Second time this has come around.

ICE_9 said:
I got new tubes, 10 feet worth for $.29 a foot. I feel it was well worth the upgrade cost.:)
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i should've done that, but i really wanted to get it installed last night and not wait for today. so far so good, its running great as of 11am today which is 12 hours into the leak test. my dad was amazed at the price of the system and shocked that they make all in one kits like this these days. he used to be in engineering at intel about 8 years ago and this was all still high level stuff. I might pickup another one of these sytems for my other Pentium D box just to compare the temp difference from a high quality HSF.
 
Connundrum1 said:
just installed mine and in an Ultra Microfly ATX case i was getting 65C avg temps on load with a crappy ASUS HSF. Now i'm running same load with 50C temps. it was easy to install except those damn tubes are sooooo stiff. i couldn't get the tension off them inside the small case so they're putting a lot of strain on the waterblock holder. i'll see if after 24 hours i need to tighten stuff up and see if i can rotate the tubes to lessen the strain on them as well. preliminary reports are i'm loving this thing.
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I also installed mine in a Microfly, the tubes were too stiff for me to put through the PCI slot so I had to cut a hole in the glass on the side panel.
 
baballin328 said:
I also installed mine in a Microfly, the tubes were too stiff for me to put through the PCI slot so I had to cut a hole in the glass on the side panel.
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I was able to rotate them through somehow and get them through the PCI card slot. after it was all installed i tried taking off the block to retape the thermal sensors on and the waterblock almost hit me in the face from the tension on the tubes. so i'm going to try to release the tension on that or i'm scared somethings gonna give.

what cpu are you running in there and what temps were you geting before water, and after?
 
I picked up one with this deal because I always wanted to try watercooling, and because I'm a bit of a tinkerer, the warranty was void only a couple hours after the package arrived.


I opened it up and discovered some bigger pipes inside, with special flexible pipes to cover the size difference, then a restricting adapter to connect to the external pipes.... this gave me an idea.

$25 in fittings, a bit of cutting and removing, and $40 in a new waterblock and radiator (used), I've got a decent looking 3/8th inch system.


I am waiting for the waterblock to come in the mail, but I'll post results when I get it. I may have just paid $100 for a $200 kit customized to my case :)
 
It was a breeze to install. I did mine last night. I painted my faceplate to black.. turned out great. I'm a little suprised by the noise of the pump.. I was concerned with the fan noise as pointed out in reviews, but trust me.. you can't even hear the fan over the pump on the first setting.. sounds like a fridge running.. that hum sound... definately the loudest thing in my computer. On setting 2 the fan is about even with the pump sound, not very loud (in comparison to a completely silent system) .. however, flip that baby to level 3... and all hell is unleashed by that little fan... it sounds like a cessna taking off.. I thought my computer was going to start moving forward out for taxi... it seriously is scary loud.. that fan must REALLY be spinning fast.

Again, like I said the install was real easy, I only had to consult the manual a couple times.. mostly to cuss and bitch that I forgot to install the temp sensor..but that was no issue as I was able to run it through the lGA-775 clip and tape it down just in place rather easily. As far as all the beeping and shutting down problems others have complained about.. the simple solution is to do your damn install right.. follow the directions and it will work just fine. It's a very nice system that works seemlessly. I'm happy that it does use a seperate A/C power line.. it allowed me to keep my thermaltake 430w supply for my new system without putting too high of a load on it.
 
Hmm, my pump is definitely quieter than the fan on any setting. Did you purge your system of air? Your impeller could be cavitating causing extra noise.
 
cefoskey said:
Hmm, my pump is definitely quieter than the fan on any setting. Did you purge your system of air? Your impeller could be cavitating causing extra noise.
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yep, I did, no air in the system, I followed the directions to the T.
 
