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Cheap Phase 1 water cooling.

T

Toad21

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
445
What is the cheapest active water cooler you can buy? I want to put together a water cooling system, but I dont think room temperature is how water cooling is meant to be done. Any suggestions? I am a newb to water cooling, but a professional technician.
 
Putting your reseivor (metal preferably) in a small dorm fridge (leave room for a couple of beers as well) runs $69.

Probally still would want a radiator and fan between the CPU and fridge as not sure a small one could keep up the heat load or the compressor would run all the time and fail prematurely.

Condensation is a bitch.
 
Of course, at $69 you could replace it every year for 10 years before you equal the cost of one vapor unit.
 
How about replacing the radiator with an active cooling solution? I am sure there is such a thing on the market, can anyone point me in its direction? And it has to be under 150$ for that one part.
 
The FAQ's in this section outline various techniques towards building a lower then ambient cooling system, such as bong cooling, or water chillers. I highly recomend you DO NOT pursue these routes though until you have experience with a classic watercooling setup. A lower then ambient setup requires very detailed attention, condensation is you're worst enemy, and without having first hand experience with basic watercooling there is a high chance of disaster. If you MUST have a lower then ambient solution though, the FAQs and various posts in this forum can describe them much better then I could ever hope to.

As for the bar fridge idea, it sounds like a good idea, but it is NOT. Bar Fridges are NOT intended to be actively removing heat 24 hours a day, their compressors are designed to operate for maybe 8 hours max a day, forcing them to operate on a 24 hour load will burn out the fridge very quickly, and im sure many people in these forums can attest to that.
 
So I have a Zalman 7000c Heatsink and fan, and I run about 40c idle, 45-49 under load.

This is a XP 3200+ @2.52ghz.

What temperature decreases can I expect with a DangerDen MAZE4 Power Kit:

http://www.dangerden.com/mall/Kits/kits_retail.asp

Any speculations on how high I can push this Processor on water? I am trying to decide if it is worth it.
 
hmm, price/performance wise its probally NOT worth it, you could get an AMD64 and motherboard for what you will spend in time, money and aggravation. (yes yes it can be done cheaply in parts, but if you paid yourself $15 an hour add up your time. )

But it wouldnt be 1/3 the fun of watercooling and the "cool" factor is not to be discounted. And if fan noise is a distraction water cooling rules for high overclocks and reasonable fan noise.

My machine runs at MBM reported 43.5 C after several hours of Dark ages of Camelot which utilizes the cpu %100 of the time all the time. However on my motherboard cpu temp is measuing by a sensor under the chip inside the socket, so its probally at least 10C low. (artic silver on sensor and lifted up somewhat before cpu install to ensure contact with the bottom of the chip) Some more details in sig.

I like Danger Den and have had nothing but excellent customer service from them. One time I was eligiable for a discount (I didnt notice and didnt check the box on the order form) and a month later they caught it, emailed me and creditied my card. Wow!!
 
I got the whole kit for 125 shipped. I am also trading my Zalman + $20 for a Swiftech MCW50 GPU block and a Black ice radiator pro. I am going to put 2 radiators in the loop, and not use a reservoir, but instead use a T-Line

Sound a good idea?
 
I run a closed loop without a reservoir and I like it. On your first fill you really need ot tilt and turn the machine for quite a while in all directions to get the air out of the raidatiors if they are the heatercore design (and I think yours are). You will be able to hear if you left any air in there and another session of tilting and turning while the pump is running will help. leave some room for air to accumulate in the fill part of the tee as even after above the pump will eventually blow some trapped air out of the loop. First week or two check and let the air out and add a bit of water. This is normal.

OH, since its your first go at it. Please please please leak test with motherboard unpowered (yank the motherboard power connector if you have to if your pump is 12V. Leak test it 2 days at least. As part of testing, wiggle the hose connections etc. use high quality clamps but be carefull not to crush any plastic fittings by overtightening, I dont like the plastic clamps but thats me. I use automotive heater hose clamps.

make sure your valve(s) for the Tee line are ball type valves, they do not restrict flow.
 
wwparrish said:
Putting your reseivor (metal preferably) in a small dorm fridge (leave room for a couple of beers as well) runs $69.

Probally still would want a radiator and fan between the CPU and fridge as not sure a small one could keep up the heat load or the compressor would run all the time and fail prematurely.

Condensation is a bitch.
Click to expand...

As you mentioned, the minifridge idea sucks because fridges aren't designed to be running constantly, which is what a single computer's heat would cause it to do. The fridge would burn out faster than you could afford to replace it.

You're asking for something called a water chiller, which is this handy-dandy box designed like and air conditioner, but it has two ingenious little bits that we're all familiar with called "hose barbs" ; ). Cheapest I've seen is $300, but I haven't looked very hard. You could probably get one used, but then it might have buildup on the inside that would make it as much of a hassle as trying to run a heatercore from a car with 100k miles on it. Also, the average price for a chiller that I've noticed is $500-$600.

It's considerably more sane (comparatively speaking) to run straight watercooling. A cooling system is supposed to get warm, that's how you know it's removing heat from your computer.

Condensation is, in fact, a female doggy.
 
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