RDRAM: hot as hell. What to do?

ECUPirate · 07-06-2002, 07:19 PM

We all agree that DDR doesn't get hot enough to warrant special attention, but my RDRAM will burn the piss out of you. My CPU & GPU is WC'd. the NB has a big passive HS on it, and it gets quite warm. I have a 120mm fan blowing over the Vid card ram, the NB, and the RDRAM.

Is it possible to 'wick' heat away from the source? For instance, if I attached a heavy copper cable to the ram, and the other end to a water block, could that cool the ram effectively?

bigben2k · 07-06-2002, 07:32 PM

I think you already know the answer to that. No hooking up a copper wire to a waterblock probably won't do much of anything.

Since you already have the airflow, why don't you just put a cheap Alu ram heatsink? That's what I'd do.

Khledar · 07-06-2002, 08:18 PM

Yeah, an actual heatsink rather than just a plate will give you far better cooling results, most of the ram cooling solutions are comprised of heatsinks which are just Al plates due to space constriction around the dimm/rimm slots. However if you have room, a little vid card ram kit can work wonders on those ram sticks, just remember to use some sort of thermal stuffbe it adhesive or grease) which is better than the tape that comes standard with vid card ram sinks.

Regarding your copper wire thoery, it is possible, however just adding the wire will increase the air cooling abilities significantly. I think the heat that would come along the cable would cool a significant amount before it reaches the water coolign source, but my thought on that is based upon information i don't really know: the distance between the two, the amount of heat, the size of cable, etc.

A quick water cooling solution to this problem is to add some copper pipe to your cooling loop. This copper section of the loop can act as a water block all on its own, just press it up against the ram chips/or the plate on your ram, a couple clamps or something holding that copper pipe up nice and tight would increase the cooling way beyond "wicking."

Hope that helps!

mkosem · 07-06-2002, 10:15 PM

one problem. the heatspreaders are rivited on RIMMS

--Matt

p0b0y · 07-06-2002, 11:17 PM

I put an 80mm fan over my banks and voila: cool rdram
yay!!!!!
LOL

ECUPirate · 07-06-2002, 11:43 PM

yeah, I thought about the copper tube up against the ram. maybe I'll give it a go. hhmmm.

nemaste · 07-06-2002, 11:55 PM

i think khledar is right, both about the air cooling with the wick & the water cooling tubes. i was wondering myself how i would incorporate my RIMMs into the loop. the copper tube/clamp idea sounds like it would work well. it kinda sounds sketchy though; i'm reluctant to cut open my lines & bleed my system all over again to see how well it works without considering something slicker. i'd like to drill the rivets out of the Al heatsink plates & ditch them for thin water blocks on both sides of my RIMMs. i would like to see if anyone has played with making blocks that screw on bare RIMMs.

i'm thinking about trying it with copper plates with thin bar-stock sandwiched between to make walls. it would be an open channel (no fancy zigzags), but it could be made thin enough to cool both sides & would certainly r0x0r Al plates. if i had a shop i could make some out of soldered copper plate.

Khledar · 07-07-2002, 04:18 AM

Firstly, depending on the ramsinks, the waterblock could possibly be added to them. However; rivets are not too difficult to remove, as all that is required is a drill; however a large serving of caution is wise when drilling computer parts, but ideally you'll only be drilling the rivet :P And if you want to put them back on you'll ned new rivets and a rivet gun, but they're not all that hard to come by; you could also use small nuts/bolts, or some other solution.

Secondly on to the custom ram blocks. They would render better results than the pipe due to increased surface area and would probably be better, however if you're running in a loop be sure to make the channel large enuff as not to restrict flow. Also regardign the surface area issue I think, although I've never tried this, it would be possible to make a copper pipe somewhat flat, or squarish possibly by inserting something square and using a hammer, shrug but taking four pieces of copper, to make a simple waterblock would also be a great solution.

p0b0y · 07-07-2002, 08:22 AM

i dont think the option of watercooling you ram is very feasable considering that the tubes would generally have to be small which would restrict overall flow in the system, wouldnt it?

