Water-X aka Gyrox aka CP101 report - not good

I run a dual processor board with two AMD 2200+ processors. My comparisons are relative to the old air cooler and relative to the second processor. I fold so both processors are running at 100% all the time.

Starting point:
CPU1 - Dynatron DC1206BM-L HSF (standard HSF that comes with a AMD 2000+) This cooler is available for about 7 bucks at most places.

CPU2 - Ahanix Iceberg1 water cooling system. This is the same water system for 120 bucks from 1CoolPC and about 100 bucks at other places.

With this system, the Dynatron was 5c hotter than the Iceberg1. I got creative one day and fashioned a duct out of a manila folder. With this duct, the Dynatron always sucks in outside air through two 80mm fan mounting points on the case (no fans.) With this setup, the Dynatron was 2-3 degrees hotter than the Iceberg1.

I replaced the Dynatron with the Water-X. Here are the results:

Stock Water-X: CPU2 more than 13c hotter than the CPU1 (Iceberg1.) I shut down PC at 58c. I think the temp might have gone higher.

Fan Mod Water-X: steady at 9c - 10c hotter than the Iceberg1.

Right now, CPU2 is at 45c and CPU1 is at 54. When it gets hot here I know that CPU2 will get up to 50c or 51c. That means CPU1 will get up to 59c or 60c. That makes the Water-X on CPU1 unusable.

I'm disappointed, but not surprised. The flowrate is too low, and that quick trip straight through the radiator can't cool the liquid that well. However, I think that a well designed version, with a stronger pump and better rad, might be a viable option. We'll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, I guess I'm stuck with an expensive, cool looking, but unuseable cooler. :-(

What kinda temps did you get? I see rough estimates over the others, but were they actually? What board? OC'd? vcore? Your temps are a lil lower then mine were, Im going to presume its due to a lower vcore setting. True?

IFMU said:

What kinda temps did you get? I see rough estimates over the others, but were they actually? What board? OC'd? vcore? Your temps are a lil lower then mine were, Im going to presume its due to a lower vcore setting. True?

Click to expand...

Board - Tyan 2466N-4M Dual Processor
Proc - AMD 2200+ XP (1.8GHz) x2 (L5 modded for SMP operation)

No overclocking (board doesn't have any OC options)

Vcore - 1.616v
System 3.3v - 3.248

Folding at 100% all the time.

Currently it is cool in this room. The Iceberg1 cooled CPU is reading 45c. When the heat is blasting and it really warms up, this CPU will read 50c-51c.

The Water-X cooled processor was reading 54c. So I imagine that it will go up to 60c if this room warmed up.

That's a hair cooler than your results, but I'm running at 1.6 volts. Overall I'd say our results are about the same.

oh, and this is all with the fan modification. Without the fan modification the Water-X was 4+ degrees hotter than with the fan mod.

Wow! So you got an increase with the fan mod?! Odd, I didnt even in the slightest.
Yup, I know the Tyan boards, not a single OC option there.. LoL

Will have to agree, your using 1.6 and I was at 1.85, slightly higher vcore, and slightly higher temps. Temps are pretty much the same. With your results and mine, I would have to say that more then likely, no-one will get anything better as it is.

Ive got a few plans to do a few more mods to it and see how it does. When I get the chance Ill do those, but it will more then likely be a few.

Thanks for the answers!

IFMU said:

Wow! So you got an increase with the fan mod?! Odd, I didnt even in the slightest.

Click to expand...

Yeah. I used the same fan that 1CoolPC did. I think that larger flow area of the EdgeDrive makes a difference. Nice fan.

I agree. I doubt anyone will get anything better than what we got.

BTW I also tried increasing the amount of fluid in the system. I unscrewed one side of the block, lifted the top gasket, tilted the block by 45 degrees, and poured in some distilled water. I put in enough water so that when the block is sitting on the table, you can't see the water level. There's still air in there but it's in the rad at that point. Anyways, I thought that maybe the air was causing trouble. However, it didn't make a bit of difference.

I have to say though, that considering the poor quality block, really low GHP pump, and not-so-great rad design, I'm surprised that this thing cooled at all!. I think that a higher quality version might not be so bad.

Well I have to say thats rather disappointing indeed. I was thinking of doing something along the same lines with the water. I will more then likely just remove completely what was in there and add in some of my own. Then add in just a tad of WW.
I think you and I were pretty much along the same lines as tryin to get this thing to perform at least up to par with a decent HSF combo. Unfortunately, neither one of us were capable it seems to deal with its just plain horrid capabilities.
Well I figure I will mess with it some more and just play with it, see what I can get it to do. Hell, I might even do some further alterations and maybe some mods to the block itself to see if I can get it to perform better. At this point its 60 bucks of plain and simply lost cash, no way Im going to use this on any of my systems as it stands now. Whats the worst that happens? I kill it? LoL

Make sure you keep an eye on it. I got mine pretty hot testing it, the liquid expanded and well,
HERE is what happened to mine. I e-mailed 1coolpc and they said they have had some negitave feed back. I also e-mailed 3dcool.com and they are taking a second look at it. Mine however before it leaked did a very good job and out performed my SK6. Oh well there you have it.

Hmm this cooling kit has been discussed quite a bit the past week... There was atleast 3-4 different threads about it, each time with a different name and a link asking if we thought it would be good. I am sorry that you guys are not getting good results after shelling out all that money for it. But I am glad I didn't lie to all of the people I told i thought it would be total junk for $55-60 and it had all kinds of design issues... Hopefully they took my advice and steared clear of it.

One pos. point, 1coolpc is a good company and is giving me a full refund or I can exchange it for other items on the site.

That's great... customer service like that is probably the reason they have stayed in business for the time they have. It's always a better business decision for a company to lose money up front on something like this than make someone mad and lose their business for good.

Agreed!
Nice to hear they are looking out for you on this. To bad it didnt do better, I really wish it would have honestly. Oh well, sometimes things just dont work.
Good to hear its goin good for you though!