gonna be re-doing my water cooling, need some tips.

[Chuki]

Right now I have watercooled PC65. I like it, but the case is just to small for what I want to put in there.

Right now I have a Black Ice Raddy, with a Maze 2, and a Eheim 1048

I recently bought a Radeon 9700 Pro. I was thinking about getting one of them 80mm mini's for my 9700 Pro. Decided against that...

Here's what I want to run in my rig..

I'll have 2 harddrives, 1 floppy, 2 cd/dvd roms, 1 LCD displayer (similar to Digidoc but better).

I want to get a case that I will have to do little to no modding to get my setup installed and working. I was thinking of going with a PC-75.

I'll probably also want to run 2 radiators, or one big radiator... I was thinking of using my current blackice for my Radeon 9700, and getting another Radiator for my CPU. I don't want to run dual pumps, so how I could hook the system up so that its similar to 2 watercooling setups being pushed by one pump. I'll probably get rid of my 1048 and get the larger 1200 I think it is... I'll probably also be putting in a resevoir to...

As far as waterblocks I was thinking of just keeping my Maze2 block, but it uses 3/8" fittings as does my blackice.

If anyone has any info that would be great, I wanna keep this is cheap as possible. Don't wanna get to spendy, otherwise I'll just buy a prometia and call it good

I would probably do all this in my PC-65 but its just kinda small, I like the case just cause its nice and small, but I don't want it cramped in there, and make it difficult to get at my hardware.

Thanks for anyhelp, and just a reminder my current setup, is a 3/8" silicon tubing, blackice original, eheim 1048, cooling an AXP 1900 @ 10x174 1.825 vCore (about all my 1900 has, without jacking the voltage up) I would like lower temps so I can run higher vcore, up to about 1.9 vcore my system seems to do good, once I get higher my temps reach up into 50-55C + catagory. Although I don't know what everyone else runs in the w/c rigs running 2.0-2.2 vcore.

Thanks again!

[bigben2k]

I think that you need to reconsider your objectives, because they seem to overlap each other.

If you have a PC-65, then you probably don't want to change it, unless it's for a bigger Lian-Li case, which I don't think exists (not sure, what's a PC-75?).

I wouldn't use two rads, one should be enough. If you insist on using two, then I would stack them, hook them up in parallel. That way they won't take up much more space. A real upgrade would be to setup a push-pull fan for this/those rads, to increase the airflow. A heatercore would also perform better.

Your pump is fine. If you really want to upgrade, then get two Via pumps, and hook them up in series. That's if you can fit them, of course...

You need to ditch the silicone tubing. Even vinyl is better. 1/2 inch tubing wouldn't hurt, but you'd have to change the barbs on your WB and RAD, so if you're up to that, go for it, otherwise leave it alone.

If you want to upgrade your rig, you might consider adding a flow sensor, and a circuit to either let you know that there is no flow, or something that'll sound an alarm, then shut off the PC after a fixed period of time. With two pumps though, it's not a worry.

You might also consider cleaning up the wiring. Add a power plug to your PSU, and wire in a relay so that everything turns on together.

A couple of status lights, and you're up and running.

[chazz469]

Ben, a lot of this sounds like "bonus" material, but stuff that would be handy for redundancy, etc. But I was curious why you said that "even vinyl was better than silicone". I've sort of been off of the forums for a while, and last I knew silicone was the best (before tygon). On my own rig, I'm actually running a combination of vinyl and silicone. I ran out of the silicone that I got when I bought the rest of my stuff, and the vinyl was just a cheaper substitute. So, what gives?

[gmat]

Seems like our resident BB2K needs some sleep (ok me too... anyways)

Originally posted by bigben2k

Your pump is fine. If you really want to upgrade, then get two Via pumps, and hook them up in series. That's if you can fit them, of course...

Why Vias ? He already has a 1048 which is more than enough for his setup. IMHO the 1048 is up to the task for 3 waterblocks (CPU+NB+GPU) and 3/8" tubing.
Chuki: do not change your pump (if the rotor is dead you can buy a new one for about $10)

You need to ditch the silicone tubing. Even vinyl is better.

Why ???? Silicone is porous and will result in a slight coolant loss over time. Oh well even with an air trap one would not notice after 1 year. And one usually bleeds his system at least once a year...

If you want to upgrade your rig, you might consider adding a flow sensor,
...

Why so ? There are other means to detect problems -if he's reading the core probe of the AXP for instance. Flow sensors are over expensive, and not *really* needed. You can hear when a pump is about to die, a few days before it begins to emit a rattle.

You might also consider cleaning up the wiring. Add a power plug to your PSU, and wire in a relay so that everything turns on together.

Turning the pump on/off everyday is a bad idea (tm). I wored off a rotor like this. Now the pump is on 24/24.
The relay *is* a good idea though, it's cheap, elegant and you can make sure everything is powered on when you turn on the PC. Just dont forget to add the "bypass" switch for 24/24 pump power when at home.. turn it off when going to LANs etc.

Ah and most important point: Have fun.

[Skulemate]

The PC75 is the full tower version of the Lian Li PC60... with a factory window I believe. A very nice case...

