*brain fart* pumpless psu cooling?

title says it all..
thinking about doing this..
basicly having an aluminum water block for all the mosfets then on top of the psu an aluminum radiator with like 1" tubing.. (would have to submerge/fill it, eww)
no pump, just one panaflo l1a fan on the radiator.
Think natural circulation will be able to cool it enough?
When my pump failed on my old p4 i ran my computer for about 2 weeks not knowing what had happened but realized that my temps were 10-15c higher then normal but still in working stabilty range (instead of 30c, i was getting 40-45c) and that was with the same aluminum radiator.

why i want to do this? i don't want extra heat in my current loop for the CPU/GPU/NB that i have right now plus i got all the parts and wouldn't mind losing an extra dba on my entire computer noise rating.

do u think..

a)it'll work, go for it

b)won't outpreform current heatsink solution, don't bother.

c)too much heat, tubing will melt, sparks will light up the night as you slumber. you foolish, foolish little boy..

Nah, that sounds way too complicated, way more than its worth. It is aircooled without a problem, at the most just make a waterblock for the mosfets and hot stuff and you should be fine. Kinda like bladerunners.


Jon

If you're only talking about cooling the mosfets with convection, it sounds like it would work. You're a little unclear as to whether or not you're cooling the PSU this way too - I think you mean you're just going to use the PSU fan to blow air through the radiator, correct? Convection cooling the mosfets would work fine, I think. Shouldn't even need 1" tubing, you could probably go smaller.

Why not just rip open your PSU, drill some holes, and replace the fans with silent, more efficient fans? It should work fine, and would be eesier to do

I would be really, really iffy about having a waterblock in my powersupply, but maybe I'm just a wimp .

What kind of powersupply is it by the way?

JFettig said:

Nah, that sounds way too complicated, way more than its worth. It is aircooled without a problem, at the most just make a waterblock for the mosfets and hot stuff and you should be fine. Kinda like bladerunners.


Jon

Click to expand...

.. thats what i was planning on doing, a waterblock like bladerunners except it won't be connected to my system, it'll have its own loop.
i remember natural circulation worked with me before with a 50w cpu. psu doesn't put that much right?

i could have the tubing less then 1", but gotta make sure the radiator is higher then the blocks for convection.
i'll only be cooling the mosfets, i've already extrended most of them along with removing their old heatsink..
psu i'm going to use uses two 32dbA fans (35 total) because its 500w, thats like insane compared to my 27dba system now.

felinusz said:

Why not just rip open your PSU, drill some holes, and replace the fans with silent, more efficient fans? It should work fine, and would be eesier to do

I would be really, really iffy about having a waterblock in my powersupply, but maybe I'm just a wimp .

What kind of powersupply is it by the way?

Click to expand...

i tried putting two l1a panaflos in there, but it would overheat and turn off. i have quite a load on it..
right now i'm using a 400w compusa psu which works great with two panaflos..
the one i plan to wc is a raidmax 500w
http://www.supermediastore.com/powsup-psy-a500b.html
its kinda to late to go back to air cooling anyways..
the heatsink is trashed, and all the mosfets are extended

Korndog said:

.. thats what i was planning on doing, a waterblock like bladerunners except it won't be connected to my system, it'll have its own loop.
i remember natural circulation worked with me before with a 50w cpu. psu doesn't put that much right?

i could have the tubing less then 1", but gotta make sure the radiator is higher then the blocks for convection.
i'll only be cooling the mosfets, i've already extrended most of them along with removing their old heatsink..
psu i'm going to use uses two 32dbA fans (35 total) because its 500w, thats like insane compared to my 27dba system now.

Click to expand...

a PSU produces a lot more than 50W of waste heat the very best (FSP) are still under 80% efficient - others considerably less...

Also, the cooler your PSU is the more power you can pull off it without it overloading. I read an article on it on a site a while back, maybe I can find it, but Im not sure...

i believe that in order for natural convection to work, the setup must have very low restriction, and the heat source needs to be at the bottom of one side of the loop, with the rad up top. So the hot water rises easily to the radiator. Sounds like an intersting project to try.
I've had watercooling my PSU in my head for a while now, but I have no time to do it properly right now. (and when its 120V, it needs to be done properly! )
You may not gain any performance in regards to MHz, but you will give your components a smoother, more consistantly regulated flow of power, which your components will like.

i don't plan on wc the psu for preformance, but for noise..
the fans on there are really loud and downgrading them to panaflos l1a makes it unstable..
i have a spare maxijet900 pump that i can attach to the loop.. do u guys think it'll work that way? I plan on using a 120mm radiator and a 80mm l1a panaflo fan lowering the dba of the psu from 35dba to 21dba
what do you guys think??

Korndog said:

i don't plan on wc the psu for preformance, but for noise..
the fans on there are really loud and downgrading them to panaflos l1a makes it unstable..
i have a spare maxijet900 pump that i can attach to the loop.. do u guys think it'll work that way? I plan on using a 120mm radiator and a 80mm l1a panaflo fan lowering the dba of the psu from 35dba to 21dba
what do you guys think??

Click to expand...

hmm - i wonder wether you could mod a passive cooling solution for your PSU from a zalman heatpipe? "A" would be better than "C" i think.....

yea, thought about that too, but that would mean i would have to purchase it.. i already have the watercooling stuff, just wanted to know if it would work out..

I wouldn't, what I might do is mod it for a quiet 120mm fan

I would definately stay away from watercooling the ps for just slience, if you wanted to modify it, modify a 120mm fan to the casing of it inside the case, drop the 80mm fan, seal up the holes that would let air go into the case and have it push out the fan hole.

Theres many things you can do that would be many times easier on yourself than watercooling a ps. If your just flat out bored, go for it man.

Jon

argh.. i worked so hard to get the old 120mm fan off my radiator in the first place, i can't put it back..
but i'm not bored, i've got 19units from hell.. argh.. well.. does any know a good heatsink for a psu? i trashed the old ones when i first went for watercooling on the psu..

I say go for it Korndog. I don't know the difference in heat dissipation of the psu and the cpu, but it seems like it should work.

Your convection driven loop is basically a heat pipe, is it not. The evaporation section of the heat pipe is the heatsink in your loop, which then moves to the condensor section (your rad) by means of evaporation (or convection in your loop) where the heat is removed and returns to the evaporation section/heatsink. The big difference is the liquids, heat pipes using a very vaporizable liquid.

sheesh a couple tokes and now I'm just ramblin

beg your pardon