- Joined
- Jun 29, 2008
- Location
- Crewe, U.K
Hi all. I've been running the water cooled rig below in my sig and avatar for over a year now, apart from the CPU. Just changed to a Phenom II 940 from a 9850. It runs pretty well, but I've always thought it could be better on the temps. Reading other set ups, people seem to get idle temps around 30˚ where mine are more like 40˚+ idle and reach 55˚+ with Prime95. Only the CPU is wc'd, with a triple rad and fans. My 8800gt is on air at the mo. I'm getting 3.8Ghz stable at 1.5 volts though.
The main problem is the ambient air temp in the room I've got my PC in. It gets hot in there after 3 or 4 hours gaming, even with the window open. I've been thinking of different ways of getting the water temp down without getting into too extreme stuff.
Then i had a brain wave! My brother used to supply and fit bar equipment for outside bars, like for parties and weddings. He used beer flash coolers for chilling the lager, so i thought I'd give one a try.
Heres how the cooler should be set up behind a bar, and a similar model to the one I'm using. CO² gas is used to force lager from the barrels, then through the cooler and up to the dispenser. Simple.
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It's a twin cooler. There's one compressor with one water reservoir. This holds two separate pipe loops, each with it's own agitator pump to circulate the cooling water to aid cooling and also to stop it turning into a solid block of ice! It's designed to cool two separate barrels of lager/beer at the same time.
Reading other peoples posts about water chillers and drinking fountains etc, I was pretty sure it wouldn't cope with 40˚+ water temp going through it. I decided to use both loops and double cool the water, so the flow goes like this.
Drive bay reservoir > MCP 655 pump > CPU block > triple rad > into 1st chilled loop of cooler > out, then back into 2nd chilled loop > out of 2nd loop and back to Drive bay reservoir.
The main cooler res is filled with plain tap water. My water cooled setup had Feser liquid in the system, but i didn't trust this from freezing so i used a standard car antifreeze mix, about 70% to 30% water. I would have gone 100% but thought it would be thinner and easier on the 655 pump with some water added. Neat antifreeze is slightly thicker than water.
The cooler has 7 settings, 7 being the coldest where the cooler runs almost permanently without shutting off. I decided to try this setting, thinking it would struggle to get the water temp down. Man, how wrong i was. The cooler's supposed to run for an hour or so to get the reservoir temp down. I got impatient after 20min's and fired up the PC. The first worry was whether the MCP 655 pump had enough push to get it round the extra piping and loops. No problems there, this is an awesome pump. Watching the temps on speedfan, they started at 35˚ and fell to 25˚ , then 15˚ . This was obviously doing its job. I started Prime95 expecting the temps to go back up to 50˚ +. They didn't but kept falling! It was obvious it was going too far because condensation started forming on every metal part of the water loop. Radiator, CPU block fittings, pipe clamps etc. I panicked and turned the cooler to 2. As the temps rose back up to around 25˚ the condensation disappeared.
So, it looks like this is working superbly, far better than i had hoped. Easy to set up, and the best part, the chiller is free (or on permanent loan from my bro!)
After a few days of trial, it seems that if i keep the temp anywhere above 20˚ there is no sign of condensation. Something that i didn't expect was the triple rad. Instead of it having warm water running through it, it now has super cooled water, and the triple fans that blow room temperature air through the rad now blow cold air into the room, cooled by the rad. Perfect! This has given me another idea which I'm about to try below.
So now for the questions!
I've pulled the rig apart to replace the mother board which had usb port issues. I'm changing it for a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P AM2+ ddr2 board because i fancy a change from Asus and the reviews are OK. Let me know if this is a bad choice asap, I'm getting it next week.
Question 1) Is it worth going the whole hog and trying to seal the board and CPU socket from condensation. And where in the UK sells the stuff needed to do it. I'm a bit worried at the thought of stuffing the CPU socket with non conductive grease and other stuff! I'm very happy with 20˚ if you all think that no condensation will form in the socket at this temp, or a bit higher for safety?
Question 2) I previously had the triple rad mounted externally on top of the PC case. Now I've chopped the back of the case so the rad can slide ¾ of the way into the bottom of the case, with two of the three fans inside, blowing upward onto the underside of my 8800gt. Can anyone see any problems with this cold air circulating round the case? I can't test this set up till i get the new mobo, but obviously I'll have to run the cooler at a temp where condensation doesn't form on the rad.