ECUPirate · 07-07-2002, 09:37 AM

not necessarily... (sp?). I think some flexible 1/2" (or maybe a bit smaller) pipe clamped to one side of the ram would cool the whole unit considerably. Right now, my two main WB are in series. With the "ram pipe", I'd put the pipe and the GPU block together and run a parallel setup. The GPU doesn't put off nearly as much heat as the CPU.
Cooling just one side of the ram should be fine, as the heat from the other hot side will move towards the cool side. RDRAM must be made to run hot, so any cooling we do would be gravy. (it is OC'd, so the added cooling couldn't hurt.)

p0b0y · 07-07-2002, 10:06 AM

I mean, would the .5" pipe fit between the ram stix?

ECUPirate · 07-07-2002, 12:01 PM

AH... nope. I was thinking one on each stick, on the outside...

Khledar · 07-07-2002, 03:57 PM

With air cooling I might be worried about cooling just one side, but with water, the rate at which the heat is removed is probably fast enough to draw heat from both sides... Hopefully :P

ECUPirate · 07-07-2002, 10:52 PM

like I said, RDRAM is made to run hot. Still, I'm convinced that cooling one side will drastically reduce the other side's temps. Maybe I'll give it a go.

On another note, right now my pump, rad, res, is located in its own housing and is sitting a few feet away from my pc. There's probably 10 feet of 5/8" ID vinyl hose running b/n the box and the pc. This is KILLING my flow rate, I checked. (pump is a 1250) I moved the components out of the tower because things were terribly cramped inside the case, and the WC gear made changing out the drives a pain. Right now, I can afford take up all that space... I live in a 2br/2bth, 1333 ft2. I'm getting ready to move to DC though, into a 1br/1bth, 860 ft2 that will cost about 2.5x as much.

Anywho, I need to get it into one case.

Here's what I want: One wide case... one half will hold the mobo, drives, etc (the PC), while the other compartment will house all WC gear. I'll simply route the pipe around the back of the case and into the pc compartment. Any suggestions? I don't really have the tools to make my own metal case. Maybe I'll try a wooden one if noone can suggest something better. hmmm.

p0b0y · 07-08-2002, 12:54 AM

ive seen some cases that are like cubes, or you could get a full tower like the lianli pc-70

ECUPirate · 07-08-2002, 12:59 AM

I currently have the Inwin Q-500 full tower...

still not enough room.

p0b0y · 07-08-2002, 08:00 AM

I used to have that case, heavy as hell. Damn, how much w/c shit do you have?

ECUPirate · 07-08-2002, 10:50 AM

read the end of my sig... the rad and fan took up the whole bottom front of my case... even w/ heavy modding. Had to move the HDs to where the PSU was, and the PSU up to the top of the case. the pump took up 2 CDROM bays, and the res was jammed in among the cables behind the CDROMs. it was a mess, and you couldn't remove the WC stuff w/out disassembling everything. PITA, IMHO.
Right now, I've got three CD drives, a platinum drive, and a baybus thingy. ...everything's full.

eheim 1250's are big...

airspirit · 07-08-2002, 11:08 AM

NewEgg has a full tower Chieftec case that has an obscene amount of room for only $63 shipped. I fit everything inside fine, though I did have to cut a vent in the side for the rad. They have a stack of pictures on it over there if you want to check it out ... it's the one with 6x external drive bays.

ECUPirate · 07-08-2002, 11:14 AM

ah. those chieftec cases look really cherry. Newegg had some on their front page about a month ago... colored case w/ a window for about $49.

anyway, my current case barely fits under my desk, and I've not yet seen a case that will house my rad comfortably, and still leave room for the pump, and STILL have a good layout, etc. I want a shorter, wider case. ...oh, and I don't want to pay alot.

07-06-2002, 07:19 PM	#1
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	RDRAM: hot as hell. What to do? We all agree that DDR doesn't get hot enough to warrant special attention, but my RDRAM will burn the piss out of you. My CPU & GPU is WC'd. the NB has a big passive HS on it, and it gets quite warm. I have a 120mm fan blowing over the Vid card ram, the NB, and the RDRAM. Is it possible to 'wick' heat away from the source? For instance, if I attached a heavy copper cable to the ram, and the other end to a water block, could that cool the ram effectively? __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-06-2002, 07:32 PM	#2
bigben2k Responsible for 2% of all the posts here. Join Date: May 2002 Location: Texas, U.S.A. Posts: 8,302	I think you already know the answer to that. No hooking up a copper wire to a waterblock probably won't do much of anything. Since you already have the airflow, why don't you just put a cheap Alu ram heatsink? That's what I'd do. __________________ WBTA (Water Block Testing Alliance) Nordic Hardware WC 101