Theres still air in it. You need to tilt the entire unit on its side with the fill plug off just to the edge where the coolant just about to fall out. You will see that there still is air in there. Rotate unit in 360 degress (by tilting and running unit) and youll get all the air out and noise will seem to disappear.:)
 
Well, I've gotten obsessive with this like I do everything else. Ordered a chipset block and another radiator (black ice micro, 2x80mm since the little CompUSA case this went into has 2 80mm exit fans on back). Curious to see how well the pump supports an upright radiator... might end up adding a small secondary pump for redundancy... still, I like it as it sits right now in stock form for another couple days :D
 
BURNTOIL3372 said:
Theres still air in it. You need to tilt the entire unit on its side with the fill plug off just to the edge where the coolant just about to fall out. You will see that there still is air in there. Rotate unit in 360 degress (by tilting and running unit) and youll get all the air out and noise will seem to disappear.:)
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I'll go rambo tonight. Is there any way besides tilting, etc? my lines are already cut and my unit can't move anywhere.
 
I'm not having much luck overclocking with this system, anything over 1.375v causes the system or heat soak, and it can't compensate and overheats... at 1.375 it basically gets to 55c, sometimes 60c... fluctuates... disappointing.
 
cerebrex said:
I'm not having much luck overclocking with this system, anything over 1.375v causes the system or heat soak, and it can't compensate and overheats... at 1.375 it basically gets to 55c, sometimes 60c... fluctuates... disappointing.
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Ouch.. are those cpu temps, or "tank" temps according to the little LCD screen?

I only ask because, I put the one I bought on a C2D e4300 @ 3ghz (at like 1.41vcore from what I remember) and running the SMP folding client even, it never has gone over about 37 degrees celsius unless the room temperature is particularly high, and even then, CPU temp is still below 40. The temp of the water in tank is always between 32 and 35c depending on room temperature. Sure you don't just have a bad mount on the cpu? Maybe too much/too little thermal goo?

This is in stock form on mine, no modifications, fan on second setting.
 
Maybe I should give it another lapping and a little more AS5. The LCD temps on the unit are ridiculously off.. they show 45, when my coretemp shows 60.
 
shit, you're right, I don't have enough AS5 on there... I guess the grain of rice mantra is no longer with the new C2D's.

confidence: n the lack of fully understanding the situation.
 
Yeah I just have my CPU temp sensor with this kit acting as a case temp kit because it was worthless as an actual cpu temperature reader. But the tank temperature sensor seems accurate at least, for measuring water temp (always about 5-6c below the cpu temp which makes sense).
 
well, been running for a few weeks with my P4D 2.66 running at 3.0 while folding 24/7 and no leaks or any problems. i should have picked up 2 of these at the same time to play with.

has anyone put this inside their case? how much has it raised the ambient temps? it just seems like a bad idea to be blowing all the hot radiator air back into the case. i prefer it on the outside and it looks cooler that way as well and makes it easier to maintain.
 
Mine's been inside the case since installation. The CPU sensor it comes with is just kinda hanging inside the case, acting more as a case temp really :p

If you think about it, it's not raising ambient temps anymore than air cooling would have had them. The air that's blowing through the radiator is coming fresh from outside the case so it balances out.. or something :p
 
waltherone said:
If you think about it, it's not raising ambient temps anymore than air cooling would have had them. The air that's blowing through the radiator is coming fresh from outside the case so it balances out.. or something :p
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lol...thats the whole point....the air blowing through the radiator is effectively transferring heat off the radiator into the ambient air inside the case. Of course its going to raise the interior temps. You just have to offset this incoming hotter air with enough exhaust mass air flow.
 
cefoskey said:
lol...thats the whole point....the air blowing through the radiator is effectively transferring heat off the radiator into the ambient air inside the case. Of course its going to raise the interior temps. You just have to offset this incoming hotter air with enough exhaust mass air flow.
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I think his point was that the amount of heat that this blows into the interior of the case is no more(I would say at least not much more) than the amount of heat that an air cooling solution would add to the interior of a case.
 
