My first attempt at watercooling!

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lollerskater69

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 3, 2009
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Success! Thanks to Arcygenical for teaching me the ropes!

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Loving it, got any pictures from further away?

What are you running in your loop? Just distilled?
 
Distilled and rubbing alcohol. Both the WB and cpu are lapped to 1500 grit. My camera died I will get some more pics later.
 
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nice, but I personally don't think watercooling is worth it. I can still hear the pump and the fans on the radiator, so it's not all that much more silent than air cooling
 
lollerskater69 said:
you won't hear your pump if it is properly bled.I cant hear it at all.
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I have different ears than most people or something. People would say stuff like they can't hear their gtx 280 @ 40% fan speed, event though I do. I hear my V8 at the lowest fan setting. I pretty much can hear every single component inside my computer and tell which fan is generating what noise.

I'd easily hear the pump in my case when I had watercooling for a short time, and I easily heard the fans on the radiator. It took me a few days to realize that I wasn't getting anymore performance out of my computer and noise levels weren't different at all to me. So to me, it's just not worth it.

I also think watercooling and all the tubing (even UV nonsense) looks hideous, but that's just me.

Anyway, it's more of a hobby, and as long as you enjoy it, just do it. I just happen to think there are no real benefits, especially now. Overclocking your GPU will get you an extra 1-5 frames at max, and getting an extra 200-300mhz on your CPU is really quite worthless with processors now.
 
superman :) super hearing.

I"m using water and some alcohol too. Though I'm using water from my lab thats more pure than distilled. :)
 
viets7ylez said:
superman :) super hearing.

I"m using water and some alcohol too. Though I'm using water from my lab thats more pure than distilled. :)
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idk what water youre using, but is it deioized? i thought about stealing some of that frmo the science labs at my school, but after researching it decided not to:

"Deionization is a physical process which uses specially-manufactured ion exchange resins which bind to and filter out the mineral salts from water. Because the majority of water impurities are dissolved salts, deionization produces a high purity water that is generally similar to distilled water, and this process is quick and without scale buildup. However, deionization does not significantly remove uncharged organic molecules, viruses or bacteria, except by incidental trapping in the resin."

that from wikipedia. if its not deionized, may i ask what it is? double-distilled? i might be able to find the same thing at my school if its better.
 
In my lab use MilliQ water to make solutions. It is basically distilled water that goes through more filters. The water fed into the machine is already deionized as well.
 
My 24/7 is 4ghz ht turbo @ 1.31v. Mid 50's at load. I have 88cfm yates strapped onto that rad.

Anyways, will that alcohol mess up anything? its 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol
 
You SHOULDN'T be running alcohol if you have any acrylic in your loop. Your pump top is acrylic. Alcohol dehydrates the acrylic and will cause it to crack and leak eventually. There's also no point to running alcohol in your loop, it has poor thermal properties compared to water, isn't as efficient of a biocide as PT-Nuke for example, and has an adverse effect on acrylic. 3 good reasons not to use it at all. Pure distilled + a few drops of PT-Nuke is all you need.
 
viets7ylez said:
In my lab use MilliQ water to make solutions. It is basically distilled water that goes through more filters. The water fed into the machine is already deionized as well.
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thats cool. i wonder if i can find anything like that on my campus. right now im just using normal once-distilled water from safeway. but for a 1.19 a gallon its really not that bad.
 
no pt nuke. I will get some feser fluid soon as I think it looks damn cool. I have to have it in there for a couple of days though.
 
Grats OP. Glad you finally got up and running :)

Omerta said:
nice, but I personally don't think watercooling is worth it. I can still hear the pump and the fans on the radiator, so it's not all that much more silent than air cooling
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Absolutely untrue... The main benefit to WC is putting the GPU on water.

My case, at stock speeds (air cooling) measured in a grating 41dba (stock intel fan and 4870 stock HSF). On water it measures sub-ambient at <24dba.
 
Arcygenical said:
Absolutely untrue... The main benefit to WC is putting the GPU on water.

My case, at stock speeds (air cooling) measured in a grating 41dba (stock intel fan and 4870 stock HSF). On water it measures sub-ambient at <24dba.
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Basically this. My 4870x2's fan was SO loud when playing games, I had to keep it at about 55% constantly when playing. Now my full load noise is the same noise as idle, which is whisper quiet even with 8 fans in the case. I'm so glad I did it for the silence alone, let alone the incredible cooling performance.
 
Arcygenical said:
Grats OP. Glad you finally got up and running :)



Absolutely untrue... The main benefit to WC is putting the GPU on water.

My case, at stock speeds (air cooling) measured in a grating 41dba (stock intel fan and 4870 stock HSF). On water it measures sub-ambient at <24dba.
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I'd rather get an aftermarket heatsink if I was too concerned about gpu noise. They're cheaper than waterblocks, too.
 
lollerskater69 said:
Point blank. Beside Phase and SS, which you can't use 24/7, water is the best.
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provides the best temps (which doesn't mean much), slightly less noise, but more maintenance...

Though after working with the swiftech gtz waterblock, I do wish more air coolers would adopt its kind of mounting hardware.
 
Omerta said:
I'd rather get an aftermarket heatsink if I was too concerned about gpu noise. They're cheaper than waterblocks, too.
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Sure, but you're still not at "Recording Studio" level of noise...

And hitting 840mhz on a 4870 512mb isn't too shabby either ;)

provides the best temps (which doesn't mean much), slightly less noise, but more maintenance...
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The quietest case I've ever built, was a custom enclosure for use WITHIN a recording booth. It was an underclocked E6600, with a TRUE and onboard HDMI video... Even that was louder than my current case - pump included...

I'm really not too sure how you had your case setup - but I assure you, you can get "below the threshold of hearing" with water if you plan properly.
 
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