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Newbies Watercooling Lessons Learned

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a1cnolan

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2001
Location
georgia
I learned a lot of interesting things on my path to watercooling splendor.
I’d like to share a lot of the little things you may pass by along the way.
I’d also like to share my appreciation to the overclockers forums. Without which I would have never known overclocking existed.

Well here goes an accumulation of things I learned along the way.

1) The hole mounting sizes for waterblocks to an amd board in American are 1.42 inches X 2.66 inches.

2) Mounting via the four hole mounting method can be done as posted by Neomoses when he answered my question for a how to. So thank you Neomoses. This is what he said

Here is my method:
•Mount studs through motherboard holes. I use 6-32 threaded rod, cut to about 3.5" long.
•Determine your spring constant, either by looking at spring specs or measuring. My springs are 4 lbs./in.
•Determine how much clamping force you want, then divide that number by 4. I use 24 pounds. AMD specs call for a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 24 pounds, so in my case that is 6 pounds per spring.
•Determine how much you will need to compress each spring to achieve the proper clamping force. To do this, use the fact that F=KX, or X=F/K. (F=force, K=spring constant, X=distance). For my case, X=6 (lbs)/4 (lbs/in.)= 1.5 inches needed to be compressed.
•Determine how many revolutions of the nut you will need to achieve your displacement. For my case, 1.5 (in.)* 32 (threads/in.) = 48 threads.
•Always tighten nuts that are diagonal from each other at the same time. I tighten the first set 4 revolutions , then switch to the other diagonal.
Notes:

It is not necessary to use calipers. Assuming you are accurate to 1/4 of a turn, you should be able to get to within 1/128", which is close enough.

I mark my nuts with an index line so I can easily count revolutions.

When installing, I first run all nuts down until they just touch the surface of the spring.

It is VERY important to note that these equations only work while the spring is not fully compressed. Once the spring is fully compressed, you are getting MUCH more clamping force than K*X.

3)“Water wetter” is sold at auto parts stores. I couldn’t find it but you can find a comparable product made by Zerex that does the same thing. And with them you put 4oz to gallon.

4)As it turns out distilled water isn’t some special water you have to pick up at home depot. Its just really clean water and they sell it at wal-mart for about 58cents a gallon. I did not know this because I think bottled water is for jerks.

5)Hose clamps can be found at home depot but they are really expensive. Save yourself a few cents by going to k-mart.

6) There are a lot of miscellaneous expenses that come along the way. Here are some that you may need
Fittings- try to buy them in bulk they may be cheaper that way. I paid like 2 bucks a piece doing it individually.
Hose clamps- 86 cents a piece at home depot. again go to k-mart
Springs- they are pretty cheap at ACE hardware. Ask the guy to get the book out so you can check the constant rate on the springs. Don’t get the wrong springs.
Water Wetter- a small bottle of this other stuff cost me like $2.50 and I didn’t use the whole thing so yeah.
Nylon washers- they sell them also at ace hardware. I don’t think the springs and the washers cost me more than 3 bucks.
Tubing- I picked up a 10 ft slice of .500 ID hose at home depot for like three bucks. When you get it pre cut its cheaper. I don’t know why. But it was like 3 bucks also
Duct Tape- If you have cats and you aren’t putting your rig inside your case get some of this. Cause they like to knock stuff over.

7)Your radiator. Before you go to Autozone and get yourself a heatercore. BE prepared for the funny look you get when you explain that it will never ever touch a car and that its going to go in a computer. Before taking it from tehm make sure it is shaped in a square. I got stuck with this one cause I didn’t know it had to be rectangular and well now my watercooler is outside of my case.

8) Make sure that your hose clamps are facing a direction you can handle tightening them inside your computer. Facing the wrong way (like towards your I/O plate can be a pain in the butt. You need to be able to fit your screwdriver in there.

9)Shroud. You can easily make a cheesy shroud until you get enough money for one of those really cool ones some of the guys sell on here. I used a Tupperware about the size of my heatercore and attached it with duct tap and dremeled a hole for the fan to blow through. Duct tape again. I know it sounds stupid but hey it works. Ill make something prettier when I go back to work after the holidays

10)I don’t quite know how to run a watercooler without a reservoir so if someone else wants to add that they can. All the how to’s I read left me confused so make it as simple as possible. Cause I want to do it someday myself.

Well that’s all I have for now. I don’t know if this is going to help anyone but all of this are things I learned. I spent a lot of time making quick trips to the store and modifying things and other such madness because I didn’t know a lot of this. And before I did it all I could think of was that video on toms hardware showing how easy it was. Well it is if you can afford one of those sweet innovateks and you have the right fittings and such. Anyway it was way challenging and fun and now I don’t even have a clue as to how high I can overclock. I still need some corsair because I can’t even run my Samsung at turbo with stock fsb. But I do know that I couldn’t go passed 166X9.5 stable which comes to about 1586 and now I have been running prime 95 for 6 hours with my pc at 171X10 which is obviously 1710. im so happy its ridiculous. Next up the video card cooler. And maybe some ram or a processor upgrade or a hardriver cooler or a………
Thanks again overclockers forums
 
Thanks for posting. You obviously put forth a lot of effort to post all of that and I'm sure many other newbies like me and others will be as thankful for the info.

Wangster
 
well i kinda just whipped it up. i know a lot of times when i learn something and i get good at it i forgot the little stupid things i had to leanr along the way... kinda like alt+tab in windows. i mean i just know it exists but sometimes forget that people in my familly have no idea what it means. so i figured if nothing else it would take care of a lot of the little questions that people may ask along the way. i dunno. thought it might help. thanks
 
i dunno about that. there are a lot of good posts made by experts. im still just learning
thanks though
 
10)I don’t quite know how to run a watercooler without a reservoir so if someone else wants to add that they can. All the how to’s I read left me confused so make it as simple as possible. Cause I want to do it someday myself.

Well, just skip it. :)

My current rig includes a reservoir (fast-coffee-bull****-bottle), but my test rig (will be installed tomorrow, running tests now) doesn't. I've got the water running from the pump, through the radiator, through the blocks, and then back to the pump. Just before the pump, I've put a T-connection, with a piece of hose, about 10cm long, wich allow me to fill the system. because of the flow, no water will flow upward this hose, and it makes it easy to remove any bubbles in the system.

Running a watercooling system without a reservoir will make it more sensitive to temperature changes, as the reservvoir will work as a buffert to even out this, in some times, rapid changes. And of course, a "sneak-leak" (or whatever u want to call it :p) will not burn down your computer if you use a reservoir, but it will empty the system quite fast if you dont use a reservoir.
 
You sure put alot of time into your springs and mounting :). I use no springs (no shim either), and just crank her down until it's quite snug. But that's because my clearflex will twist my block around if I had springs, and I think it's better.
 
7)Your radiator. Before you go to Autozone and get yourself a heatercore. BE prepared for the funny look you get when you explain that it will never ever touch a car and that its going to go in a computer. Before taking it from tehm make sure it is shaped in a square. I got stuck with this one cause I didn’t know it had to be rectangular and well now my watercooler is outside of my case.

ROFL!!! I know that EXACT look!
 
<ACIDBURN> said:
Is it better to have the raidator, pump, and res mounted on the outside or inside of the case????

It is easier to mount everything but the waterblock(s) outside the case; you're not having to cram a cooling system into a case that wasn't designed for it. If you never move the computer, that may be the best.

I prefer my computer to be somewhat portable, so I'm building (stuffing) it completely inside the case. I have pets, so having everything inside also protects the equipment (and pets :)).

Your choice. Look at threads with pictures of how different people have set up their system and see what you like.
 
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