. I have 3 hard drives (room for another 5) and 3 optical drives and a rheostat.
Most of the pics I've seen seem to show cases with the watercooling equipment inside the cases and no room left for any drives worth mentioning.
Do the majority of people just put watercooling in and sit and look at the result or do they actually use their PCs ? ;)

Cheers
Chris.

My watercooled system is my main...and most of the time...only system. I take my setup to lan parties and often move the computer into the living room where a larger TV is and use it as a HTPC. So its a must that everything must fit into a case...otherwise, it'll be worthless paper weight.

My first setup I could have all the drives I wanted...as long as it didn't exceed the space of a Mini-Mid Tower :)

If someone wanted to put a lot of drives into their system, i'm sure they would've bought a server style case.

Also, I can't stand...and can't have external anything...my room is in a constant mess and i'm a clumsy person so external is just asking for a burnt CPU or a large water spill.

My setup is external. I'm running a thermoelectric chiller (ebay is great) sitting a coulple of feet from my case.

I modded the chiller to run the fans at half voltage 6v instead of 12v, much quieter. Getting 13C water to the cpu all the time. Currently a 2100+ running stock.

Yes I needed the room in the case for 5 HD's, 3 optical drives, etc.

Wish I had a dig camera so I could take some pics. The chiller was the best $100 I ever spent.

compromise?

bah, cases are overrated anyway:p

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/bench_pc.jpg

It depends what you actually consider as needed... I got one HDD, CDRW, DVD, Zip drive, and flow indicator in my case, still have room for one HDD if in need. And with watercool setup inside the case, one can easily go to the lan's...So it's easily portable, all in one box...I consider it pretty usable, and got all I need in it...for now, ofcourse...

How do you define 'actual use of the one's PC'?

I do lot's of stuff on mine for sure...:D

My watercooled setup is my only PC. I use it everyday, bewteen 4h (during week) and 8h (on weekends) a day. Usually it's still on 24/24 for dowloads, FTP and so on. I've got all what's needed, CDR, CD, 2 HDDs, all SCSI.

My watercooled box is outside..... in my workshop. Its not contained in the case by far.Matter of fact it spreads out all over the workbench. Twin magdrives and a A/C condenser out of a Mack Truck for a radiator demand a ghetto setup.There its used for research,entertainment and its a constant source of tinkering around. The lovely southern cal weather makes for great temps plus I can pee outside too. ;)

I long ago decided against watercooling my other PC's as I beleive a watercooled box needs a little closer attention than a air-cooled one....inside the house my network consists of a gateway and 2 client PC's sharing a 1500 down/128 up DSL connection, all air cooled.

My $59 case has room for my WCing system (pump, 11x7x2 rad above PSU) intact in the case and room for DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, Bay-Res, 4 HDs, and room for more.

http://home.attbi.com/~96impalass/ws...ID-437239.html

my main system is in a tiny case that has a 120gb hdd and a 32x cdrw in it. If I need more storage then I will add another hdd or two to my other watercooled system (it has plenty of room for HDDs) or just throw together a dedicated file server.

I have comps around the house to do different things (living room for playing mp3s, and for recording music of digital piano, notebook for couch surfing, etc etc). So I just build another computer when my needs change instead of having one monster. In places where quiet is needed then I watercool those comps.

Quite simply, my computers are sitting in a very hot room cranking away all day, and that's why I WC. Originally, only one was since it was on 24/7, and the temps in there weren't good for continuous usage. It serves as a gaming rig, with programs compiling in its spare time (or doing crazy-azz perl conversions), and it also serves as a file/web/ftp server for my neighborhood, so it needs to be on all the time. Between all that it does, it is probably pegged at over 90% for 18-20 hrs. per day, and I needed a way to keep it from lighting on fire.

Honestly, if the thing was just going to be a huge file server, I wouldn't have bothered cooling it, since the bugger wouldn't be getting pounded into submission like mine currently is.

We all have different justifications as to why we pump our computers full of arcane fluids ... who has the right to question any of them?

My WC rig is my main workstation/gaming/websurfing station and it is nice to look at at LANs :)

From my sig below you should get a very good idea of just how much stuff I have fit into my case as well as all my watercooling equipment. Granted it is rather cramped in there right now :D

BUT FYI here is everything that I have in there:

5 HDDS
3 CDROM drives
ZIP Drive
Floppy Drive (for the occasional boot)
WC stuff
and more crap!

I agree with Volenti cases are over rated ;). I've alsways thought that a "Table-O-Computer" would be neet, or possily a computer hanging on a wall. With the space I have and what I need a computer for I havent done it.

I have an internal system with 2 CDROM drives and 2 HDDs. I use my wc setup for my main computer, it sits in my room downloading at night and now that I have a DVD drive I watch movies on it. Obviously I wanted a quiet computer. Thats why I have a 12X15" rad on the side of my case that I normally run without fans on unless gaming. Also the case that I have is quite large so I have enough room for at least 10 more HDD's if I can gather the brackets that I ripped out of the case. It just depends on what your individual requirements are.

Oh and I take it to LAN games at times.

Volenti, is that an evap water cooler?

http://homepage.usask.ca/~kdh349/casetall.jpg

Mine is fully functional :D. The top case still has all the room for stuff that it ever had :D.

KnightElite, you need to post here more...

Especially since my third setup is proably gonna be a tower with a peltier setup.

Need inspiration :)

No melting plastic though ;D

my Watercooled rig is my only machine aside from my laptop. I use it between 4-6 hours a day on average from gaming to whatever. it has 4 hard drives, 1-CDRW and 1-DVD, a DD5, 24x4 LCD and a BayBus, All this plus lighting and all the watercooling is internal. Its a really pretty setup for a first attempt but in NO WAY am i ever carrying that thing to a LAN. :-). 100lbs or so doesnt travel well, and to top that all off i'm going to Pelts soon. the XP2100+ i just upgraded too puts out too much heat, running 44C at idle isnt cutting it.

Thanks max. I'll probably start doing that :D. Now that I'm not posting 600 posts per day at the [H], I'll need to split between XS and here to keep my post/day average up :D.

I could always bug you about every little detail about the SkyScraper...and your sister...NOT :)

Looking at Knightelite's pic I've got another question, how many of us poor suckers brought 'surround' speakers only to pile them up on the desktop!...



guilty! :p ...

I have a watercooled computer that I use every day at home. It is self contained (i.e. no parts laying on the floor or table) and it has 4 hard drives, a CD-ROM burner, a DVD drive, and all the normal trimmings. I even took it with me on my Thanksgiving trip in the vain hopes that I would have time to work on writing my articles. It is a partially home-made case the size of two mid-towers side-by-side.