• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

[Q] Liquid cooling a Power Supply?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

SkyChotik

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2012
Location
Wisconsin, USA
I was thinking about liquid cooling my power supply. I know it may raise my temps, and I've already voided my warranty on it by modifying the modular-plate on it.

I was thinking about using two smaller ramblocks mounted to the already-existing heatsinks.

Would this work? Also, what type of ramblock would have the ability to mount to my PSU's heatsinks?

I have the OCZ ZT-750W.

It's currently running fanless due to the fan having three fins that are broken off.
 
I strongly recommend replacing the fan, for starters.

The main difficulty with water cooled PSUs, and why we don't see many of them (there are a few), is that the capacitors need cooling too. Not a ton, just some airflow is fine, but without it they will eventually die when subjected to a high load.
This is why passively cooled units tend to be massively over rated, they tend to have internals sized for an 800w unit on a 400w unit.

Now for the most part those ZT units use pretty good caps, so if the load is on the small side and it still has some case airflow going through the PSU, it would probably live.
The idea of intentionally putting water inside a PSU is a bit scary to me.
Most of the computer runs at 12 V or lower, very safe.
The PSU internally runs at 380 V on the primary side and AC mains voltage on the input side. A leak that gets that 380 V or mains AC into the WC system itself could quite easily fry you. I don't want that!

I'm not saying it cannot be done, mind you, but you must be very very very very very very careful about it, and be mindful that even stuff without heatsinks needs cooling.
 
Cut the wires, find a new fan of the proper size, cut its wires, solder the 2pin connector wires to the new fan wires, red to red and black to black. Yellow you can cut off right at the fan so it doesn't get in the way.
 
Back