ps3 liquid cooling

would you say it is safe to say that you don't need any fans inside the ps3 if you liquid cool the gpu and cpu as i really don't want to cut a hole on the bottom for a fan to cool the power supply

so do you think that the power supply will stay cool enough to not require a fan as a really don't want to ruin the ps3 sexy looks but want to liquid cool


by the way my ps3 is the 60gb phat

No logical reason to watercool. Have you read others running their PSU fanless and it was ok?

Water cooling the PS3 isn't logical unless you need more headroom for overclocking. You aren't going to benefit from overclocking it, so by watercooling you increase the maintenance necessary, increase the risk (mistakes could be made), and there isn't much upside.

If I were to try it, I'd address the PSU overheating concern by using a thermal probe to read the PSU temps with the normal fans under heavy gaming conditions - I'd poke around finding the hottest area inside, then I'd read from that point going forward. This is dangerous, and not recommended, because opening and sticking things in a PSU can kill you - there are big caps and wires and traces, touching the wrong thing can enable a discharge and your head stone reads "Should have stuck with air cooling his PS3". So getting back to reading temps, reading from the hottest point with normal fans gives you a baseline - that temperature can be considered safe. Then when you do watercooling without cooling the PSU, you can see how much hotter the PSU gets, and decide how comfortable you are with that, guessing when the PSU may or may not go poof. The hotter it is above baseline, the shorter it will likely last. A little warmer, it will probably run like that indefinitely. A lot warmer, and it might burn itself out more quickly.

Overall, it could be a fun project, but unless you are well versed with electronics, you really shouldn't mess inside PSUs. Without messing inside the PSU, there is no way to say for sure how the thermals change when trying to passively cool the PSU. Best thing to do may be to find someone else who ran their PS3 PSU fanless and was fine.

By the way, I know a decent amount about overclocking and all the hardware in PCs, but I don't mess with PSUs. I like being alive, and despite what I know, I don't know enough to not fry myself on a PSU.

hmm maybe i will try to install a APS-231 power supply that was on newer ps3 phats and runs a lot cooler



by the way I.M.O.G. if you where some thick rubber gloves i don't think your gravestone will say "Should have stuck with air cooling his PS3" IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN :rofl





by the way just because am new to this forum dosnt mean i don't know i thing or two about computers

Hope I didn't imply otherwise - new people come to this forum all the time that know a lot about stuff I don't. I intended the post to be informative to try to help although I don't have any experience actually looking into ps3 water cooling.

Looks like that APS-231 only runs 10-20 bucks... Worst case you could just try it, and replace the PSU if it gives up the ghost. At that price it doesn't seem like much risk.

As someone who has successfully watercooled his phat 60GB PS3, I may be able to contribute to this discussion. You will absolutely NEED to add a fan to cool the PSU. I had initially added a 120mm slim fan to aid in cooling the other chips on the underside of the PS3 since I was removing the stock HFS, thinking that alone would be able to cool the PSU sufficiently. I've since had to drill a hole and mount an 80mm exhaust fan above the PSU as I kept suffering thermal shutdowns from it overheating.

If you want to attempt it, I say go for it. Though finding a waterblock designed specifically for the phat PS3 will be next to impossible (I was lucky enough to get one at the very end of its life cycle) so you may need to mod existing GPU blocks to fit.

The main reason I did it was because mine sounded like a jet engine under even the lightest of loads. The difference is night and day now.

I will say that replacing the thermal paste on the stock heat sinks and cleaning the fan of dust and debris will probably help, and looking back that would have been an easier alternative, but whoever said modding was easy And besides, not very many can claim to own a watercooled first gen PS3

hey skorpien I know that the gpu 200 koolance blocks fit just fine even without modifying the metal on top of the motherboard

would you say if I glued some fans to the right exhaust vent it would be enough to cool the power supply as I really don't wont to cut the plastic and probably mess it up


or maybe attach one of those intercoolers that they sell would work

It might work, but the truth is I'm not entirely sure. I would suggest making sure there's an airtight seal between the fan housing and the PS3 case to ensure that it sucks the air out. I made the mistake of leaving a gap between the 120mm fan and the PS3 housing, so I think most of the air that it was pushing through was leaking out between the fan and PS3.


