FINALLY DONE my w/cing setup+Pics

[lukasz70]

LINK TO PICTURES BELOW

well its been a year since i started it, finished it a few months ago, but never really put it together cause i lost some interest in computers and shifted it to cars, well anyway, started playing DOD sunday and im like, hmm, this should play better if i overclock it, so since sunday i've been putting it together

and OMG i love and hate it at the same time, im so scared of something leaking and killing my entire computer, and its to quiet!! i purposely didn;t fill the res all the way so i can here the water slush around on the return,

and boy did i have an accident!! on monday, i put it together and i was going to start my leak test, well that lasted about 2min until my nb block started leaking!!!, my AGP all the way down the pci slots/cards were wet but my computer was off so no damage. i dried it off and let it leak test till today.

anyway here are the temps, they are not the best, its a homemade block based on the danger den maze 1 i think (like i said before, its was made a long time ago).

BEFORE with thermal take dragon orb 3 7000rpm fan
1400mhz 1.75v not overclocked
idle 48c
load 50-53

NOW
1659mhz (10.5x157) @1.85v
idle 42c
load? highest i got was 44c
room temp 22-23
COOLANT : tap water from basement (bad idea after a day my lines are already cloudy, my basement tap water seems cloudy compared to my other taps in the house.


they are not the best temps, but oc'ed at that temp is good enough for me, plus my chip has always ran very hot (got the 1600xp the week the XP line came out, so it some s AGKGA stepping that is unlockable)

[Sproket]

Do yourself a favor and go buy some distilled water for 50 cents.
Just make sure your hose clamps are tight and if you dont have clamps then use big zip ties, they work well.
Use clamps for pump.

Watercooling rocks compared to air. Your fear will be over after it runs for a month or two.

Look foward to pics.

[lukasz70]

Originally posted by Sproket
Do yourself a favor and go buy some distilled water for 50 cents.
Just make sure your hose clamps are tight and if you dont have clamps then use big zip ties, they work well.
Use clamps for pump.

Watercooling rocks compared to air. Your fear will be over after it runs for a month or two.

Look foward to pics.

yup i used clamps for all the barbs and i used zip ties for the copper tubes i used in some places
i had the leak cause the clamps wasn't tight enough

as for pics, all i can say is that its a mess, its all stuffed into a midsized case, a large HC, pump, fan... the only thing on the outside is the rez

plus the tubing i have is horrible, bought it at home depot and it kinks like a biatch

[Sproket]

Well my thought is do it right.
Get some clearflex 60 tubing and distilled water.
Read this forum good and what other people are doing.
A res is not necessary. I use a T connection.

[lukasz70]

here it is http://lukasz70.50megs.com/WC/my_computer_mods.htm

sorry about the pics, the tower is under my desk so it was dark and i used a webcam

comments?

[Sproket]

No wonder you had some leaks, wow that sure is some rigging there. Im not sure about those plastic elbows, they could be a reason that you would get higher temps.

If your happy great! Just watch close for leaks for the first couple of weeks with all that going on.

[lukasz70]

plastic elbows

dont have any plastic elbows, those are copper soldered and painted black

the only plastic i have is the T and few barbs

wow that sure is some rigging there

yeah, you can say that again, the rona, home depot, and canadian tire around here SUCK, cant find anything i need,

the screws for mounting the block were only available in 100packs and the one i found went in 1/2in and got stuck, they got thicker for some reason so i had to file them down, the T is the smallest 1/2in i could find, its actually for sprinkler systems, the tubing kinks like crazy, and when i ordered the HC from a catalogue, it came in an inch larger on each SIDE!!

but i like my shroud, styrafoam tray flipped upside down

[mfpmax]

I'm using the same Panaflo fan.

I need to make it quieter and see if it affects anything.

[lukasz70]

well i guess water cooling isn't for everyone

and the 24 hour leak test doesn'y mean crap, but i found that out the hard way,

running the the entire week without problems, woke up saturday, turn some mp3's on, a few minutes later monitor went off, so i thought that was just the power saving thing, went to move the mouse and nothing restarted and got 3 beeps i look down at my video card, and what do i see? a nice droplet of water hangning of my NB block


the card had some greenish corrosion on the part the water was on, so it might have leaked for a few hours, but my vid card has a black (burnt) trace now and wont boot with it in the computer
just hope my AGP slot is fine i've got a spare card

crap, i just got the video card not long ago radeon 8500 64mb, not the newest but it was one of a kind, for those the now about the radeons, this one came clocked at 275/300 (default is 275/275) with 3.3ns and went upto 305/345 with out v-mod before i was artifacts.

