Anybody dealt with this guy on eBay?

As my current PC has died, I've decided that this time around I'm going to go with liquid cooling. I'm going to rebuild pretty much the same system as that which just died (Barton 2500+, Asus A7N8X-E - although I might switch to a different board)...

OCing isn't a big priority right now, but keeping the temps down is, and air cooling just isn't doing it. There are 3 160 Watt mercury vapour bulbs running in the room all day long to provide reptiles with the heat & UVB they need. Needless to say, while the AC is set to 70 degrees, and happily reduces the temps in other rooms of the house, this room seems to teeter around 80 for the majority of the day (the bulbs themselves are around 450-500 degrees at the bulb).

So, I'm looking at having a go at water cooling. I was having a browse around eBay and saw this..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3673&item=6707765881

In one part of the ad he says "so and so sells these for blah blah", and further down he says "I make these". Have/would any of you guys try/tried these?

I'm looking to build my own case for the new PC from scratch (friend of mine owns a sheet metal company manufacturing mostly AC ducts), so space inside the system for something this size wouldn't be an issue, and I can make all my own duct work to help with the airflow.

Looks pretty good. And really, it's not such a bad deal. The rad goes for $20-30 from an automotive store, he's got nice barbs for 'em, and you can get it painted if you want at no extra charge. And the 120mm Delta's are decent, especially if you have a fan controller, you can wind 'em down if they're too loud. Looks like pretty good quality work to me. The only thing is that he doesn't include a shroud, but if you've got access to sheet metal for cheap or for free, that's easily taken care of.

I've dealt with him personally. He works about a mile from where I work. I've picked up fans and a radiator/shroud combo from him. The heatercore is a Bonneville heatercore. He's already done the work on them and it's really really nice work.

He used to sell them in our classifieds here but he says something happened between him and the mods so he wasn't allowed any longer.

He's a trusworthy guy and does great work. Well well worth the price. He does have a custom shroud available for this heatercore if you ask.

Yeah. It's 2Fresh. He's good. He's got a thread over at [H]. I bought one with just the sides painted, 1/2 in barbs, and no fans (got my own). Quality job.


http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=761000

Comparatively, the Swiftech rad is the cheapest watercooling rad you can get, at $43, but it doesn't have great performance by any means. The next step up is a Black Ice Pro or Black Ice Xtreme, but you're looking at around $60 for the Pro and $100 for the Xtreme, and neither of them perform as well as a heatercore. What they have going for them is ease of use and installation and the fact they're all nicely painted and have barbs preinstalled. This on the other hand, and he looks to be a repuatable seller, offers the performance of a heatercore (because it is), has the barbs and is prepainted, so it's as good if not better than a Black Ice rad for significantly less. Not bad at all.

Permanoob said:

I've dealt with him personally. He works about a mile from where I work. I've picked up fans and a radiator/shroud combo from him. The heatercore is a Bonneville heatercore. He's already done the work on them and it's really really nice work.

He used to sell them in our classifieds here but he says something happened between him and the mods so he wasn't allowed any longer.

He's a trusworthy guy and does great work. Well well worth the price. He does have a custom shroud available for this heatercore if you ask.

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You know, I looking the Classifieds section for 'em, but I couldn't find the thread. I guess that's why. I wish I had seen this before, because now I have a 2-342 heatercore I got used, but the fins are a bit beat and the barbs were JB Welded to it. These look so much nicer. Damn. I'll have to sell this one. If I can get $20 for it I'll be happy and I'll buy one of these.

so what happened that he doesnt sell here anymore? i just e mailed him 2 days ago about a shroud.

rhino56 said:

so what happened that he doesnt sell here anymore? i just e mailed him 2 days ago about a shroud.

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He didn't say and I didn't press it. All I know is he's a good guy with a great product at a great price. He even does reserviors. I don't know if he does them anymore but those were pretty cool too.

Well, that seems like a pretty glowing report so I think one of those will be the start of my WC unit..

Just one question, how are the fans setup in the shroud? One as intake, the other as exhaust?

Those are nice hc and nice paint job. On the otherhand, if you don't care for the looks you can get one at $17.99 at autozone and just use a hacksaw and cut some of the tubings off. If you even want to make it look a little more presentable, mask off the fins and paint it yourself. It's not really that hard to paint.

[aXe] said:

Well, that seems like a pretty glowing report so I think one of those will be the start of my WC unit..

Just one question, how are the fans setup in the shroud? One as intake, the other as exhaust?

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The shroud is just made to push the air though one way. 2-120mm fans pushing it through. I'll take a picture of it when I get home from work.

Ok. So if I were to build my own shroud (I'm actually thinking of a self-contained unit just for the rad). I could just stick a pair of intakes on one side, a pair of exhausts on the other side, and all should be cool right? (no pun intended, heh).

Cool as a cucumber.. (pun intended)

[aXe] said:

Ok. So if I were to build my own shroud (I'm actually thinking of a self-contained unit just for the rad). I could just stick a pair of intakes on one side, a pair of exhausts on the other side, and all should be cool right? (no pun intended, heh).

Click to expand...

really if you got a pair of exhaust fans pulling the air thru with a shroud that sets them a ways off the radiator to help the center dead air spot you would be having great cooling. enough to heat a car in the winter, and i doubt any cpu puts out that much heat. well maybe mine lol
but the both sides really arent needed, its overkill.

Okies, thanks for the info everybody

Okies, a quick update. Fortunately it was only the PSU in my PC that died. I've put in another temporarily just to get my machine up and running while I look for a good quality one.

Idle CPU temp is 61-62°C, while the system temp is 36°C (Barton 2500+, Asus A7N8X-E, Stock HSF that came with the CPU).

What sort of temps would you guys estimate with one of these rads and a Maze4? What pump would you suggest to go along with that? Would you suggest another water block other than the Maze4?

That's the guy I was looking for. Will be ordering from him soon.