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Watercooling

I finally took the plunge where I decided to watercool my CPU. I ordered from over-clock.co.uk, and the service was excellent, recieved the goods the next day as promised. I ordered a WW dtek ALU top as I heard the polycarbonate tops crack and leak easilly. A thermochill 102.1 rad was chosen as it could dissipate 450W of heat, enough for a 75W CPU and a 30W pump. Mentioning the pump, an Eheim 1250 is surprisingly noisy, but some sound damping has reduced the noise quite substantially. You can't hear the pump over the fans, but there is a fair amount of vibration. You don't want this going through the floor to your neighbours downstairs, so even packing foam is better than nothing. Originally, I planned to use clearflex tubing, but that was out of stock, so I decided on Tygon instead. I don't know if it's better, but it's top quality stuff. Hoseclamps and barbs were provided as part of the "build your own" package! (Ordered some extra clamps as the WW has 3 barbs and a Y splitter, plus I wanted a T joint to fill the system. Saves on buying a res, but makes getting air out somewhat difficult as the water moves so fast. Here are some pics:

The pic on the left shows the mounting plate for the waterblock, an adapter is needed for a P4. I noticed (which was confirmed on a website) that the aluminuim mounting DOES make contact with a MOSFET on teh top edge of the board. Be careful abit IC7 and IC7-MAX3 users, this likely applies to you! Some gaffer tape insulated the plate. It should be noted that the plate rests on some other ICs, but no metal contact is made. Instead, this makes mounting the plate more difficult. The 4 long screws go through the threaded holes, and the small hex screws sit in the sunk holes in the corners of the plate. The screws are fastened to the otherside of the mobo using the supplied nylon nuts. However, owing to obstructions on the board, initially, I used another nylon nut to lift the plate off the board before fastening the plate assembly to the mobo. However, this didn't leave enough screw length on the otherside of the mobo. Instead, I put (out of safety reasons) gaffertape on the parts of the plate assembly which could touch the mobo, eliminating shorting hazards. Washers were used between the plate and the mobo, and the assemby was fastened (not too tightly, but tight enough. Too tight=bent plate.). Since this was done, I noticed the washers wern't necessary, but I couldn't be bothered to remove them. Nevertheless, the instructions for fitting this plate were less than clear. My advice is to go with it and see what happens! The picture on the right shows the size of the block in comparison to my previous cooler. They weigh about the same, waterblocks are surprisingly heavy. The barbs wern't put in too well (I thought they were a bit loose, so I used some PTFE tape for extra safety sealing along with the o-ring!

The pic on the left shows the rad mounted in the bottom of the case. Since my case is a small case (with 2 80mm fans at the bottom), I had to get rid of the HD cage to make it fit. I used the shrowd to secure the rad to the case. The pic on the right shows a hole I dremmelled in to tidy my wires (Special mention to Holley for his guide). Wires from the PSU are passed through here in order to keep them off the mobo. Gaffer tape stops the sharp aluminium cutting the wires. BTW, those shoes in the back arn't mine, I was working in a different room as mine was full of junk already!

Here, we leak test for at least 24 hours (I know it's a long time, to find something to do for the day like go outside, or better, use another computer/play games console, watch TV/DVD etc). Antifreeze, anti-algae and anticorrosive (Purple Ice) was added to stop bad things happening. Anticorrosive might not have been needed but since the waterblock had an aluminium top, it's better to be safe. Here is my rad, with barbs and clamps. The evercool fan you see here broke when I dropped a screwdriver on one of the blades, so I went to get a panaflo fan, it has a higher air flowrate for a similar noiserate. De-ionised water was used as distilled could not be obtained. It is ok for this purpose though.

My load temps arn't too bad, a much better improvement, plus I can run at 3.5 GHz on stock volts! Remember, the IC7 reports a temp of 10 deg C higher so this is actually 35 deg C. In the case on load, it can get up to about 40 deg C with an ambient temp of 26-27! a much needed improvement for the summer months. The right pic shows the necessary hole in the case to pass the wires through. The wires do just fit between the mobo tray and the side panel.

Last pics show the cardboard shrowd (from my arctic cooling box) to ensure air comes in from the outside and through the dust filter. Pic on the right shows the T with the waterlevel. The T is sealed with a capacitor which is just the right size to fit with a hose clamp!

In conclusion, watercooling is expensive, but worth it. Plus, the amount you spend on a Dell you can spend on your own PC where you can get better hardware and case plus kickass cooling for the same price! I've tested up to ambients of 30 degrees and the CPU temp hasn't exceeded 50 deg! I should mention the pump is powered by a wire going through an empty PCI slot. I chopped off the supplied plug and the put my own on. Again, it was protected with duct tape.

Of course, I had to get a 6800 GT and that needed watercooling (NV68, this thing is damn heavy!), plus some more rads etc, but as none of it would fit in my case, I used a MDF box to house my things.

So you can see, the tubes go in through the side of my case. Don't worry, I cut a "U" in the top of my side panel so the tubes would fit snuggly in position. I have the wiring going through the blowhole but not the tubes as this system was designed to be portable, so disconnecting the wiring and removing the side panel to take out the CPU block and GFX card, is quick and easy. Not only does this make transport easier, it also means the copper blocks arn't hanging off my mobo when I move the system around, and the GFX card is under much less stress this way too. I also have a res, whilst on the surface the dangerden clear res may seem expensive, but when you've got it, it's a chunky piece of plastic. Just remember, you CAN screw the barbs all the way in, if you use a spanner. This creates a nice watertight connection. Of course, with 2 rads, I also needed 2 fans. I bought 2 more panaflo's, the noisier variety. The small curcuit board is pulled from a car 12V CD player type multi adapter, perfect for controlling fans without the buzzing of PWM controllers like some Vantec controllers I've had the miss-pleasure of hearing. I wonder if they've improved them. They should work ine on sleeve-bearing fans, but where you'd find those I have no idea! In the right photo, you can also see a small glass bottle next to the green funnel. This is my drain line. Just remove the hose clamp and the ambesol bottle from the end of the tube and open the cap on the res and the water flows effortlessly out. Many people forget to put in a drain line (including myeslf on the first go), so I suggest you put one in. If you use a T, make sure it's from the lowest point of the piping. I know air tends to collect in high places, but depending on your setup, the air bubbles are pushed round so fast, they don't have a chance to collect anywhere, except in the rads!

As you can see, the 2 rads, the fans and the fan controller. All that was needed was to put the top on and push the computer under the desk. Apart from the foam protection pad I used between the box and the case, it looks quite discreet, which is important for me. Now all I need to do is hide that ghastly CDRW drive!