You know what it was? Get this... you can mount the waterblock the WRONG direction on a Gigabyte DS3..... it hits the capacitors and lifts one side of the waterblock OFF of the processor.. my processor was only getting like 10% contact.. it was so subtle that I couldn't even tell looking, I actually had less than 1mm difference between sides of the waterblock.. when I pulled it off it was obvious.. I took some pictures. I also lapped the processor to a chrome finish, as well as the waterblock, to insure good contact. I think over did it with the AS5, I plan on removing it tonight and reapplying a thinner coat.. but I went from idle/load in orthos from 35c/65c to 23c/39c @ 3.0GHz - a 26c DROP from a mistake that was not obvious whatsoever! ohhh ballin'!
 
Runengun said:
I think his point was that the amount of heat that this blows into the interior of the case is no more(I would say at least not much more) than the amount of heat that an air cooling solution would add to the interior of a case.
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well i see what he's saying, but thats exactly what i want to steer clear from, i have this system running in my garage, in the summer it hits 110 easy even with the insulated garage so i want as little extra hot air to be in the case. i like this systems ability to be internal or external but its not being able to keep up with temps of 80F outside. the core hits 75C and BIOS auto shuts down. i'm gonna have to back it off to stock speeds or even underclock it for the summer.
 
Connundrum1 said:
well i see what he's saying, but thats exactly what i want to steer clear from, i have this system running in my garage, in the summer it hits 110 easy even with the insulated garage so i want as little extra hot air to be in the case. i like this systems ability to be internal or external but its not being able to keep up with temps of 80F outside. the core hits 75C and BIOS auto shuts down. i'm gonna have to back it off to stock speeds or even underclock it for the summer.
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This in a folding-only machine I guess? :p I thought about putting mine out there as well, but I'm in houston, and it gets hot as all hell in our garage too... gotta think of something else soon, cuz it's starting to heat up, and this room is already hot..
 
waltherone said:
This in a folding-only machine I guess? :p I thought about putting mine out there as well, but I'm in houston, and it gets hot as all hell in our garage too... gotta think of something else soon, cuz it's starting to heat up, and this room is already hot..
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yep dedicated 24/7 folder for the [h]orde we've had a couple days in the high 80's so far and 3 of my dedicated folders auto shutdown because the cores hit 70C. when it hits steady 100F days i'm going to be down to 1 machine running unless i underclock everything. how have you dealt with this in the past waltherone?

P.S. Waltherone: your still the closest person i don't have an overtake date on... yet :D
 
Heh, well I didn't start the folding thing till this past august, so I've not yet dealt with a houston summer... but currently all my machines are in my house, because the neighborhood I live in isn't the greatest and I don't want my stuff in the garage :p

But even right now, this ROOM is like 85 degrees F.... temps are fine for the computers, but not for ME since this is my bedroom... thought about getting a window A/C unit, but that's just more cost on the electric bill... maybe I'll run some ethernet cabling all over the house and tuck them away in seperate rooms or something :p

BTW I thought about this last night... for some reason, maybe in a dream or something, because I don't know why else I would've been thinking about it... but can't you just mount the thing externally? I know you said you like that it can mount internally, but externally would eliminate blowing the heat into the case and all at least.
 
i did mount it externally, i was just wondering how people felt about internal vs. external.

My room right now is running with just my core2 system and the temps are manageable. 2 days ago i had a P4 3.2g system in here as well and it was about 80F and not comfortable at all. this summer will be interesting. i'm going to have to wakeup early each morning to open the garage door and fill the garage with cold morning air, then hopefully keep it closed throughout the day so hot air doesn't pour in. this is going to suck.
 
