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A bit of a problem...

B

Ben83red

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 20, 2005
Messages
78
I am planning on going water cooling for my AMD 3800+ (want to overclock with out making my case heat up so bad). I am using the stock heatsink that came with the processor, and when I overclock it gets a tad warm. On to the problem, I am planning on buying 2 120mm fans and a danger den Black Ice Xtreme II Radiator, with respective parts. I mesured the height and found I have room, on top for either the fans or radiator to go inside the case, not both. Also I cannot put it behind the case becasuse the case only has 2 80mm fans.

The next problem is after I cut the hole(s), and mount the radiator and fans... thinking about going with fans on the ouside and radior inside (tube routing purposes). I have no idea how to hide the fans. Putting fan grills on the fans don't help that much, if you see two big 120 mm fans sitting on top of your case. ive thought about doing what koolance does with their fans/radiator and make a shround for it. But i have no idea how to do it, or after I get it done, how to paint the sucker, because the metal is powder coated black, and the front bezel and pannel are black plastic... I would like to put a high gloss black finish, or go with the silver/ultra clean look.

This is my current setup: (pics)

top of the case.

under the top.

whole setup

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Yes my desk is insanely messy and I have spare motherboards, graphics cards, sound cards and various other cards lying around on my desk.

Edit: Also there is a bit of a scratch in my side window, is there any way to buff it out?
 
Okay I don't think there is room to put a 240 in the top of that case unless you ditch your top 5.25" slot. Another thought is that you might be able to put the PSU down in the bottom of the case which would open up a lot of room upstairs. Have you considered using some other rad than the BI Extreme series? That is thicker than the BI Pro series and the extreme will take some pretty loud fans to move air though them. What about an external passive radiator attached to the right side of the case? You might also think about an Aqua Computer Evo rad with the Evo External adapter. Essentially allows you to put fans and rad on top of case with a minimal amount of hassle. You could also build a shroud to hold all this and depending on how mucg you are into looks it could be as simple as cardboard and duct tape.
 
Yeah it might not fit, but I do have an extra 5.25 slot so i can move a optical drive down., to put the rad in. But the fans would be sticking out. I may go with the other version. Im used to loud computers... my case has 6 80mm case fans.... quiet would be nice though..
 
Ben83red said:
Yeah it might not fit, but I do have an extra 5.25 slot so i can move a optical drive down., to put the rad in. But the fans would be sticking out. I may go with the other version. Im used to loud computers... my case has 6 80mm case fans.... quiet would be nice though..
Click to expand...

Which other version?
 
If you go with the BI Pro then you might be able to find some thin 120 fans and perhaps get in all in the case. :)
 
I would like to but the probelm is I'm wondering if the rad can handle a 3800+ (2.4ghz) oced to around 2.8-3 at full load with the gpu and chipset...

If the diy water cooled kit is too much of a hastle, I was thinking about going with a koolance system are thoes any good?
 
Well a BIX II can keep a 3000+ OCed to 2.7ghz (thats a 50% overclock) at about 40 load. At least according to the article/review I read today it can. So starting at 2.4 going to 2.8-3.0 I wouldn't worry about it. In fact you could probably do it with a XP-90 and a good fan without worrying.

Can you put the rad in the bottom of your case? If you don't have any feet on teh bottom to speak of I'm sure you could make/buy some somewhere.

from what I hear, Koolance doesn't give much performance for the price.
 
I have room in the bottom, and my case has feet but, if I did that, i would loose the use of my bottom pci slot.
 
forgot to add, which pump would be better? A 120v pump or a pump that ran of the internal psu? The 120 v pumps seem a bit larvge for putting inside my case... but have better flow...
 
I really like using dc pumps. Its just so simple to plug it into your psu.
 
So far this what I am thinking on getting:

ALL IN 3/8" ID
Rad-
Black Ice XtremeII Radiator or Black Ice ProII Radiator (depending on size)

CPU WB-
Copper TDX Block for Athlon64 754/939/940

GPU WB-
Acetal Version MAZE4GPU

Chipset WB-
ASUS A8N MAZE4 Chipset Block

Res-
Danger Den Dual 3 1/2" Floppy Bay Reservoir

Misc-
Danger Den Fillport
Zerex Super Coolant
Arctic Silver 5 : (this says it has aluminum in it I was wondering if it would react badly with the waterblock)

And I was wondering which pump I should go with. A 120v ac pump or a 12v DC pump... each has its good points, I don't have much room in my case for a pump, but I would like it to be powerful enough to run these.
 
A D5 will have plenty of power to run just about anything you care to throw at it plus it's less likely to screw with old monitors, my 120v pump will make my monitor shimmy like Marylin Monroe if it's closer than a couple of feet so if I had the cash I'd move to a 12v pump.

If I had it to do over again I'd have gone with a 12v pump just based on that but I made my choice and I'm forced to stick with it.

A friend of mine has a ViaAqua 1300 120v pump and a newer monitor and claims he has no problems with shimmy, my monitor is pretty old so it's likely not as well shielded.
 
Russ said:
from what I hear, Koolance doesn't give much performance for the price.
Click to expand...

Talk to the people who own them and you will find out different. ;)
 
Ben83red said:
I would like to but the probelm is I'm wondering if the rad can handle a 3800+ (2.4ghz) oced to around 2.8-3 at full load with the gpu and chipset...

If the diy water cooled kit is too much of a hastle, I was thinking about going with a koolance system are thoes any good?
Click to expand...

Koolance's are nice enough, they offer pretty good performance for the cost but the expandability is limited unless you want to bastardize one. There will come a time when you want to expand in some way on your watercooling setup and the Koolance setups are sadly not terribly friendly to upgrading.