Just before i pulled it apart, the rig was running stable at 3.9Ghz, 100mhz higher than before. I didn't get chance to try it further but i will.
I'll get some pics and temp screen shots when I'm up and running again next week. Let me know your thoughts on anything above before i get it rebuilt.
The main problem is the ambient air temp in the room I've got my PC in. It gets hot in there after 3 or 4 hours gaming, even with the window open. I've been thinking of different ways of getting the water temp down without getting into too extreme stuff.
Then i had a brain wave! My brother used to supply and fit bar equipment for outside bars, like for parties and weddings. He used beer flash coolers for chilling the lager, so i thought I'd give one a try.
Heres how the cooler should be set up behind a bar, and a similar model to the one I'm using. CO² gas is used to force lager from the barrels, then through the cooler and up to the dispenser. Simple.
It's a twin cooler. There's one compressor with one water reservoir. This holds two separate pipe loops, each with it's own agitator pump to circulate the cooling water to aid cooling and also to stop it turning into a solid block of ice! It's designed to cool two separate barrels of lager/beer at the same time.
Reading other peoples posts about water chillers and drinking fountains etc, I was pretty sure it wouldn't cope with 40˚+ water temp going through it. I decided to use both loops and double cool the water, so the flow goes like this.
Drive bay reservoir > MCP 655 pump > CPU block > triple rad > into 1st chilled loop of cooler > out, then back into 2nd chilled loop > out of 2nd loop and back to Drive bay reservoir.
The main cooler res is filled with plain tap water. My water cooled setup had Feser liquid in the system, but i didn't trust this from freezing so i used a standard car antifreeze mix, about 70% to 30% water. I would have gone 100% but thought it would be thinner and easier on the 655 pump with some water added. Neat antifreeze is slightly thicker than water.
The cooler has 7 settings, 7 being the coldest where the cooler runs almost permanently without shutting off. I decided to try this setting, thinking it would struggle to get the water temp down. Man, how wrong i was. The cooler's supposed to run for an hour or so to get the reservoir temp down. I got impatient after 20min's and fired up the PC. The first worry was whether the MCP 655 pump had enough push to get it round the extra piping and loops. No problems there, this is an awesome pump. Watching the temps on speedfan, they started at 35˚ and fell to 25˚ , then 15˚ . This was obviously doing its job. I started Prime95 expecting the temps to go back up to 50˚ +. They didn't but kept falling! It was obvious it was going too far because condensation started forming on every metal part of the water loop. Radiator, CPU block fittings, pipe clamps etc. I panicked and turned the cooler to 2. As the temps rose back up to around 25˚ the condensation disappeared.
So, it looks like this is working superbly, far better than i had hoped. Easy to set up, and the best part, the chiller is free (or on permanent loan from my bro!)
After a few days of trial, it seems that if i keep the temp anywhere above 20˚ there is no sign of condensation. Something that i didn't expect was the triple rad. Instead of it having warm water running through it, it now has super cooled water, and the triple fans that blow room temperature air through the rad now blow cold air into the room, cooled by the rad. Perfect! This has given me another idea which I'm about to try below.
So now for the questions!
I've pulled the rig apart to replace the mother board which had usb port issues. I'm changing it for a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P AM2+ ddr2 board because i fancy a change from Asus and the reviews are OK. Let me know if this is a bad choice asap, I'm getting it next week.
Question 1) Is it worth going the whole hog and trying to seal the board and CPU socket from condensation. And where in the UK sells the stuff needed to do it. I'm a bit worried at the thought of stuffing the CPU socket with non conductive grease and other stuff! I'm very happy with 20˚ if you all think that no condensation will form in the socket at this temp, or a bit higher for safety?
Question 2) I previously had the triple rad mounted externally on top of the PC case. Now I've chopped the back of the case so the rad can slide ¾ of the way into the bottom of the case, with two of the three fans inside, blowing upward onto the underside of my 8800gt. Can anyone see any problems with this cold air circulating round the case? I can't test this set up till i get the new mobo, but obviously I'll have to run the cooler at a temp where condensation doesn't form on the rad.
Just before i pulled it apart, the rig was running stable at 3.9Ghz, 100mhz higher than before. I didn't get chance to try it further but i will.
I'll get some pics and temp screen shots when I'm up and running again next week. Let me know your thoughts on anything above before i get it rebuilt.
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