I mounted mine internally initially in my antec sonata II, with the intent of pulling the front bezel and painting it black to match. It did raise the case temps by a fair margin, don't have numbers, but am going by what it felt like inside when I opened the case. I now have it mounted externally as I got a new and small Lian Li case with only 2 5.25" bays. I prefer the external mount, even though it looks more clumsy. I wouldn't want it heating up the rest of the case, and there is no difference in noise level on fan speed 1 between internal and external.
This is my first WC experience, and it really makes me want to go buy hundreds of dolloar in Aqua Computer components and do a custom rig. At this point I'm more likely to mod this unit like in the link above for 3/4" tubing and increased flow. I wish there were a way to maintain temps and quiet this unit down as it is louder than my stock air cooling setup.
Also, anyone with this unit notice an inconsistent fan speed noise? It may be the pump, I'm not used to the sounds of a WC arrangement, but it seems that either the fan or the pump pulses minutely in speed and the tone of the sound. I'd rather it just be the same level of sound the whole time as the pulsing thing brings my attention to the noise rather than allowing it to just fade into the background.
 
mine has worked flawlessly mounted internally in my antec solo with temps hovering right around 40C for my C2D 6400.

cant say enough good things about this kit for $26!!! why didnt I buy more! would have made a killer system for an xbox360 too.
 
one swell foop said:
I mounted mine internally initially in my antec sonata II, with the intent of pulling the front bezel and painting it black to match. It did raise the case temps by a fair margin, don't have numbers, but am going by what it felt like inside when I opened the case. I now have it mounted externally as I got a new and small Lian Li case with only 2 5.25" bays. I prefer the external mount, even though it looks more clumsy. I wouldn't want it heating up the rest of the case, and there is no difference in noise level on fan speed 1 between internal and external.
This is my first WC experience, and it really makes me want to go buy hundreds of dolloar in Aqua Computer components and do a custom rig. At this point I'm more likely to mod this unit like in the link above for 3/4" tubing and increased flow. I wish there were a way to maintain temps and quiet this unit down as it is louder than my stock air cooling setup.
Also, anyone with this unit notice an inconsistent fan speed noise? It may be the pump, I'm not used to the sounds of a WC arrangement, but it seems that either the fan or the pump pulses minutely in speed and the tone of the sound. I'd rather it just be the same level of sound the whole time as the pulsing thing brings my attention to the noise rather than allowing it to just fade into the background.
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Yeah I've noticed the fan throttle pulsing noise also - I was wondering if I was the only one... realy annoying.
 
faulty voltage regulator? crappy fan? anyone more technically experienced than I know what the likely cause of this is? I'd like to fix it if possible.
 
I made the jump into (low end) water cooling, with this setup.

For $30, you can't go wrong. It easily keeps my overclocked Core 2 Duo cooled, (on fan setting two).
 
I'm going to add a second fan for better cooling at the same volume like the guy in the link who modded his.
 
one swell foop said:
faulty voltage regulator? crappy fan? anyone more technically experienced than I know what the likely cause of this is? I'd like to fix it if possible.
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it must be the voltage regulator, I don't see any reason for there to be such a variation in voltage draw from any component,the pump shouldn't do that. You can most easily just run the fan power cable to your PSU and avoid the head unit from powering it all together.. you'll just need a fan speed controller.
 
I think that might be worth it just to have a consistent fan speed. I can't see how CM didn't notice the problem and feel it worth correcting in their testing units. Even at retail this is a pretty moderately priced WC solution, but that doesn't mean that's an excuse for shoddy quality components.
 
one swell foop said:
I think that might be worth it just to have a consistent fan speed. I can't see how CM didn't notice the problem and feel it worth correcting in their testing units. Even at retail this is a pretty moderately priced WC solution, but that doesn't mean that's an excuse for shoddy quality components.
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yeah, just make sure you use a fan controller, I'm sure at +12V that 80mm fan is at level 3, level 1 & 2 are probably +6v & +9v respectively.
 
This is a dead deal. Can you guys please stop bumping this thread and instead move the discussion to the water cooling section.
 
trapilales said:
This is a dead deal. Can you guys please stop bumping this thread and instead move the discussion to the water cooling section.
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Don't open it and read if you don't want to continue with the discussion regarding this topic, if you ask me :).
 
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