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1st WC setup, need help

E

exlhpstudent

Gawd
Joined
Mar 31, 2006
Messages
614
I am thinking about having a WC for my HTPC, mostly for noise reducing.
I have a couple of questions, hope you guys experts can help me
1: is it possible to buy a cheap water pump from homedepot or lowes, the kind that is used for small indoor water fountains. What is the power rating should i be looking for?
2: Does it make a big difference in terms of price/performance of the expensive water block and decent water block?
3: I have heard there are many used car radiator that can be used. Does it make a difference at all to buy a cheap car radiator and a 50 bucks rads? Aethestic aside.
Many thanks
 
1. I don't know about the fountain pumps in particular, but if they are rated for continuous operation (probably are) it is ok to use it. Performance... probably not so good.. Post the pump you are interested in, maybe someone knows about it. The cheap pumps are most likely not the quietest, either.

2. The difference is not huge. If you are using a weak pump, you do not want one of the restrictive high-end blocks anyway.

3. A heater core from a car can be used, and they often work better than the "for pc watercooling" radiators. A database of the available cores is at: http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=12946
 
Well if you're going with an HTPC I don't think you have that much room for a heatercore and if you're watercooling you probably want it to be quiet right? Why don't you check out a Black Ice Pro?
 
For an HTPC, don't skimp on quality (you really shouldn't on anything). If you are looking into HTPC's you probably are going SFF or Small Form Factor for the case. These cases are much smaller and verily mix in appropriately in a living room or bedroom setup. If this is the case, then watercooling is still very possible...

Where space is at a bare minimum, you need smaller good performing parts. Go with a small, quiet but strong pump like this Danger Den 12v REV2 'Plus' and a nice performing CPU block like the Swiftech Storm or Apogee.

ALso from Danger Den a single 120mm Rad Black Ice Pro would be perfect. Choose a passively cooled graphics card like the XFX 6200 TC...Its has no moving parts hence silence, renders well, and supports DVI and S-video I/O for current larger LCD tv's and so forth.

Don't forget some nice quality silent fans...I would suggest a few, but I have a serious ongoing investigation on this subject.

Silent isn't easy but silence CAN happen with quality parts and good research. Good fortune and hope it helps... ;)
 
When I added the total cost of dangerden equipment, it came up to more than the Thermaltake CLW0042 Dual 120 mm Liquid Cooling System, which looks really nice for my HTPC. I just wonder should I get the thermaltake or dangerden is a better solution?
 
the DD parts are going to be better quality and performance than the Tt. only get the Tt if ur on a serious budget
 
from what i have read the extreme only works good/better than the pro if you have fans that can push air near 100CFM (could be wrong) and the extreme is thicker
 
I heard the BIX works better with fans that push more CFM, so if you're looking for a quiet HTPC you should go with the BIP since it works better with fans that don't push as much CFM.

About the TT and DD stuff, why don't you have a look at small bore setups, it might be easier to handle that way. What exactly are you looking to cool, just your CPU? or both your CPU and GPU? or maybe your chipset as well?
 
I have the silverstone lc17 case so internal space is not as big of a problem. My mother board abit AN8-SLI has its dedicated cooler for NB already. The only thing that irritates me currently is my CPU fan. It's freaking loud. Even worse, the my geforce 7900gt is killing me with its fan. I guess I can mod the case to fit the radiator inside, as there is no place to mount a 80 or 120 mm fan.
 
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