[bigben2k]

Bad luck, sorry.

You could try to rewire that trace, but in my experience, repairing a PC part is usually futile.

This makes the case, once again, for Conformal coating (see Joe's article).

[Sproket]

Sorry to hear about your water cooling experience.

But look at the bright side, at least you did not have a $300 video card in there!

Make your watercooling system as simple as possible and the Less connections the less likely it will leak.
All my tubes are so tight I dont even need clamps but have them for backup. Right now Im running a 3 gallon bucket of water and Lysol to clean up tubes. Tubing has extensions on it to reach bucket and still no leaks.
Here is a pic of my simple setup:
http://www.chadandjodi.com/watercool/newwater.jpg


I would say make your setup a little more simple.
Your NB Does Not need to be watercooled!
Just get a Vantec all Copper cooling kit for it, cost $10.
Thats what I have and I run 210 FSB.

Your video card can be replaced with a $60 Nvidia TI4200 w/ 64 megs and they overclock nice. Thats the 64 meg ones.
www.newegg.com is a great place to buy from. very fast shipping.

[lukasz70]

IM BACK ONLINE,

thx for the suggestions guys,

well this experience hasnt discouraged me yet, if anything its made me more determined to get this thing to work!! even if it break every part part in my computer, its going to work!

i made the clamp tighter, its good now, but then again it leaked like 4 days later for me i think it might be the barb, when i was cutting off the thread, i might have used a vice on the bard part and made a pit in it or something, dont remember anymore

popped my old KYRO2 in about a minute ago and YES, AGP port isn't fried the old 8500 actually cost me $60us with s/h new, so thats why i miss that card
i was actually gonna buy a card yesturday a VisionTek GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128 MB for only 60us +s/h used, but i just found out the auction ended as for 64mb, dont think thats a possibility anymore, i think i'll move to 128mb now

as for my setup, i was thinking of what i can do with it, i thought of externalizing it but putting everything into and old aptiva case, cause there really isn;t much i can do with it in my tower, i dont have a lot of room.

[Sproket]

As far as Nvidia cards go the 64 megger's overclock much better b/c ram is faster on them. I have a Albatron TI4800se 128 meg and that thing o/c very well. 310/660+ but have it at 308/649 right now b/c its plenty fast. But it cost 175.
I tried the 9500 pro but mine was a piece of crap, took it back. had wavey lines in Bios. POst, and windows. Forget that.
I like Nvidia drivers better anyways.

Ti4200 128 megger's dont clock as high as the 64 ones.

My 2 cents

Edit:
Dont worry about AGP 8x either doesnt matter, 4x is just about the same speed. Only like a .005% increase, that not even a 1% difference.

[lukasz70]

Originally posted by Sproket
As far as Nvidia cards go the 64 megger's overclock much better b/c ram is faster on them. I have a Albatron TI4800se 128 meg and that thing o/c very well. 310/660+ but have it at 308/649 right now b/c its plenty fast. But it cost 175.
I tried the 9500 pro but mine was a piece of crap, took it back. had wavey lines in Bios. POst, and windows. Forget that.
I like Nvidia drivers better anyways.

Ti4200 128 megger's dont clock as high as the 64 ones.

My 2 cents

Edit:
Dont worry about AGP 8x either doesnt matter, 4x is just about the same speed. Only like a .005% increase, that not even a 1% difference.

the only reason i want a 128mb card is cause of the newer games that will be coming out,

but i pretty much gonna get what ever i can get a better deal on, im even looking at the same 8500 again, but i gotta get something quick, cause vice city keeps freezing with the kyro, probably driver issue cause i just installed over old ones

[Sproket]

I give this advice to everyone, Buy a video card for the games you play NOW. Forget the game that have not comeout like DoomIII b/c by the time it comes out there will be better cheaper cards.

