About to go watercooling!

[muddocktor]

Well, the company I work for gave me a $500 Christmas present and I'm thinking of going watercooled with a pelt on my Intel system. Please give me some feedback on what I'm planning to do such as the parts I'm picking out are appropriate and will work together well.

I'm planning to use a Dangerden Maze1C-1 waterblock on my slotket and, as the P3 I'm going to overclock will be putting out in the neighborhood of 50-55 watts, I am going to go with a Drift 1.15 120 watt pelt. I'm planning to power the pelt with a S200 power supply from peaktopeakpower.com. One question I have on power; this is a 24.6 volt pelt and should I power it with the S200 in 15 volt or 24 volt configuration? I'm also going to get the waterblock with 1/2" fittings and plan to use 1/2" silicone tubing throughout.

I was looking at Dtekcustoms at their cooler core combo rad/shroud, using an 87 cfm 120 Panaflo. Is anyone using this and how do they perform? If this radiator isn't good, then give me some other choices that will fit neatly into a full tower case.

I plan to build my own reservoir out of a watertight plastic enclosure and I'm planning on using either an Eheim 1250 or 1060 water pump.

I'm planning to insulate the slotket with neoprene and seal the socket with rtv, but I need to find a source for the dielectric grease to seal the socket pin holes with.


I appreciate any advice help all you watercooling people can give me.

[Diggrr]

Hey Doc, I can't speak for the d-tek stuff (it does look pretty good though) but I'm thinking your pelt would need 18-19 volts to run correctly. I've seen it done with a lab power supply (expensive).
The dielectric grease (I think) can be gotten at radio shack. I got mine from the cable guy. ATT uses it on all their outdoor cable connectors. You can also get it from auto parts stores as it's used alot under the hood for wiring harness connectors, spark plug boots, distributors. I hear Vaseline is to stay away from as it attacks different plastics.

Slotkets are pretty easy to insulate as they stand up from the board. Just make sure you get a good tight fit between cold plate-tec-waterblock. It gives much better/efficient results.

Great luck to ya, and congrats on the x-mas present!

[muddocktor]

Thanks for the reply, Diggrr.

The S200 power supply doesn't have an 18 volt model, it's either 15 volt or 24 volt. I guess that I'll go with the 24 volt model as they are both the same price. The maze1C-1 uses screws to attach the waterblock and cold plate so I don't think that I will have any problem getting enough clamping pressure on the pelt. I guess that I'll go check at rat-shack or the auto supply houses for the dielectric grease.

Anyone else out there that is using the Dtek radiator or has an alternative radiator please speak up.:)

[The Overclocker]

only one little problem:

intel?

make sure you can run the stuff both on intel and amd as intel are not that impressive in the overclocking department and you may feel a little conned

[muddocktor]

Everything that I'm ordering can be used for either 1, except that I'd probably go with a higher performance water block with an AMD proc. BTW, this is a cD0 stepping P3-1000E, which runs on a 100 fsb. It is now running at 1333/133 fsb, so I have plenty of headroom left without my pci slots getting too out of spec on the pci bus speed. That is assuming that the chip proc will go much further. I figured that I would go Intel because it's running on a slotket, which makes insulating and mounting easier. It will be a good learning experience on the ins and outs of active watercooling, if nothing else.

Your post brought up a good point in that I think that I will upgrade the pelt psu to a S320, which can handle the power of a 172 watt pelt if I decide to watercool an AMD proc down the road. This is the only part that I haven't ordered yet today anyways. Also, I ordered an Antec SX1200(no psu included) full tower case to build all this into as I hate cramped installations.

[Wicked Klown]

Good luck hope you have better luck then me.