Different cooling needed?

[phill9700]

I was just wondering in what ways would water cooling benifit me with tempuratures?
My temps are quite low compared to some, my CPU temp never seems to go above 36C (thats the highest i have ever seen it) my hard drive temp (maxtor 120gig ata133 7200rpm drive) doesnt seem to go above 24C and my case tempurature doesnt seem to go above 22C.
I have recently tried 'turned off' the scsi drive, as i dont have the adaptor card running anymore, although the drive is still in the case, its not working. I have also got back my 9700 Pro now, so im not sure whether or not that would make a little more heat inside the case.
I have considered water cooling before, but the thought of electrics and water installed in the same case, i dont think i would feel 100% comfortable with that and im sure the girl friend wouldnt either! but what are the benefits of it?
I have tried to include a picture of my case insides (this was taken before the scsi card and cables came out) but its still all pretty much the same in there.
Oh and what program do any of you use to get tempurature reading from your motherboards? i used to use VIA Hardware monitor with my KT7/KG7 boards, but now i have a Epox 8RDA+ nforce 2 board and the only way i can get the temp is with the sensor on the front (where the hard drive is 'plugged' into) or in the bios, is there any programs anyone would recommend to me that would be as simple as the VIA one to use and to read? And also, what programs do you use to get the pictures posted in the forum???? i have found that a 75000byte file isnt that big at all and is rather hard to make it that small!! any help would be really appreatied!! if anyone needs anymore information, please just ask!! thanks for the time!!

[Khledar]

Those temperatures seem quite low for the system you are running, are they probe temperatures or on die temperatures? Also if you're just reading the temps in the bios I highly doubt they reflect actual "running" temperatures. But what are the room temperatures? (they do make a huge difference - like if you like in say... the arctic)

And you're girlfriend wouldn't like it? I thought the WC brought in the ladies by the truckload :shrug: - oh I get it, she'd 'get the jealousy'

If I had your setup I'd be WCing it up for one reason, big overclock. You have the nForce2 power - use it - If you don't care about that, think of how many 80mm case fans you could eliminate from your case, ahhhh silence. Ultimately you have to be really convinced you need/want water cooling to do it - or just have lotsa money.

Most people use Motherboard monitor(MBM) to views temps etc, it can be a bit tricky to setup if you have some off the wall setup, but I'm sure lots of people use MBM with your motherboard. Link.

Use compression on your images to make larger image sizes and smaller file sizes, jpg 10% quality might get you a pretty big and shitty picture - but big.

Also about your fear of electrics and water, you have water & electrics in your house, you just make sure the water stays in the pipes and sinks (don't forget the can&tub) and out of the sockets. If you "go dumb" and put a leaky pipe/faucet near an outlet/breaker box - you might end up with problems. Same thing with WCing test your stuff. I just read a WC review article today, and the dude was like I checked it by running it on the coutner for 24hours before I installed it.(paraphrase). OK - bad idea?(not bad but - useless) then you install it twist all the tubes around, clamp the WB on and squeez it in a case? What kinda leak test was that? Install it, run the water but not the computer - if it gets wet, wait until it's dry before turning it on.

But if you think your OC is good enough, your temps are reasonable, and you can hear yourself think - why bother? I like making things, I'm an Engineering student, I do it cause I find it fun. But the practical reasons are obvious, quiter or cooler.

[EDIT: My dumbness in writing]

[phill9700]

well as for the room temp, its not more than 20C as the central heating isnt above 20C by the thermostat..
i think at the minute, its about 18C.. not to hot and not to cold

the reason for my girl friend not liking it is because of the water and the electric, simply!!

i only have 6 80mm fans, what are you trying to say!!?!?! well i must admit when trying to watch a DVD with the girl friend it does get rather annoying to watch the film and just hear the fans turning!!
im not sure about it to be honest, but i do have some money coming in, i could think about it, IF i thought i could be CAPABLE of putting it together and it not leaking or anything!! this is my biggest problem.. leaks and what not going wrong..

well, the noise does annoy me, but what could i do?
when i get my corsair memory through, is there anything i can read, look at or see to make me feel otherwise?
one thing tho... do many people actually have lots of pipes etc all over the place or can water cooling be neat and tidy.. better than what my case state is in?!?!! :shrug:
please can you help me out here?
i have given you a screen shot of the monitor hardware program that you recommended, with temperatures, fan speeds, etc..
i have had a BREIF look at water cooling, but what about prometia or something along those lines? would that be better?
i have got a link here would that be ok to use?
please feel free to give me advice/information etc!!! i was wanting to see what i can get from my cpu first.. if water cooling would help it go further... (would it?)
im awaiting some corsair xms memory (3200, 1 gig of it!!) and hopefully going to hit 2.2 to 2.5ghz at 200fsb.. but im not sure whether it or not it will.. see hopw things go...
thanks for the advice!! i look forward to a reply!!

