A little help for an HTPC water-cooling solution?

For the bucket solution, I love my Maxi Jet 1200. $20 shipped off ebay-so cheap too. Humidty level? Never even thought of that. Not really that I noticed at all.

I don't know that anyone's tried that, I sure haven't. But it's not a HC; at that size it must have been a truck or van full radiator. Like the thing you see behind the car grille.

No, that's not the fan. Panasconic makes more than one kind of 80mm PanaFlo, there's one that's even quieter.

for the open bucket i use a fluval 2 pump, (iirc 200l-300/h, not that high, but the pump has served me for nearly 3 years, and i get insocket temps of 33c, 1.92vcore 1700tbred-a-xp+@1900mhz, with about 1.2meters of tubing(10mm) with 20c water).

it will boost the humidity but not that much, nothing noticiable for me. it might be an issue if you have really bad airflow in your apartment., but the lack of fresh air would be an issue then too.. or if you live in a really humid country, and have to run a dehumidifier even normally, then it would stress the humidifier of course a bit.


..btw, with open bucket, if running stock, a 8 liter bucket is enough when roomtemps are around 20c... it seems at least, i'm not using my usual 25-30l bucket+fan at the moment because it's back to it's real use for few days(brewing.. doing some wine once in a while is a good excuse to clean it well too .

Bucket solution:

What about corrosion (battery effect)?
What about seaweed?
That must be pricey on water additive and distilled water?

About humidity, I have a lot of electronics in my small room (bedroom ), and those electronics are not cheap (especially speakers/amp), I don’t want to damage them or something... and I’m building an HTPC (an entertainment center) so I don’t want the atmosphere to be uncomfortable because of the air humidity.

I’m still sceptical about that thing since it’s seem to good/cheap to be true

But from what I understood, I cannot use a low pump like the 1048?

How frequently do you have to change the water in the bucket?

I don't know that anyone's tried that, I sure haven't. But it's not a HC; at that size it must have been a truck or van full radiator. Like the thing you see behind the car grille.

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Well I was asking to everyone, not you hehe. A truck rad heh? I’m curious to see the price of those, but with 1/2” barbs? Hmm...

Axle, could you link me to the fan you’re talking about? A link to the silencest 120mm model would be appreciated too, and do those fans come with regular 4 pin connectors (those connectors we find on a PSU)?

Barbs can be soldered, and yes, I know, you weren't asking me. Just that in all my searching in this, and many other, fourms I've yet to come accross anyone who uses a single, large, commercialy designed and available radiator, with the exception of low-noise. Whatever. Not honestly -whatever.

A mid sized evaporative cooling set up will contribute to overall humidity about as much as having another person in the room, a "pump-in-a-bucket" will contribute far less.

while we're on evaporative cooling, it can be made to be totally silent (I've done it), a little bit of liquid dishwashing detergent is all the additive you need to add to the water(assuming all water blocks are copper or copper/brass)

the water only needs to be topped up as needed (a silent evap setup will use less water than a "performance" evap) and a full flush and replace mabie every 2 months or so.

Mercury Lenth said:

Bucket solution:

What about corrosion (battery effect)?
What about seaweed?
That must be pricey on water additive and distilled water?

About humidity, I have a lot of electronics in my small room (bedroom ), and those electronics are not cheap (especially speakers/amp), I don’t want to damage them or something... and I’m building an HTPC (an entertainment center) so I don’t want the atmosphere to be uncomfortable because of the air humidity.

I’m still sceptical about that thing since it’s seem to good/cheap to be true

But from what I understood, I cannot use a low pump like the 1048?

How frequently do you have to change the water in the bucket?


Well I was asking to everyone, not you hehe. A truck rad heh? I’m curious to see the price of those, but with 1/2” barbs? Hmm...

Click to expand...

it won't do anything to your electronics i got fairly good amount of electronics crammed in my student foundation rented box. unless you go for some uber-crazy evaporative cooling solution that goes through liters of waters per hour and makes your room like a jungle.....

i don't certainly fear for my speakers(kef cresta 2's..i do like them) either, other speaker is located ~30cm from the buckets opening..



you can use a low rate pump, but don't run the hoses too long then(how long? this i can't answer, i don't there would be any spesific rule as it depends..), and don't except stellar performance temperature wise. even a little flow should be enough with a decent cpu-block to keep a stock cpu running stable. after all, my pump isn't so stellar either. and it's keeping an overclocked, overvolted cpu going at decent temps..


as for the additives.. well, i use none. this just means that i have to flush the water every so often(which one would have to do anyways, because minerals keep getting in but not out..), and i don't care if my hoses get a cloggy look. but some use some soap/etc..


however i don't think it would be easy to do a 'stealth' installation of a bucket system..

Hmm, I’m tempted by the bucket solution, ya, but now I would need a submersible pump, how about that one: http://www.dangerden.com/mall/pumps.asp

The S600 or the S1000, anyone has tried those?

Do pumps can be run upside-down?

No need for Waterwetter, if yes, then how much (in%)?

It’s becoming clearer and clearer, tx guys. The main problem is that I don’t *know* what kind of noise 120mm fans would do on a shrouded-h/c, I only know it by subjective opinions...

After silencing all my PC stuff, I wonder how I would be able to silence my PS2 though hehe

no waterwetter. that stuff usually stinks, and you don't want that in open..


noise is a funny thing, once you get rid of some the rest get more annoying..

can't recommend any of those pumps though since i've only used my fluval2, the hydor seltz are ok though i hear.. and yeah they can be run upside down. i don't see why you couldnt run an inline pump.. just have the hose pickup the water from the bucket and the return hose return it there, it shouldnt matter where the pump is. oh, and both those eheims beat my pump hands down.. if i could afford it i'd probably get a pump like the s1000 and run longer hoses for convinience.



just about any pump will do, but not bring super temps, and the weaker the pump the more you have to give it help first getting the hoses full of water(and the longer the hoses..).

with inline pump you could do like some people do with aquiriums(spelling?), they got the pump sometimes in a bucket full of sand, damps the noise the pump makes VERY well, though, just having the pump hanging in the bucket so that it doesn't touch the walls damps it very well.


--zzz time now

Sand heh? I thought something about sand too, but not immerging an inline pump into it?!?!? It would shrew the pump up, doesn’t it?

Again about the bucket solution: do you think that sealing (water leak proof) the bucket would change performances much?

And perhaps that a copper bucket would help the heat dissipation somehow, what do you think?

sealing it would definetively hit the performance(how much?? impossible to tell, i would guess though that you would at least be running water temps 15-20c higher than room temps, add another 10c to the cpu temp to that, still, that's enough for stock cpu.).

some guys here in finland use aluminum milk buckets (the kinda they used to use at farms/etc), they cool enough for stock cpu and silence.

I see, but mixing aluminium and copper, hmm...

well copper would work better than the alu milk bucket thingy..

they're just used commonly because they're available(very), they used to haul milk in those after ww2 to sixties from farms..