I know Koolance isn't the best there is.......

but I thought that a watercooled setup would at least run cooler than an aircooled computer.

I just finished building my Koolance PC2-650. Basically, the items that changed are the case and the fact that my computer is now watercooled. I moved all the components from my old case. When I was aircooled, my idle CPU temp was normally 35*C. Now, after watercooling, my idle CPU temp is 53*C. I don't understand why. I can see that the coolant is flowing, there are no kinks in any of the tubing, and I even tried re-seating the waterblock on the CPU. I scared to run the computer under any type of load with my idle temp already being so high. I started Return to Castle Wolfenstein and within 30 seconds the CPU temp jumped to 65*C. I am using a DigiDoc to read temperatures so I'm confident that they are pretty accurate.

Also, with the move to the new case, the floppy drive light stays lit. I tried reversing the data cable, but the light still stays lit. And, the only piece of hardware that changed was my DVD-ROM because my old one had been dead for a while. Now every time I boot, WinXP tells me I have to re-activate. I click yes to do the activation online, but apparently it does not do the re-activation.

The only thing that I can think of regarding the CPU temp is that I used Y's in the coolant tubing so each component (CPU, GPU, chipset) was not receiving hot coolant from another component. Maybe that slowed down the flow too much?

If anyone has any insights or possible solution to any of these problems, I would really appreciate any help you could give me. This is so frustrating.

Thanks.

P.S.: Does anyone have the pinouts for a standard floppy drive power connector? I might have miswired the power connector when I re-assembled it after sleeving my PSU.

Well you will not get the best temps with a Koolance but those seem very high. I think the Y's are messing it up. Get rid of them and run everything inline and then see what your temps are. The Koolance pumps are not that powerful so the Y's probably slowed you down too much.

I am running a Koolance Exos with the CPU-200G CPU cooler and CHC-A09 Video cooler in series.

I am getting 34°C idle and 40°C load on my Barton 2500+ @ 3200+. Vcore 1.65.

I am getting 35°C idle and 42°C on my 9700pro stock speed.

Thanks for the help guys. It looks like I have buy new tubing and coolant, completely disassemble the computer again, drain the coolant, and replace the lines, and then put it all back together again.

I have no idea what is going on with the floppy. I called Microsoft to try to re-activate WinXP over the phone, but they said there is nothing they can do because the WPA Wizard will not open for me to enter the codes they tell me over the phone. So now I have to completely back everything up and re-install windows to see if I can activate it. If I can't, I'll have to buy another copy. All because I replaced a busted DVD-ROM.

This sucks.

OK. Everything has been figured out now.

For the CPU temp issue, I added a little more Artic Silver 5 and left the Y's in place. Apparently, I still have excellent coolant flow. The CPU idle temp dropped to close to 30*C.

For the floppy drive issue, it ended up being a bad cable.

And for the XP activation issue, a re-format and clean install fixed that issue.


Even playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein for 2 hours, my CPU temp never even hit 35*C. Prime95 torture test never brought the CPU temp over 39*C.


All-in-all I have to say that I am very satisified with this setup. Now it remains to be seen how this Koolance system will perform in keeping my components cool when I overclock my P4 2.8GHz to 3.3GHz.

Ah, it's good to see that olde "reseat the processor to drop 25 degrees" trick still works.

walkerIV said:

Ah, it's good to see that olde "reseat the processor to drop 25 degrees" trick still works.

Click to expand...

Actually, re-seating the CPU did not fix the problem. I re-seated it 3-4 times without it fixing the problem. The problem was that I did not use enough thermal paste originally. I also wish that the locking mechanism on the Koolance CPU waterblock could be cranked down a little tighter.

How's this then:
Ah, it's good to see that olde "reseat the processor properly to drop 25 degrees" trick still works.

walkerIV said:

How's this then:
Ah, it's good to see that olde "reseat the processor properly to drop 25 degrees" trick still works.

Click to expand...

that's a little better. But, I didn't actually re-seat the processor.....just the waterblock.

Doh.
Guilty.
Version 1.0:
Reseat the (water)block on the processor properly to drop 25 degrees.