Why did you QUIT water cooling?

orion456 · Mar 18, 2006

Why did you quit water cooling?

Was it:

-too risky
-too worrying
-computer was unattended for long periods of time
-leaks
-equipment failure
-insufficient cooling
-too loud
-tube clogging
-not worth the effort involved
-other........

I don't want to hear how great water cooling is, I already think its kewl. But I want to hear from people who quit and how long they water cooled before quiting.

blkdiamond · Mar 18, 2006

I watercooled for well over a year but the last two rigs I have built I have kept them air cooled becasue of the amount of work and cost involved as I upgraded from Socket A to Socket 939.

-aDaM^ · Mar 18, 2006

I stopped watercooling because of the cost, I didnt feal like buying a Lian-Li PC75B , MCP655 , BIX-3 , 6 Delta fans, Storm G4 , Fusion HL. again.... after i sold it so im air cooling now :shrug:

ls7corvete · Mar 18, 2006

I havent quit but its been on hold for about six months, I just havent had the urge to seriously play games like I used to. Without games im just running mozilla at a 50% overclock and that just doesnt seem as appealing.

When a couple good deals in the forums come along I am sure I will get things up and running agian.

I guess you could say I left water cooling for TEC cooling as all future setups will be using a low voltage TEC. TECs are superior IMHO.

hainer36 · Mar 18, 2006

i was air, then water, back to air, and came back to water

originally quit because i had 478 then went to 775, and just sold everything, but decided to go back because it was much better temps than air

lowfat · Mar 18, 2006

To force myself to get into phase change. although it hasn't worked yet.

dicecca112 · Mar 18, 2006

not worth the pain in the butt, the upkeep. But I do miss the quiet

Voodoo Rufus · Mar 18, 2006

When I do stop watercooling, it is hard to not like the simplicity of a proper air cooled system. They can be very quiet, and I sacrifice very little overclock when doing air. Next to that, cost would be another reason.

Valk · Mar 18, 2006

I dont really think cost is a real issue because when you think of upgrading your system over a 3 year period, you spend as much on air coolers for that as you would on one water rig that WILL last through all those systems.

I dont imagine ill quit water cooling for a while, but if i do it will also be due to complexity of interior operations. I cant play with my hardware nearly as easily as if they were on air. somthing as simple as clearing my cmos requires the removal of my sound card, and moving a number of other components now that im water cooled.

These heatpipes showing up in the most common low cost cooling is going to make big waves and will probably phase out the NEED for watercooling in high end systems. this new coolermaster 2x120 mm heatsink as a example.

CCUABIDExORxDIE · Mar 18, 2006

i gave it up because of cost....i moved from s754 to s939 and didnt have the funds so i sold off my setup. i finally stepped back up to water when i got an INSANE deal. so i went back to water...its a hassel. but im willing to put up with it for temps.

flamerail · Mar 18, 2006

Ill change the topic some and mention why Im not water cooling.

1. I'm still sucket A... and the 64 have a ton of heatsinks that cool as good as water if not better!
2. Dont have the money.
3. I dont want to have to change the water and do maintance... A fishtanks less work than water cooling

marscay · Mar 19, 2006

i went from air -> phase (mach-ii) -> water -> phase (vapo LS) and tonight i put the vapochill in the corner and put my loop back in.

i get bored more than anything once it's all setup for awhile plus i had a storm G5 block which was brand new and i'd been wanting to try that out, and also wanting to water my 1900 xt-x because the noise was getting to me. the vapo aint quiet either.

found a leak within 20 mins of leak-testing too...this is why you shouldn't rush AND why you should ALWAYS leak test

speed bump · Mar 20, 2006

Well I would stop watercooling if I
a.) went to phase change for some happiness
b.) found a HS that could cool as well as my ultra cheap wcing setup.

jamesavery22 · Mar 20, 2006

I quit watercooling my HTPC because of noise and size. I went from a external passive h2o cooled 2500+ barton in a matx case to a single fan mid-tower 2.2ghz pentium-m. My HTPC is a box that I want to throw behind a couch and never touch. h2o was just a hassel to move around and have to refill after 4-6 months.

I started watercooling my main box because my main box never moves and has a room to itself pretty much.

meionm · Mar 20, 2006

I got laptop

It_The_Cow · Mar 20, 2006

1) Too loud. What most people may consider quiet is deafening to me.
2) Takes up too much space. The way my setup was mounted took away my hard drive rack in my Lian Li.
3) Too expensive. Sure you can recycle your WC setup when you upgrade system setups, but then you'll need to buy some sort of cooler for your old setup.
4) Overclocking really isn't worth it. Yeah it's fun, but I'd rather have a mediocre, stable, and quiet system rather than a blazingly-fast, unstable, and loud one.

Edit: Prior to reverting, I wc'ed for 1.5 years. During my planned maintenance last week, I decided to just take it all out and go back to air cooling. I'm much happier with the noise, but not the high temperatures I'm getting, although a better heatsink might help.

Zenjirou · Mar 20, 2006

My Iwaki uses 57 Watts of power. It is troublesome therefore for 24/7 Usage.

So I am on Air until I can trade it for a 50z or comparable 8W DC pump

Soichiro · Mar 20, 2006

I would use water cooling, but I don't, for 2 simple reasons.
1. Cost
2. The new OCZ phase change unit that's supposed to be coming out soon. Only a little more than a good water cooling setup, and it will be able to reach sub-zero temps, while water cooling can't get the CPU below ambient no matter how hard you try.

Mr.Guvernment · Mar 20, 2006

Too much work - @ first it was fun, but now it just seemd like way too much effort if your not trying to reach a 500Ghz O/C.

Slayer2003 · Mar 20, 2006

I'm slowly getting out of it, after having my loop for just about a year(this month).

It's becomming a hassle, my case looks hideous, and the dual-Deltas are getting annoying. I also don't play games, in fact, at all in at least the past 6 months....Iunno, I did w/c to later move to phase, but I've lost intrest in that I guess too, unless it's a hugely amazing homebrew system, eh, whatever. lol.

I, atm, am actually running *stock*. I need reliability and uptime. :shrug:

Why did you QUIT water cooling?

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