[tot31]

Well phill you should be lucky getting room temp at 20c..like my case I live in a very hot country. My room temp is 33-36C so it's damn hot.I just setup a w/c system in rig and the case I use is the same as yours tt xaser II and i don't read temps from my mobo nor mbm5, i use the hardcano probe the one came with the case.

At first I was like you afraid to mix water and electric so after a big thinking I told myself what the heck just try it out. If you're in condition like I am now to get a very decent temp for cpu is really pain in the A**....I was using SLK800 with smartfan2 and damn the fan was very loud although was running it not at full speed only 4100rpm and temps was 48c idle 58c load running my AXP1700+ @2.4Ghz with 1.75V...

I started research on w/c in the net, went through various forums and procooling is one of them...then I decided which block, pump and rad to use.Since here in my country i.e Malaysia it's hard to get w/c kit and to order to US the shipping charges is insane.. but luckily Dangerden got 1 distributor here and he just brought in inly 5 units of maze3. I quickly grab one and bought an eheim 1048 pump here and went to a rad shop asked them to make me a heatercore as we don't have any heatercore here... a hot country no need for heatercore ...we use airconds only

I requested the shop to make me 2 pass triple row heater core with dimendion 8"x6.5"x2"..I had to mod my xaser II to get the heatcore inside...I managed getting my w/c system up...

Conclusion......now very happy that my sys is a silent pc no more vacumm cleaner nor jet engine sound......Now I'm getting idle41C and load 50C with the same setup.....and as a bonus I can now get my WinXP to boot with 2.5Ghz with 1.825V..before...it won't.....if you ever decided to get into w/c do a research, ask around that's really help...

Here's my sys specs

AXP1700DL3TC 0310WPMW (2.4Ghz 12x200fsb)
Abit NF7 v.20 Bios 11
2x256 DDR400 Mushkin HighPerf Level II) 2-2-2-5
2x40G Maxtor HDD
2x18G Seagate SCSI HDD
Triplex Millenium GF4 Ti4200 64Meg (290/610)
Asus 16x DVD Drive
TDK 48/24/48 CDRW

Here's my pics for the w/c
Pic1
Pic2
Pic3

Pls copy and paste the url as it won't give direct link...

[phill9700]

i was considering to try water cooling, but im not sure on what benefits i would see from it, unless i wanted to overclock the cpu like crazy!!
im awaiting some corsair twinx memory and i would like to see how far i can take it with air cooling, i know i will have to use a little more voltage to get it to go higher should it start 'not working' but thats about all i know!!
im hoping to hit 2.2ghz to anywhere above really. im going to order another xp1700 chip, like the one you are using and then see if that goes higher, i will also be buying an nf7-s board as well to see how far that goes, as i have been hearing that the epox and abit boards are the best bar none for overclocking..
hopefully i should get my ram soon, i cant wait to be playing about with that!!
what is the safe limit i should go with the voltage with my cpu? i was going to try it at no more than 1.75v but could i go higher?
my aims arent too high i dont think.. 2.2ghz+ for the cpu speed and in 3dmark 2001se with my 9700 pro im wanting 18k, with that, i will be more than happy.. anything else is just a bonus..
would water cooling really helpmy overclocking if things dont go to plan? where would i go to find out more information? are water cooling kits easy to put together? what types of liquid are used?
i tried to see your pics, but i couldnt get them to work, you said about copying and pasting the url, but when i did that it came up, forbidden access and didnt go any further.. im not sure as to what you are meaning there... :shrug: sorry
with water cooling, could i get the temps better than what i have at the moment? as this would be the hole point in doing something like this.. running at higher speeds with a cooler temp would be great!! thanks for the help!

[Khledar]

From your picture it appears that your room temp and cpu temp on average have a difference of 15degC. tot31's temps have a similar difference - but are quite difficult to fully interpret, as opposed to 1800 measurements averaged etc I think tot31's temps have a slightly smaller room/cpu difference and keep in mind at a significantly high voltage. However, as he stated you are quite lucky as, even though the difference of yours is higher(and it would be higher at similar voltages) your actual temperature is lower.