If you're going with the intercooler, make sure it's exhausting the air. I've read somewhere that somebody had to switch the fans around as they were pushing air into the vents, thus negating the stock fan.



I'll include a couple of pics of my PS3 to show you how it looks with the fans. I think it still looks pretty sleek, and a bit beefed up too, but I'm slightly biased

I also switched the slim 120mm fan for a 120mm x 25mm PWM fan and spliced the stock fan's header to have the PS3 manage the speed.

Yeah, skorpien's definitely the person to talk to.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=705642

A waterblock for Playstation 3 slim can be found here.

Thanks Tech Tweaker, it's nice to feel useful around here haha.


Just a warning though, that block you linked is for the PS3 Slim, though it can be made to work with a bit of modding. I made the mistake of purchasing it thinking it'll work with mine. I ended up buying one that was designed for the PS3 phat. I wasn't confident in being able to do the mod and I lucked out across a site that had the right block in stock at the time.


Another member here (drkknightsolano) used the PS3's own hold down brackets and modified them to work with that block. (Page 3 of this thread: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=703446&page=3)

The Intercooler made by NYKO is not bad as far as cooling is concerned.

I've run into problems with mine having noisy fans and needing to lubricate the bearings once every month or two.

Not particularly easy to find them at decent prices these days unfortunately, as I think the company stopped producing them two or three years ago. I see two or three a month up for sale on ebay, but usually listed at outrageous prices.

I let the Intercooler's fans stay spinning for 15-20 minutes after I shut the console down to completely cool off my console's internals, which hopefully will minimize my chances of damage to the CPU or GPU due to being shut down when hot and or heating and cooling cycles.

skorpien said:

Thanks Tech Tweaker, it's nice to feel useful around here haha.


Just a warning though, that block you linked is for the PS3 Slim, though it can be made to work with a bit of modding. I made the mistake of purchasing it thinking it'll work with mine. I ended up buying one that was designed for the PS3 phat. I wasn't confident in being able to do the mod and I lucked out across a site that had the right block in stock at the time.


Another member here (drkknightsolano) used the PS3's own hold down brackets and modified them to work with that block. (Page 3 of this thread: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=703446&page=3)

Click to expand...

Yeah, I ran across your thread sometime last year when I was looking into watercooling for a PS3. Was wondering if you'd ever fixed your issues with it shutting down unexpectedly.

Oh, oops.

Ah, so that's why you had to buy a new waterblock.

Glad now I didn't buy that block. I was looking into possibly buying it for my own fat/phat model PS3.

I was hoping to possibly watercool my PS3 at some point, as they tend to run a bit hot with the stock heatsink and fan.

hey is it possible to connect fans directly to the ps3 motherboard if so what voltage



also do you think you need fans if you make the power supply external

Tech Tweaker said:

...


Yeah, I ran across your thread sometime last year when I was looking into watercooling for a PS3. Was wondering if you'd ever fixed your issues with it shutting down unexpectedly.

Oh, oops.

Ah, so that's why you had to buy a new waterblock.

Glad now I didn't buy that block. I was looking into possibly buying it for my own fat/phat model PS3.

I was hoping to possibly watercool my PS3 at some point, as they tend to run a bit hot with the stock heatsink and fan.

Click to expand...

The 80mm exhaust fan works wonders. It's amazing how hot that little PSU can get. Thankfully that's all that was needed to fix the issue


As I said, it's possible to make that block work. It sits perfectly on the chips, but the mounting holes are reversed. If I had a bit more modding experience under my belt I probably would have done that and avoided buying the new block. Oh well, c'est la vie!

cat1560 said:

hey is it possible to connect fans directly to the ps3 motherboard if so what voltage



also do you think you need fans if you make the power supply external

Click to expand...

I've only connected the one fan in place of the stock fan. The other fans (80mm and 3 x 120mm rad fans) all run on an external 12V adapter. I'm not sure of the spec of the fan header on the motherboard and did not want to overload it.


The fan header is 12V and has a PWM wire to control PWM fans (no RPM wire though) but I'm not sure of the max amps it can handle.