[bigben2k]

Well it was early...

Like I said, the pump is fine. I'll be trying a couple of Vias (maybe even more than two!) in that configuration, because I finally figured out that the pumps we need should have a good head, and that's the way to achieve it with centrifugal pumps. I'm shooting for 300 gph (but hey, that's just me!). Also, the Vias are pretty cheap, at about $20 each.

I don't like silicone tubing. It is good because it is very flexible, but this porous aspect will cause it to retain the color of an additive, as well as sweat out (albeit minimally) some coolant. Since I'd rather have a sealed rig (so I don't smell the additive), and since I'll be adding UV dye, vinyl is a better choice, because it is clear. It would also let me see if there's any junk building up in the coolant.

The flow sensor is a luxury, because it really doesn't do anything very usefull. BTW, i wasn't talking about a flow meter, just a flow sensor: something that would indicate wether there is flow or not. If there is no flow, for whatever reason (pump failure, power short,...), it would be nice to know, and since we don't always sit at our computers, an alarm would be an extra luxury. The ultimate failsafe however is the CPU diode, with a built-in reader on the mobo (or added, see pHaestus' article) that shuts down the computer. Note: some add-ons rely on software, so if it's not running, then there is no protection.

As for the pump wiring, I think that since everything should fit in the computer box, there is no need to have two power cables coming out of it. As for turning it on and off all the time, the coolant would heat up if the pump alone is left on, unless a fan is still on, and that's not easy to do. Personally, I'd rather shut the whole thing off, but I guess I'll have to see for myself what happens when I do that.

Enjoy, and keep us posted!

(thanks to Skulemate for pointing out what a PC75 is!)

[gmat]

Mhhh BB2K: i now let my pump on 24/24 even when the PC is off. That means, no fan. No coolant over-heating. My water is usually @30°C (i know, sh*tty rad) when running, and at power up i find it @27°C. I've got a 27W pump, in a sealed closed loop.
And no worries of a pump failure, i can hear its humm before turning on the PC. If something is wrong i just don't press the switch

[bigben2k]

Mhhh indeed!

So your rad is efficient enough to keep the water at 27C with no fan, even with a 27 Watt pump. Interesting! I'll have to try that, for sure.

[pHaestus]

I would start with the fact that a radiator can only (at best) get water as cool as the air blowing into the radiator. If you design your system so that the radiator has a constant supply of fresh outside air then your CPU temperatures will benefit. The original black ice has a huge pressure drop; take that as you will.

You still are not totally defining your goals. Think of what you want out of the system in terms of: Noise level desired, compact size and/or looks, balls out performance, or a mix of all. If a mixture than rate your priorities. If you are recycling some parts then that may affect your choices.

[HelpImNewbish]

Originally posted by gmat
Seems like our resident BB2K needs some sleep (ok me too... anyways)

Why Vias ? He already has a 1048 which is more than enough for his setup. IMHO the 1048 is up to the task for 3 waterblocks (CPU+NB+GPU) and 3/8" tubing.
Chuki: do not change your pump (if the rotor is dead you can buy a new one for about $10)

Ah and most important point: Have fun.

I have a 1048, and was considering upgrading, or getting a second one so I could run a video card waterblock. Are you saying the 1048 would be enough? (I run a maze3, chevette heater core, air trap currently) Would it be enough to run Core and RAM waterblocks for a video card? I knew it was a good pump, but I didn't think it had enough raw GPH to run all that.

[gmat]

I'd say, yes. Try it first with your 1048 alone, and if it's ok you've spared one expensive purchase.
FYI in Germany where watercooling is becoming a national sport, nearly everyone has a 3/8" (or more precisely, 10mm) setup with a 1048. And many have multiple WBs - like Innovatek kits, which are quite popular.
Besides, as stated in another thread here, shoe-horning a bigger pump in an existing setup can lead to a globally less efficient system.

[pHaestus]

The german blocks are actually designed for such a situation though (higher performance than normal at low flow rates). In fact I would hazard to say that the Innovatek kit seems to be one of the few that is optimized for the performance part of price/performance by the manufacturer.

The 3/8" tubing will limit flow rates (more or less) to 40-60 gph. So you can always take this limitation and work with that. Look at what sort of head the 1048 can produce at that flow rate and you'll have an idea of how much resistance you can put in your loop.

Owen from the o/cers forum had a simple and effective idea: insert a "T" before and after the pump, add tubing (high enough to avoid a geyser) and make a manometer.

Look at BillA's data for guidance:



With the knowledge that you will be on the left of the graph (low flow rates). My assumption is that the maze3 is no different from the cooltech maze type block; maybe we can get Bill to clarify...

[BillA]

well, the Cooltech WB75 is a spiral, but its a crappy little thing
(note that I modded it for better flow before testing)


performance-wise a big spiral will be ~ tha same as the other big labyrinths, in the above graph the TC-4
ahh, now I see that Chuki has a Maze2 - which version ?
(the first were very restrictive)

the Innovatek kit is a balanced systems approach to WCing
(typical Teutonic engn, I call the Rev.3 the 'BMW' of wbs)