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Didn't do research, now I need advice.

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TheRuggedLion

Registered
Joined
Sep 30, 2006
Location
Detroit
Ok, so I finally made the jump into water cooling, and picked a Corsair Nautilus. Definitely not the best but decent and cheap... Wish I woulda did my research about WC and I wish I would found this forum before I made the jump, now I'm broke and can't afford a DIY :bang head

I'm only using this to cool my E6700 Conroe, and nothing else. I don't care much about noise, just peformance.

Temps @ 3.50Ghz/1.45v 41 idle ----- 55-60load (cool and stable)
Temps @ 3.7Ghz/1.5v 51 idle ----- 65-70load (stable but throttling)

(The extra 100mhz OC from 3.5 to 3.6+ needs alot more juice to run stable...)

Now I know you guys are gonna tell me to start from scratch and to do it right( 1/2 tubing, thermochill, strom yadda yadda yadda) :) , but I was looking for a cheap upgrade

Will switching to a aquaxtreme mp05 waterblock help with temps, or should I add another radiator? The Nautilus only has 1 120mmfan/radiator. I modded it with a 90cfm fan. (-2c)

I'm looking for a 3-5c drop in temps.

Any advice would be great! Thanks again guys.
 
I would toss in a new APOGEE waterblock from Swiftech and see if that does anything for your temps, really low pressure drop so it should do okay with that pump.

EDIT: WELCOME TO THE FORUMS
 
Agree, your pump is 1st weak point, then the radiator. IIRC the WB is actually a Swiftech 6000 series with a few less pins in the WB.
 
No, its a different block. It may be a pin fin but its nowhere near the 6000 in terms of design. The pump isn't that bad for once, 4M of head. My suggestion would be to toss an Apogee or MP-05 in there (the apogee will have the lesser pressure drop) and later throw in a Bonneville heater core (double heater core) or a Black Ice or Primochill 120.2 radiator.
 
Thanks guys for the replies! Well I think I've decided, I'm gonna go with an MP05. I found someone who wants to buy my Xenon headlights! :santa: I'm gonna buy that waterblock for now, and when I get the money, I'm gonna make my own WC kit and keep the MP05. I love forums where I'm welcomed and helped immediately! OCFORUMS.COM added to favorites list :beer:
 
I learned the same way. Started water cooling with a Thermal Take kit... lol Then went to a custom build mostly Swiftech kit and I am now back on air...
 
I started out with a not-so-great Swiftech kit (before they started making decent kits) and started replacing things piece by piece and learning via trial and error and reading.

Immortal_Hero said:
I learned the same way. Started water cooling with a Thermal Take kit... lol Then went to a custom build mostly Swiftech kit and I am now back on air...

I would have a hard time going back on air after having enjoyed the silence of water. The only reason that I could see for going back on air was if I just was using low-end components. Cooling a CPU fairly quietly on air is not that hard to do anymore, but cooling a hot GPU on air is another thing.
 
TheRuggedLion said:
Thanks guys for the replies! Well I think I've decided, I'm gonna go with an MP05.
That is probably no the best idea... that WB is majorly restrictive - read huge. You would be much better off IMO with the Apogee. IIRC the block in the Nautalis is a 6000. I think it has a DDC pump too but not sure. The best thing you can do to get better cooling IMO would be to add an additional rad.
 
Travis Dawes said:
Agree, your pump is 1st weak point, then the radiator. IIRC the WB is actually a Swiftech 6000 series with a few less pins in the WB.
His pump is not the weak point. The stock pump on the nautilus is a DDC. The weak part in his system is the rad.
 
voigts said:
I started out with a not-so-great Swiftech kit (before they started making decent kits) and started replacing things piece by piece and learning via trial and error and reading.



I would have a hard time going back on air after having enjoyed the silence of water. The only reason that I could see for going back on air was if I just was using low-end components. Cooling a CPU fairly quietly on air is not that hard to do anymore, but cooling a hot GPU on air is another thing.
Well I decided that overclocking was just taking up too much of my time and the gains were not noticable in most games. So I am back at stock speeds on stock air. The way I look at it is everything carrys a 3 year warrenty if it burns up in 3 years then it isn't my problem. If it is older than three years it probably isn't worth much so I don't really care. Time to enjoy gaming instead of spending hours tweaking for 200 pts in 3d Mark. And to boot for the 300 bucks I spent on water cooling stuff I could have said forget OCing and spent that on a better vid card/CPU and had a system that was prob faster than my OCed one...
 
Sorry to hijack your thread, back on topic. Your weak point is your rad and block. I would say that a bigger rad would work wonders possibly even some better air flow on that rad. I would try adding a fan pulling air through the rad and see if that helps. Put something beefy on it 80 CFM+... If that helps then it may be enough if you see no difference then it may be the block. You can get an Apogee for about 40 bucks, if you watch ebay. I think a new fan on the RAD could work wonders.

Is it possible the DDC is undervolted in that kit? If so modifying it to send some more voltage would increase flow and reduce temps.
 
Here are some pics of the inner workings.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/05/05/Corsair_Nautilus_500/3.html

That is a really thin RAD so that would definatly be a weak point. It has an 80CFM fan on it according to that reveiw so the fan should be sufficent. Removing the grill that comes on that fan may work wonders too... It looks to be very restrictive...

I cannot tell from the pics there if it is a DDC or not...

See this page:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/05/05/Corsair_Nautilus_500/4.html

The tubes are reduced to a very small ID where they enter the cooling unit...
 
Last edited:
voigts said:
I started out with a not-so-great Swiftech kit (before they started making decent kits) and started replacing things piece by piece and learning via trial and error and reading.



I would have a hard time going back on air after having enjoyed the silence of water. The only reason that I could see for going back on air was if I just was using low-end components. Cooling a CPU fairly quietly on air is not that hard to do anymore, but cooling a hot GPU on air is another thing.


this is what i'm doing. watercooling my main rig (opty 144 oc'd 2.8) 3 delta's quiet as all hell i can barely hear it. other righ has a 2.9 celly at 3.2 with a xp-90 and a 92mm delta i can put the fan on high and i still can barely hear it
 
I'm just gonna wait till I get that money from my lights and build a whole new setup. Anybody know a good online store where I can get all I need? Alot of online shops are sold out of most good water cooling parts, and some are wayyy to overpriced. One popular site I went to is selling single bay resevoirs for $35. Thats more than a DVD burner! A couple questions for you guys, cause you seem to know what your talking about... is the SELTZ L 35 water pump reliable? It moves 450gph, also does a bigger resevoir lower temps?
 
a bigger reservoir or reservoir that can help dissipate some of the heat will help.

Svc.com
Jab-tech.com
Cooltechnica (this place has a bunch of little stuff that other's don't. Zerex, thermo barbs, etc..)
Petra's Tech Shop
 
Oh I thought it was the 500. Silly me. Block from the 500:

big_bundle_2.JPG


If you have a 6000 + DDC setup you should go for a bigger radiator. An apogee will give you a small increase in performance but a bigger rad should work better. Going from a 180x160 rad to a Double heatercore (Bonneville HC - pretty much the same in surface area as my previous core) netted me 4° on its own. Radiator design is important.
 
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