Water cooling not cooling

[Jester]

My water cooling system isn't doing a very good job at cooling. My average temperature is 62° celsius. That seems pretty damn high to me, and my system isn't even overclocked. Maybe I forgot, give me some ideas

AMD Thunderbird 1.4 Ghz
MSI K7T266 Pro (MS-6380)
GeForce 2 Pro 64 MB DDR
512 MB PC2100 DDR

[Warlord2]

we need to know more info like what parts you are using for you setup,how you hooked everything up,how big of pump you have,etc

[grunjee]

Good luck bump... hope you get those temps down.

I'm no expert but one recurring theme I've seen here is to make *sure* you've got good contact between the block and die... try putting some more pressure on that sucker (use common sense though) and see if it helps.

[N3D2000]

do you have any termal paste between the clock and the cpu die?

[KeyboardCowboy]

ouch, that's why i have never tried water cooling, there is nothing that a good 120mm fan screaming out high cfm's can't fix

[Jester]

I have the aquastealth II kit. It has a copper core, the Rio 180 (120 gallons/hour), a 20 copper pipe radiator. That is it. No peltiers, no thermal grease, no nutin'.

[train22]

uhm, did you remember to add water?:confused:

One thing you want to do before you even asemble it in your system is try it own in a bowl or the john.:p

1. Make sure your radator is getting pletny of good air.
2. Make sure your pump is pumping.
3. Make sure you PSU can keep up.
4. Put the water block on somthing really hot. I suggest microwaving somthing and see if your setup can stay cold. If everything goes well on this test and it even cools it down your problem is probaby case airflow which falls back onto #1.

I have little experiecne with watercooling but I think this is in the right direction. I am learning more and more about watercooling and the more I hear the less I want to upgrade. You can have many many more problems with watercooling than with HSFs and I'm not talking about installation, I think that's the easy part, and even if you do it right, there can always be problems at any time, especially if you don't have some hardware monitoring unit. The water can go bad, 'stuff' can grow anywhere in the system, it can block the flow etc... AND even if your system is with no problem watercooling is not MUCH quieter or does it keep the cpu core cooler. (Maybe a little better but defently not worth all the extra trouble and the EXTRA $$$)

Now this is my opinion and I don't want to raise hostility in the forum but this is just my 'bios' opinion to watercooling:)

[dimmreaper]

Sounds like you have air trapped in the waterblock to me. Disconnect the waterblock from the CPU (with the puter off of course). Leave the pump on, and shake the waterblock like it's a bottle of ketchup. Also make sure you have enough water in the system . . . .

[Richard]

It's possible you have a lot of air still in the system.

Take the waterblock off the CPU and give it a good shake. Move it below the level of the reservoir and turn it in several directions. Hopefully, if there's a bubble you'll get it out.

Do the same thing with the radiator. Sometimes pretty big pockets of air will develop which can greatly impede your cooling.

If the air pockets are large enough you'll probably need to add some more water to the reservoir.

Also, make sure your radiator is getting adequate ventilation. Place your hand on the other side and feel if there's air coming out the other side. (A good fan is a must.)

[Jester]

My radiator and pump are outside of my case. It keeps cool when it runs by itself, I tried that out when I first set the system up. I have a 120 mm fan attached to the radiator. When you touch everything there not cold, but they are not hot at all.

[Crazy Jayhawk]

And be sure to use thermal grease. The stuff works wonders.

[Jester]

I put a copper T inline so I could remove the top when all the air bubbles collected and add water

[Flash]

Originally posted by Jester
No peltiers, no thermal grease, no nutin'.

I believe that's your answer. You've GOT to use thermal grease--preferably Arctic Silver II or equivalent.

[Kibler]

Yeah you must be nuts not to use thermal grease! Without thermal grease my temps just keep going up and up till I get scared and shut the comp down! With thermal grease I have to work to get it to hit 40 C :-)

I'd hate you to think poorly of water cooling cause you didnt do something as simple as applying thermal grease!

Artic Silver is nice but even the cheapest thermal grease you can find is a whole lot better than nothing!

Kibler

[Jester]

My opinion of water cooling never changed, I figured over looked something simple like that. Should I buy both a peltier, and thermal grease?

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by Jester
My opinion of water cooling never changed, I figured over looked something simple like that. Should I buy both a peltier, and thermal grease? Just get some good silicone/silver based heatsink compound. Most will say that ArcticSilver is the best, I tend to agree.

You don't need a peltier, not yet anyway.

Maybe after you get your watercooling rig setup you should research them some though, and see if they are for you.

[Owenator]

If you're in a pinch you can use the Radio Shack white thermal grease until you can get some Arctic Silver. I also use the white grease as an 'alignment' test when I put my block on. I put the grease on the core evenly seat and tighten the block, then take the block off and check the grease in the cpu and the imprint made on the block. You shoulde see a nice little even 'square of grease on the block and the core should have a very thin film of gease on it. For my eyes the white grease is easier to see (it's dirt cheap too). This way I can check that I seated the block correctly and that the pressure is good. Then clean it up and apply the AS!

I do this because I once installed my FOP32 rotated so that the heat sink was resting on part of the socket, I only had about 50% contact and boy did it run hot! I know I can make mistakes like this so now I am more careful and 'double check' with the white grease. Hope this helps!

O

[Jester]

Thanks a lot everyone, I go down and see if my local computer store has anything today.