You could be achieving better temps with watercooling. And if you plan to jack up that voltage, it might help your OC - especially since you don't live in sweltering Malaysia. For tot31, WC might be necessary to achieve decent temps, for you it might just help push that OC further, quite down that comp, and satisfy the true geek inside.

[bigben2k]

Phil: you should put all this aside, and look at your +3.3 line: it's below spec.

Spec is +/- 5%. For a 3.3 line, that means it should be between 3.135 and 3.465v.

[tot31]

Here's my wc pic

[phill9700]

Originally posted by Khledar
satisfy the true geek inside.

well im not sure about the geek inside of me, but i just got my memory this morning and at the moment its just started a run of 3dmark 2001se @ 2.255ghz!! (i using an 11 multiplier and a fsb of 205!!) temps are a little higher at 41C, but i think im on the limits of my CPU at the moment.. i tried 11.5 x 200 and even when i upped the voltage, it still wouldnt boot still, my last score of 16209 3dmarks was more than impressive enough to me!! god i love my 9700 pro!!

what sort of temps could i be looking at with water cooling? if there is a DEFINITE difference ie 10c of something like that then i might consider it.. thanks for all the help on this

[phill9700]

Originally posted by bigben2k
Phil: you should put all this aside, and look at your +3.3 line: it's below spec.

Spec is +/- 5%. For a 3.3 line, that means it should be between 3.135 and 3.465v.

so that is bad? how can i change that? its a 550W Q-Tec power supply, i know its not great, but it works fine with me.. or should i consider changing it? advice needed!!

[phill9700]

@ tot31

Thats very impressive mate!! How long did it take for you to get it all like that? Was it very expensive to do? Does it use much water or anything like that?
whats my safe limit for the voltage for the cpu? at the moment, i have it running @ 2.3ghz but the voltage is up to 1.750volts.. is that bad? i would love to see 2.5ghz, but i think 2.3ghz is my limit.. not to worry, i think 2.2ghz will be more than enough!! Am i doing ok as to just using Air cooling? by the way, i am using a spire falcon rock cpu cooler!!

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by phill9700
so that is bad? how can i change that? its a 550W Q-Tec power supply, i know its not great, but it works fine with me.. or should i consider changing it? advice needed!!

If you have a voltmeter, you could measure those voltages, by sticking the probes into the mobo power header. Just be careful about it.

Once you've confirmed the low voltages, you have a few options:
1-replace the PSU
2-tweak the PSU

Let me know, I'll see if I can help you on this.

[tot31]

phill9700,

Thanks for the compliment but I think there are other ppl that have even more impresive setups.I just consider my setup as a normal wc rig.

How long did it take for you to get it all like that?

It took me about several hours to setup the wc system after I got all the parts that I needed.As I have the same case as yours i.e xaser II I've to modified the case so I can put in my rad inside. As you can see I've to taken out the lower hdd cage.It's simple I used a drill and drilled out all the rivets.

Was it very expensive to do?

Yes I spent around RM750 = USD197 on this wc sys but I think it's cheaper in US because your shipping charges is lower than mine and I've to custom made my rad/heatercore.

I think running your cpu at 1.75V is ok as I've been running mine with that voltage since I got my AXP1700+ and I think you're doing quite good with aircooling as your ambient is not like mine but if you're looking for a quite/slient pc maybe wc is a good choice.

I decided for wc because I wanted to get my temps lower and a quiteness in my system.

Here's the final result of the temps I got for various cpu speed. I'm running 2 x 120mm 79cfm with 7V and my ambient was 35C

[phill9700]

well after overclocking my cpu in any which way i could think of, i think i have hit a wall at 2.3ghz.. not sure what it is or what problems i have got, but nah not to worry.. just got to try and save up for a nf7-s and see if that makes any difference, along with another xp1700 cpu.. im chancing my luck as i would like to see 2.5ghz, but i doubt i will.. i have been trying voltages up to 1.875v but for very limited periods, ie right up until the pc crashed!!
right now its running at 11 x 205fsb and its doing ok i think, i just wish i could get more out of it, im aiming for 18000 3dmark points and im about 400 off!! its so annoying!!
i might well look into it, i have seen a water cooler for about £70... but im not sure what to do.. i dont think i could have the confidence putting it together!! although my 9700 is crap at overclocking.. only goes to 373/333 and anything higher crashes the system out.. rather annoying!! heres a link to the water cooler i was talking about.. what you think?

water cooler i was talking about