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Just installed water cooling

R

ryanstev

n00b
Joined
Dec 9, 2004
Messages
21
I've finally started water cooling my pc after about 4 years of wanting to but never doing it.

I have a couple of questions I hope someone can answer.

I've gone with a reservoir setup, no radiator since I don't want any fans at all except for my PSU.
What's a good amount of water to use?
I currently have a P4 2.4 overclocked to 3.0 and my stock air cooler worked fine, giving me idle temps of 36 degrees celsius and 100% of 51.
I have a Zalman ZM-WB2 block with 1/2" tubing, with a 700 litre per hour Via Aqua pump and it gives the same idle temp and about a 40 degree 100% load temp, which is good.

My temporary reservoir at the moment has maybe around 11 litres/ 3 gallons and I was just playing a game and felt the water warm up a bit, so obviously I need quite a bit more.

I read somewhere that you can workout how much water you would need.
Assuming my overclocked P4 puts out 100 watts of heat, I can heat 1.5 litres of water 1 degree c in one hour.
I thought 11 litres would be safe, but obviously not.


So question one, how much water should I use?

Question two, my hard drives have also warmed up since I removed all my fans, with my old setup they were idle at 30 and 34 degrees each, now they're at 44 and 47.
How well do hard disk water blocks work?

The only place for my hard disks to mount is in the 3.5" bays, so a fan isn't an option (I wouldn't want one anyway)

EDIT:
For HD water cooling blocks, I mean in particular the side blocks that mean you have to mount the drives in a 5 1/4" bay, which I have two spare of.
 
Wow no rad! Let us know how long the cpu lasts before burning but for real you will need a lot of water if you want to run without a rad. You would probably need to have a constant replenishing of water to switch out the hot water. The reason your hdds are getting hot is because the hdd blocks are acting like radiators and sucking up all the heat from the water. Then this makes your hdds hot. Its not a good idea to run without a rad because as you just found out the coolest parts of your system will start heating up to get rid of the heat in the water. Even having a rad with no fan is better than what you have right now.
 
This is a bad bad idea. The longer you use the machine the warmer the water will get. The cpu/block will be acting like a heating element. There needs to be some way to dispose of the heat, and it's being pumped into the water about 10 times faster than it can be dissipated. You'd need tons of surface area with plenty of air running across the water just to keep temps reasonable, or chill the water. The other alternative is to go to a bong type cooler which basically increases the surface are to allow more heat to escape.
 
The whole idea behind water cooling is that water is a much better conductor of heat than air. The water is conducting the heat from your CPU and/or GPU and putting it into a radiator which then conducts the heat to the outside of your case more efficiently than trying to move massive amounts of air. No matter how much water is used, it will eventually reach the temperature of the CPU surface unless heat is removed -through a radiator.
 
Yeah...seropisly man....power down now...get a rad...install and come back. remember...the res is optional...not the rad. But if you really want a noiseless solution, maybe you should get rid of the pump too. (Jokes....don't do that..i dont wanna be responsibile for a(nother) fried system. )
 
if youre set on making it fanless, there are passive radiators(made by koolance) or you could use zalman's reservator(radiator & pump)

both are BIG and expensive
 
Thanks for the responses guys, I left my pc on overnight last night and the temps stayed low, since I don't do any folding or seti calculations, so the only problem is when I'm playing a game, which is good because it means I'm in front of the computer and can check.
But obviously I need to do something about this, since I wouldn't want to risk a crash on my pc overnight which puts my cpu at 100% load.

I'll try to find a reservoir with more surface area to let the heat out of, I might even see how much it would cost to get an aluminium reservoir made with grooves cut into the sides like a heat sink, probably too much.


Just about the hard disk water blocks, I was wondering how well they work since I don't have any at the moment and my hard disks have warmed up because of the reduced air flow in my case.
 
Sorry I meant I had two spare 5 1/4" bays, I don't have any hard drive cooling yet.
 
I have used a 5 gallon bucket as a res. and that worked good for cooling off my tbred 1700+ @ 1800mhz. 5 gallons is obviously a lot of water to warm and needs to be external of the computer but it is fanless and the water temp never got more then 10deg above ambient.

i have also used a 80mm "micro" rad with a 120mm chevette heater core run fanless and that can passivly cool my 1700 running at about 1500mhz with lowered voltage of 1.5v the temps do get high but never more then about 120degF.
 
ryanstev said:
..
I'll try to find a reservoir with more surface area to let the heat out of, I might even see how much it would cost to get an aluminium reservoir made with grooves cut into the sides like a heat sink....
Click to expand...

Thats funny. You know what you just described? A radiator. Thats what a radiator is. :D
 
A 5 gallon bucket is obviously enough water to take a lot of heat before warming significantly, and the surface area is probably enough to maintain at some point. The problem is leaks. Spring a leak when you aren't around and you'll have 5 gallons of water/antifreeze mix on the floor. (no small problem in my 2nd floor office)
 
Fanatik said:
Thats funny. You know what you just described? A radiator. Thats what a radiator is. :D
Click to expand...

Yeah but I mean a 12"x24"x12" reservior that I can have on my desk.
 
I've been reading around a bit for large reservior systems and I found one by a guy in the UK, who had a 20 litre/5.3 gallon reservoir and it still warmed up after a while.
I was thinking about a 20 litre reservoir of my own, but since I live in a hotter climate I'll have even bigger problems than him.

So I think I'll go for a normal size reservoir and radiator system with a low power 120mm fan on top, I have a wooden pc desk, so I'll be able to mount it on the side of my desk about 5 feet high and I think I could make a decent job out of it.


Thanks for the help guys.
 
ryanstev said:
Assuming my overclocked P4 puts out 100 watts of heat, I can heat 1.5 litres of water 1 degree c in one hour.
Click to expand...

100watt = 100joule/sec = 360 kilojoule/ hour. It takes 4186 Joule to warm 1 liter of water 1 C, so 100 watt is enough to raise the temperature of 1 liter water with 86 C in 1 hour.
 
DarkJester said:
100watt = 100joule/sec = 360 kilojoule/ hour. It takes 4186 Joule to warm 1 liter of water 1 C, so 100 watt is enough to raise the temperature of 1 liter water with 86 C in 1 hour.
Click to expand...

Oh, that makes alot more sense then.
 
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