07-06-2002, 08:18 PM	#3
Khledar Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: North Vancouver BC Posts: 234	Yeah, an actual heatsink rather than just a plate will give you far better cooling results, most of the ram cooling solutions are comprised of heatsinks which are just Al plates due to space constriction around the dimm/rimm slots. However if you have room, a little vid card ram kit can work wonders on those ram sticks, just remember to use some sort of thermal stuffbe it adhesive or grease) which is better than the tape that comes standard with vid card ram sinks. Regarding your copper wire thoery, it is possible, however just adding the wire will increase the air cooling abilities significantly. I think the heat that would come along the cable would cool a significant amount before it reaches the water coolign source, but my thought on that is based upon information i don't really know: the distance between the two, the amount of heat, the size of cable, etc. A quick water cooling solution to this problem is to add some copper pipe to your cooling loop. This copper section of the loop can act as a water block all on its own, just press it up against the ram chips/or the plate on your ram, a couple clamps or something holding that copper pipe up nice and tight would increase the cooling way beyond "wicking." Hope that helps! __________________ "mooooo" said the cow. ERTW - UBC P4 2.4B @3.01Ghz 167FSB :: Abit IC7 :: 2x256MB HyperX PC3700 :: ASUS 9600XT :: WD Raptor 2x36GB RAID0

07-06-2002, 10:15 PM	#4
mkosem Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2001 Location: here Posts: 494	one problem. the heatspreaders are rivited on RIMMS --Matt __________________ If you can't cool it, blow it up!! http://www.mattkosem.com

07-06-2002, 11:43 PM	#6
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	yeah, I thought about the copper tube up against the ram. maybe I'll give it a go. hhmmm. __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-06-2002, 11:17 PM	#5
p0b0y Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 97	I put an 80mm fan over my banks and voila: cool rdram yay!!!!! LOL

07-06-2002, 11:55 PM	#7
nemaste Cooling Neophyte Join Date: May 2002 Location: CA Posts: 78	i think khledar is right, both about the air cooling with the wick & the water cooling tubes. i was wondering myself how i would incorporate my RIMMs into the loop. the copper tube/clamp idea sounds like it would work well. it kinda sounds sketchy though; i'm reluctant to cut open my lines & bleed my system all over again to see how well it works without considering something slicker. i'd like to drill the rivets out of the Al heatsink plates & ditch them for thin water blocks on both sides of my RIMMs. i would like to see if anyone has played with making blocks that screw on bare RIMMs. i'm thinking about trying it with copper plates with thin bar-stock sandwiched between to make walls. it would be an open channel (no fancy zigzags), but it could be made thin enough to cool both sides & would certainly r0x0r Al plates. if i had a shop i could make some out of soldered copper plate. __________________ StrongShockModz

07-07-2002, 04:18 AM	#8
Khledar Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: North Vancouver BC Posts: 234	Firstly, depending on the ramsinks, the waterblock could possibly be added to them. However; rivets are not too difficult to remove, as all that is required is a drill; however a large serving of caution is wise when drilling computer parts, but ideally you'll only be drilling the rivet :P And if you want to put them back on you'll ned new rivets and a rivet gun, but they're not all that hard to come by; you could also use small nuts/bolts, or some other solution. Secondly on to the custom ram blocks. They would render better results than the pipe due to increased surface area and would probably be better, however if you're running in a loop be sure to make the channel large enuff as not to restrict flow. Also regardign the surface area issue I think, although I've never tried this, it would be possible to make a copper pipe somewhat flat, or squarish possibly by inserting something square and using a hammer, shrug but taking four pieces of copper, to make a simple waterblock would also be a great solution. __________________ "mooooo" said the cow. ERTW - UBC P4 2.4B @3.01Ghz 167FSB :: Abit IC7 :: 2x256MB HyperX PC3700 :: ASUS 9600XT :: WD Raptor 2x36GB RAID0

07-07-2002, 08:22 AM	#9
p0b0y Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 97	i dont think the option of watercooling you ram is very feasable considering that the tubes would generally have to be small which would restrict overall flow in the system, wouldnt it?