Yeah, you can add blocks but beyond that, it's still just a Koolance, it is what it is. It's hard to describe but once you have one you'll understand in a year or so, everyone I've met with one has decided to go with a D.I.Y. setup after a year, maybe 18mo.s.

Koolances are the gateway drug to watercooling.
 
Black Ice Xtreme Radiator 1.25 inch thick
Black Ice Pro II Radiator 0.98 inch thick
Bonneville heatercore 2.00 inch thick
My heatercore 2.50 inch thick

any decent 40+ CFM fan can pull air easily thru any of those (with a shroud) and before anyone get excited the word "decent" means that the fan can do 40+ CFM with some appreciable back pressure. Any medium speed Panaflow, nidec, pabst etc even the 1 inch "thin" ones can do that.

A recent post about how it does take a more powerful (read run at higher rpm = more noise) to pull air at the same speed thru a thicker rad as it does a thin one has gotten a bit out of hand. Believe me when I whatever "decent" fan you choose will not notice a 1/4 inch difference between the two rads you are considering. Now if you wanted to use my heater core, then you would need to think/worry about it :p

eh, well, how do I know this ?

I use 6 x 80mm Panaflows FBA08A12M on my heatercore which is TWICE as thick, most of the time on 7 volts. They have no problem pulling air thru my core and are almost silent. When I feel frisky and they are on 12V they are not loud and will "fly" a stack of 6 sheets of 24 lb printer paper with the air they are pulling thru the rad. I dont use 120mm fans because the 2x3 array of 80mm's fit my huge core perfectly so it is not the case that I have more fan area than core face area. They are airtight sealed with a 1 inch shroud to the core.


FBA08A12M
Nominal Speed(RPM): 2450
Max Air Flow(CFM): 32.1
Max Pressure: 2.51 mmH2O
Rated Voltage: 12V
Connector: 3 Pin
Noise(dBA): 28

the 120mm medium speed version of the above will work great with either of those black ice cores and I recommend a fan controller or 7volt mod as you will not need all that cooling for surfing and messing around even if overclocked.
 
Ok. I've never owned a Koolance. I guess what I heard must have been that "its not [H]". lol.

Ben83red said:
So far this what I am thinking on getting
ALL IN 3/8" ID
Rad-
Black Ice XtremeII Radiator or Black Ice ProII Radiator (depending on size)
CPU WB-
Copper TDX Block for Athlon64 754/939/940
GPU WB-
Acetal Version MAZE4GPU
Chipset WB-
ASUS A8N MAZE4 Chipset Block
Res-
Danger Den Dual 3 1/2" Floppy Bay Reservoir
Misc-
Danger Den Fillport
Zerex Super Coolant
Arctic Silver 5 : (this says it has aluminum in it I was wondering if it would react badly with the waterblock)
And I was wondering which pump I should go with. A 120v ac pump or a 12v DC pump... each has its good points, I don't have much room in my case for a pump, but I would like it to be powerful enough to run these.
Click to expand...

Please don't get a chipset WB. It will probably raise your CPU and GPU temps w/o helping your overclock. And if you don't OC much you sure as hell won't need it. Just get a good heatsink or fan for it. I think Zalman makes a good heatsink. Clarification somebody?

Are you getting RAMsinks with that Maze4? I recommend it.

You DO NOT need a fillport if you get a reservoir. You only need a fill port if you get a T-line.

AS5 won't react badly if you have an additive in your loop, which is what Zerex is. I assume you are getting all this from DD? You can get a huge bottle of MCT-40 from DD for free with >$100 purchase. Just go to the MCT page on DD and select "free w/ $100 purchase" as the option. O wait. I was thinking you were talking about reactions between aluminum and copper blocks. Well besides that additive (which you should get anyway), we are only talking about thermal paste. AS5 is 99.9% silver or something. don't worry about it.

Yeah, the pump. The D5 from Danger Den is good. I'd get that to be simple.
 
ok, well im getting the chipset wb because my mobos chipset fan (mobo mdl: A8n-SLI Deluxe) is reportedly defective, and will go out in 2weeks - 2 months, I'm comming up on 3 weeks...

And I'm planning on getting a new case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811133149
My current case doesn't exactly have the space i need to put everything in, this one does quite nicely.
 
Russ said:
Ok. I've never owned a Koolance. I guess what I heard must have been that "its not [H]". lol.

Please don't get a chipset WB. It will probably raise your CPU and GPU temps w/o helping your overclock. And if you don't OC much you sure as hell won't need it. Just get a good heatsink or fan for it. I think Zalman makes a good heatsink. Clarification somebody?

You DO NOT need a fillport if you get a reservoir. You only need a fill port if you get a T-line.

Yeah, the pump. The D5 from Danger Den is good. I'd get that to be simple.
Click to expand...


Was this all from experience water cooling or are you just repeating what you have read? :)

Fill Ports are a nice accessory to any system whether you have a reservoir or not. Kind of nice to be able to top off your system and not have to open it up to do it. Also some chipsets, most noticeably the SLI NF4's, really do benefit from water cooling. However, this is somewhat subjective so YMMV.
 
most res have a little cap to open anyway, not hard imho. If you really want, a funnel might help.

Alright though, you can get a fillport if you want.

edit: I usually try to stay away from coomenting on fillports, but I've never seen anyone get a res AND a fillport.
 
That's because the people who have reservoirs also like to have a nice clean install. Kind of hard to get to that little fill cap when it is buried inside your computer.
 
Then could you point me to another case which has the space, yet is cheap, and looks decent.

Do I really need a shround if I get a rad?

And for being a newbie, how the heck do you read a pq curve chart...
 
*bump*

And I was wondering if I go with the RBX waterblock (seems to do better in testing than the TDX) or go with a different brand.
 
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