You can get a plain ATI9500 for around $100 that will be better than a 8500 and have DX9 support.
I think the TI4200 64 megger o/c will beat any 8500 or 9500 or even a 9500pro for that matter with AA and AF turned off.
9500 is better if you play with AA and AF on!
Raw power the ti4200 has them beat, overclocked.

Anyways that my 2 cents again.
Here is a Great link, read up and check out the Forum's.

http://www.guru3d.com

Sometimes the Forums are down but they are the best place for Video card info and Drivers.

Also here is another great Forum:
http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=3

[t00lb0x]

Ummm...the 9500P can out preform all Ti cards except some 4600Ti and that is with AA/AF on and off. It can overclock well once you flash the bios for it.

[Sproket]

Just my experience, my 9500 pro by ATI was a dog, the memory was s h i t for overclocking, Infenium 3.3. Even when I used warps bios. mY TI4200 was just as fast with AA and AF turned off.

Now I have a Albatron TI4800se 8X (TI4400) w/ 8 layer PBC, same as TI4600, and it smokes 9500pro and overclocks like crazy.

Just my experience.

[lukasz70]

apreciate all the suggestions guys
keep em comin

the 9500 is a bit out of my price range, im looking for something in the 60-100 range, and getting the most bang for my buck, i've had the ati 8500, great card, but compared to my kyro2, i found image quility was actually worse, when surfing the net, larger fonts weren't as clear, and i think the contrast on my kyro2 is better to, but i still liked the 8500, kicked but in games (compared to what it replaced)
im leaning towards nvidea just for a change (but if i can get a deal on an ati, then i'll get it)

right now i found another place that has an OEM EVGA geforce 4 ti4200 128mb for $90 which is pretty good. probably gonna buy it tomorrow

[Sproket]

Alot of people have had good experience w/ the 44.03 drivers

I personally use the omega 1.43.45 Performance drivers, very fast and everything looks great

www.omegacorner.com

[lukasz70]

well i lost the evga card

i have the option of buying a refurbished 4200, is that a good idea? buying a refurbished card off newegg?

here are my choices
ABIT SILURO GF4 TI4200-8X 128MB TV/DVI
ASUS V9280TD Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB 128 bit AGP 8X TV-OUT & DVI
MSI Ti4200-VTD8X (MS-8894-060) GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 DDR/SDRAM 128MB 8X AGP Video-in TV-out Dual VGA CARD

AND GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 4 Ti 4200, 4ns, 128MB DDR, Power Pack Golden Sample,

i like the gainward one, but i now about their problems with them using a crappy transistor or something, but if its refurbished, would it mean that they would have replaced the transistor? (or water ever kept making the card die)

[Sproket]

Do you have a best buy, compusa, Fry's Electronic in your area?
They have sales often that have good prices with rebates locally.

Newegg is about the only place I would trust buying anything refurb. b/c I have ordered from them before and returned stuff also. They are quick and trustworthy.
I try to buy locally if I can but most of the time I cant just find what I want.


The MSI is stable.

The Abit may be loud depending on fan on it.

Gainward, I would say no b/c of resister problem. I have read a lot of people having prob's down the road b/c of it. Then you send card to manufacture and it gets fixed but takes 6 weeks.

Asus, stable, board is long like the Albatron ones. Be careful installing.

Also try pricegrabber.com, to help find great price + resellerrating.com = good buy!

Use newegg.com to find user reviews, just might not have cheapest price, but sometimes does.

[lukasz70]

OMG, i cant get a break
i was about to but one off newegg but they dont ship to canada

[lukasz70]

well i just bought a card off ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=40161

[lukasz70]

well i bought the above card a few days ago,
a friend came over and i showed him my fried card, he recommanded the most obvious thing, RMA THE CARD

FFFUUUDGE, i just bought a card, why didn't i think of sending it to ati?

i checked out the RMA form and i have all the s/n's they need. so im gonna rma the thing anyway, get it replaced probably.

[JSimmons]

1) You're honestly going to try to RMA the card? I'd be real surprised if ATI allowed it (a burned trace is gonna be obvious to them). I know this isn't going to be a popular idea, but honestly, the card going bad is not ATI's fault. You modified the card, and the result of the modification is a water leak that caused the defect.

2) You do know about their new RMA policy, right? You send your card to them, and it takes two to six weeks to get the replacement (if it's deemed to be warranted).