I would advise against having no airflow in the case. When I disassembled my PS3, I noticed there were other chips on the motherboard that were connected to the aluminum shield with thermal pads, so I assumed that they also needed to be cooled. I ended up cutting the shield in those places and installing RAM sinks to be cooled by the 120mm fan. If you remove the fan entirely, those components may get damaged if they're not being cooled properly.

maybe I will get 3 60mm fans and mount them on the right exhaust vent so that they pull air out I would mount them with some rubber fan screws and attach a gasket under the fan for a better seal and then connect the fans to a fan controller



also would a newer power supply as the APS-231 from the newer ps3 phat help with temps as I heard it runs much cooler


additionally do you guys know of any 120 volt fan controllers

WOW...water cooling a console...

Had to see it to believe it. Thanks for the pictures.

Closest I've found is this:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...Variable_Speed_Controller.html?tl=g47c271s671


You'll need to split one of the fan connectors to attach all three but I think that should work.


From a quick search on the topic of the PSU, it's not advised. Seems that although it will power up, once a significant load is placed on the system the PSU shuts it down to the increased power demands of the older model.


http://www.squidoo.com/3-tips-for-a-cooler-running-and-greener-ps3-system-models-cecha01-cechg01-


The author of that article suggests another replacement PSU that matches the power output of the original but nothing's said of the heat it generates.


You'd be surprised how far a good cleaning of the stock fan and a new application of TIM will go. I'd try those first and see if it helps your temps, then if not, the three 60mm fans would be my next course of action.


Edit: Bustos - You'd be surprised! It's not common, but it exists. Mine's just a cooling mod, there are others out there that are works of art. I've even seen a watercooled Wii!


Edit 2: And it seems I have a strange obsession with the phrase "You'd be surprised." :/

well the fans would still be for liquid cooling just to help cool it

and I know new thermal paste would help





but sometimes you don't have to do something but you want to do it such as this liquid cooling project


also maybe some small fans blowing air in on the vents under the disc drive but on the power supply side



so you would have fans blowing air on the power supply and fans sucking the hot air out of the right side

Oh, yes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be discouraging. I know exactly how it is to want to do something for the sake of it I was just thinking of some of the headache I went through and was hoping to spare someone else a similar fate It's a fun project but not for the faint of heart. I had to revise and improvise my plans so many times I lost count. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to help. All I ask is that you post a few pics after you're done so we can appreciate your work.

I think your plan should work great and would look much sleeker than mine. I do have to caution you that depending on the block type and fitting, you may not have enough space between the motherboard and the bottom of the housing, so plan accordingly. It's part of the reason I had to cut a hole out of the bottom.

Again, I'm sorry if I was disparaging. That was not my intention at all. I ran into plenty of naysayers, I didn't mean to become one myself.

well it seems this guy on YouTube used koolance blocks and managed to not heed to cut a hole for the water block but just for fans


the cool thing is the way my fans would be set up I could use it vertically and horizontally

also its alright skorpien I know you didn't mean it


and however said liquid cooling was easy


the blocks he used looked like the koolance CHC-122 Water Block but the gpu 200 one they sell looks much nicer with the nickel plating and the mounting mechanism is the same


here is another guy using the gpu 200/chc-122 seems as long as I get longer screws it should work out

also I promise I will take lots of photos of my finished liquid cooled ps3 just for you skorpien

I'll admit I didn't do a thorough enough job researching it beforehand, so a lot of... lessons... were learned along the way You seem to be doing a much better job at it. I used 1/2 ID 3/4 OD tubing and barbs that ended up being too large so I had to cut the bottom, but using a smaller diameter tubing and fittings would have fit I'm sure.


Can't wait to see the results. Always nice to see another PS3 owner watercooling his system.

hey skorpien why'll your here why not give me your ps3 username so I can send you a friend request if you want you can send me a pm with your user name so no one else sees yor user name whatever you prefer




also do you think that 1/4 inch diameter tubing is any good as I hear its flow restrictive


which would you chose if you had the option to use 1/4 id 3/8 od or 3/8 id 5/8 od just wondering