07-07-2002, 09:37 AM	#10
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	not necessarily... (sp?). I think some flexible 1/2" (or maybe a bit smaller) pipe clamped to one side of the ram would cool the whole unit considerably. Right now, my two main WB are in series. With the "ram pipe", I'd put the pipe and the GPU block together and run a parallel setup. The GPU doesn't put off nearly as much heat as the CPU. Cooling just one side of the ram should be fine, as the heat from the other hot side will move towards the cool side. RDRAM must be made to run hot, so any cooling we do would be gravy. (it is OC'd, so the added cooling couldn't hurt.) __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-07-2002, 10:06 AM	#11
p0b0y Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 97	I mean, would the .5" pipe fit between the ram stix?

07-07-2002, 12:01 PM	#12
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	AH... nope. I was thinking one on each stick, on the outside... __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-07-2002, 03:57 PM	#13
Khledar Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: North Vancouver BC Posts: 234	With air cooling I might be worried about cooling just one side, but with water, the rate at which the heat is removed is probably fast enough to draw heat from both sides... Hopefully :P __________________ "mooooo" said the cow. ERTW - UBC P4 2.4B @3.01Ghz 167FSB :: Abit IC7 :: 2x256MB HyperX PC3700 :: ASUS 9600XT :: WD Raptor 2x36GB RAID0

07-07-2002, 10:52 PM	#14
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	like I said, RDRAM is made to run hot. Still, I'm convinced that cooling one side will drastically reduce the other side's temps. Maybe I'll give it a go. On another note, right now my pump, rad, res, is located in its own housing and is sitting a few feet away from my pc. There's probably 10 feet of 5/8" ID vinyl hose running b/n the box and the pc. This is KILLING my flow rate, I checked. (pump is a 1250) I moved the components out of the tower because things were terribly cramped inside the case, and the WC gear made changing out the drives a pain. Right now, I can afford take up all that space... I live in a 2br/2bth, 1333 ft2. I'm getting ready to move to DC though, into a 1br/1bth, 860 ft2 that will cost about 2.5x as much. Anywho, I need to get it into one case. Here's what I want: One wide case... one half will hold the mobo, drives, etc (the PC), while the other compartment will house all WC gear. I'll simply route the pipe around the back of the case and into the pc compartment. Any suggestions? I don't really have the tools to make my own metal case. Maybe I'll try a wooden one if noone can suggest something better. hmmm. __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-08-2002, 12:54 AM	#15
p0b0y Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 97	ive seen some cases that are like cubes, or you could get a full tower like the lianli pc-70

07-08-2002, 12:59 AM	#16
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	I currently have the Inwin Q-500 full tower... still not enough room. __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-08-2002, 08:00 AM	#17
p0b0y Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 97	I used to have that case, heavy as hell. Damn, how much w/c shit do you have?

07-08-2002, 10:50 AM	#18
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	read the end of my sig... the rad and fan took up the whole bottom front of my case... even w/ heavy modding. Had to move the HDs to where the PSU was, and the PSU up to the top of the case. the pump took up 2 CDROM bays, and the res was jammed in among the cables behind the CDROMs. it was a mess, and you couldn't remove the WC stuff w/out disassembling everything. PITA, IMHO. Right now, I've got three CD drives, a platinum drive, and a baybus thingy. ...everything's full. eheim 1250's are big... __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

07-08-2002, 11:08 AM	#19
airspirit Been /.'d... have you? Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Moscow, ID Posts: 1,986	NewEgg has a full tower Chieftec case that has an obscene amount of room for only $63 shipped. I fit everything inside fine, though I did have to cut a vent in the side for the rad. They have a stack of pictures on it over there if you want to check it out ... it's the one with 6x external drive bays.

07-08-2002, 11:14 AM	#20
ECUPirate Hottest Stank of them All Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington, DC area Posts: 533	ah. those chieftec cases look really cherry. Newegg had some on their front page about a month ago... colored case w/ a window for about $49. anyway, my current case barely fits under my desk, and I've not yet seen a case that will house my rad comfortably, and still leave room for the pump, and STILL have a good layout, etc. I want a shorter, wider case. ...oh, and I don't want to pay alot. __________________ Does a radioactive cat have 18 half lifes? --Kenny my pimpin' rig: ...previously poorly cooled... 486DX-2 66mhz @ 75mhz, 4Mb ram, shared, 256Mb hard drive Onboard VGA, watercooled, of course 16-color monitor, labtec speakers, 28kbs USRobotics modem Windows XP (think about it) Maze 3, DDen GF3 block, Eheim 1250, econoline van HC, 1/2" hose w/ 5/8" fittings Comair 172mm fan

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