my first wc rig

help my first wc rig [edited]

Hey guys, after days and days of leak testing I finally got my first wc going. I may have just built one of the cheapest watercoolers ever. A friend of mine was kind enough to donate a Maze3 and a blackice pro 120.1 rad. I got a powerhead 802 pump, and built a small custom res. Cost me less than $60 out of pocket. All 3/8 fittings. Pump>wb>rad>res. No 90's, no kinks, all seems to be ship shape.

I was previously using an alpha pal 8045 with a tt smartfan II always at full blast. My temps averaged 46 idle, and 49 under load. When I got the wc going, my temps were then at 42 idle, and 44 under load. I didnt really have any expectations since I put so little into this rig (besides lots of engineering), so I was wondering what you folks thought of these temps. My room is a pretty cool temp, I keep the window a/c on full blast all the time (sorry idk the exact ambient). I know I had pretty good air cooling before, but i still figured the water would drop the temps a little more than it did.

all specs:
A7V333
XP2400+@163x14>2280, 1.8v
BFG FX500oc
XPSP2

Maze3
blackice pro 120.1
Sunon 120 @ 12v, with shroud.
powerhead 802 pump
3/8 vinyl Home Depot tubing.
90% distilled, 10% antifreeze, with a little watterwetter and dye.
Custom res.
Artic Alumina

Any comments or opinions would greatly help.

TIA

I would think the temps would have dropped a little more, are you sure that all the air has been bled out? there might still be air in the block, or res, make sure that all is out.

dicecca112 said:

I would think the temps would have dropped a little more, are you sure that all the air has been bled out? there might still be air in the block, or res, make sure that all is out.

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I am pretty certain that i have gotten all the air out of the system. I tilted and flipped the system numerous times over the course of several days, and I was able to watch the air run its way through. As far as I can tell there does not seem to be any more air in the system.

thx for the response dicecca112

what CFM is that sunon rated for. I agree, temps should ahve dropped a lot more than that. what's ur case ambient temp too, just to get a feel for the room temp. Try to affix ur case\rad or what not as close tot eh AC as possible and definately considering getting an additional fan to do push pull through the rad as CFM through the rads is the single greatest variable in WCing.

If this: http://www.burnoutpc.com/images/reviews/Alphacool/DSC00096.JPG is the rad we're talking about, you should definately do push pull or at least get a really high CFM fan for that as the large tubes really obstruct the air. I had one just like that back in the day and it didn't perform as well as heatercores, so you may want to check out ebay and see if you can get one if you can afford it. Fans would be a first step though, as they're always good. Enjoy and

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!!!

thx for your input nicspits, and for the welcome

I'm not sure what the sunon is rated for, but it definately moves a decent amount of air. It surely isnt a low flow fan. My case ambient is 35 at idle. As far as the air conditioner is concerned, my computer is literally sitting right in front of it. my rad is pointed directly at the a/c, less than 2 feet away. It's on the back of my case (the case being perpindicular to the front of the a/c, its pointing away from the a/c) with a fan on the inside of the case pulling fresh a/c air through the rad and into the case. I'm confident that I'm getting sufficient cool air across the rad.

And, I apologize. The rad I'm using is not in fact a blackice pro, it is a blackice extreme, 120.1. Please forgive me for that confusion. Is the extreme any better than the pro, which u suggested might not be that great?

Also, I forgot to add, I lapped the block to a mirror finish using 3 different grades of paper, 600, 1200 and 1600 I belive it was. So the block has a proper mating surface. I adjusted the nuts slightly (I have the nylon fasteners BTW) and tried to make sure the block was seated properly on the die. Without tearing the whole thing down and reseating it (which I will try if all else fails) there don't seem to be much more I can do to ensure a proper seat.

Time for BEER, hope to hear from everyone
pc

Ok, I've been toying with it all night. It was orignally running at 163x14>[email protected]. I now have it running at 171*[email protected]. So far its stable.

Now, I've noticed something that may make me feel stupid. I've installed both mbm and asus probe. Probe configures itself, and mbm allows u to select that it configure itself. Well, having both programs set themselves up how they like, they both seemed to report the same temps. Heres the temps I got with air, and now with water (as mbm5 reports):

air
CPU Diode 46
CPU Socket 43
Case 28

water
CPU Diode 43
CPU Socket 36
Case 35

Im not sure what a garden variety temp would read for any 3 of those diodes, but thats what I've been going by. However, when I was in my BIOS overclocking, I noticed in the h/w monitor that it was reporting my CPU to be running at 36, and my MB temperature was 35.

So, I started thinking that maybe my CPU is running at 36, and mbm and probe have the CPU diode and the CPU socket mixed up. So perhaps with air my CPU was running at 43 idle, and with water its running at 36 idle.

Is it feasible that mbm has confused these 2 readings. Would 43 make more sense as a CPU socket temp, and 36 seem more like a cpu temp, as in such that mbm is confusing these temps?

thanks for all the input so far


BTW, is there a better temperature reading application that I could be using?

That sounds much more reasonable for temps.

citronym said:

Would 43 make more sense as a CPU socket temp, and 36 seem more like a cpu temp, as in such that mbm is confusing these temps?

Click to expand...

I would think that the CPU temp would always be higher than the socket temp (unless maybe, there was special cooling, ala rear motherboard fan).
After all, isn't the "socket temp" read from a thermistor, by design further from the heat source?