Why not WC a psu?

AFIsoldier · Apr 13, 2004

Well, everything in the computer can be water cooled, except the PSU. Why not make computers almost completely silent and someone make a PSU waterblock? I know their are potential dangers, but those exist with water in the first place.

Cyberwiz01 · Apr 13, 2004

Actually it's been done before, I can't remember exactly where I've seen it (probably on these forums) But yeah, it's been done. Potentially dangerous, yes, impossible, no!
And besides, it would be difficult to make a standard psu block since each powersupply is layed out differently and has the power regulators in different spots.

BeerHunter · Apr 13, 2004

why not just buy a fortron 400watter with pretty quiet low rpm 120mm Yate loon fan? Or do Like me

and pull all the fans out of whatever you have and put more heat sinks on it. If you direct air properly from your radiator fans and/or case fans it can be "passivly" cooled.

Anyway I don't like the idea of WC PSU/HD's because it's expensive and it raises temp of loop which will have to be augmented by increasing air flow over rad..which gets you back to square one as far as noise.

Giblet Plus! · Apr 13, 2004

I don't want the heat produced by a psu dumped into the same loop as my cpu, and I don't have room for another loop just for a psu.

rogerdugans · Apr 13, 2004

Yup- been done.

In fact, I just did a ghetto job of it in one system myself.

I built an mATX system for LAN use and found that the cpu, rad and case temps were ok but the full size ATX power supply I used was SCREAMING hot!

Here are the two biggest problems with converting a PSU to H2O:
*The heatsinks are mounted to the regulators with machine screws that can not usually be removed unless you desolder the regulators.
*Heatsink placement and style varies widely

I had a time limit so I did NOT remove the heatsinks in my LAN system- I used copper tube to add a loop which I mounted TO the heatsinks. With cable ties.

It did work: psu temps are now just slightly higher than case temps and even though I am cooling CPU, NB and PSU my temps only went up about 1c.

I am working on a jig to bend some tube so I can try this on a few other systems and see if results are as good.

slater3333uk · Apr 13, 2004

www.zerofanzone.com

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=55140

http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=9011

Just a few of the many out there

AFIsoldier · Apr 13, 2004

cool, now I know how to do it. But what I was asking is, why doesn't someone make a block for that? Not everyone can get to drill presses and such to make their own.

Korndog · Apr 13, 2004

AFIsoldier said:
cool, now I know how to do it. But what I was asking is, why doesn't someone make a block for that? Not everyone can get to drill presses and such to make their own.

a psu block wouldn't sell much, i remember koolance making watercooled psu before, and it barly sold any.

Xymurgy · Apr 13, 2004

I wouldn't think there would be a market for it. There'd be neary no performance gain in it, and like someone else said, there are already nearly quiet PSU's out there now.

Only the most enthusiastic of WCing enthusiasts do it, simply to WC everything they can (I've seen quite a few posts about this, so many have done it).

slater3333uk · Apr 13, 2004

Im doing some development/research on the issue

noxipoo · Apr 13, 2004

I thought Koolance sold a PSU that was watercooled, but I think it was part of a case and wasn't a block/kit for an existing PSU.

AngryAlpaca · Apr 13, 2004

Koolance doesn't necessarily make a good power supply. If a good PSU company did it, it would probably sell much better, although it would still be limited to enthusiasts...

rogerdugans · Apr 13, 2004

slater3333uk- ygpm

And there can be other advantages to water cooling a psu:

most "normal" people- and at least many overclockers....- never open up a computer's power supply.

Some of us do.

The heatsinks get quite warm even in a well cooled, quality psu in a desktop system. Often they are downright HOT and still have few noticeable issues as far as voltages go, at least for a while. If you put your hand in the flow from the psu exhaust you can get an idea of how warm it may be. Inside is even hotter.

So far I have just water cooled the one power supply, (I also have plans to investigate and mod further) and I can say that at least in THIS instance, water cooling the psu in a crude and inefficient manner has been sufficient to make the sinks no more than warm to the touch.
Case temps have dropped as a direct result of water cooling this power supply as well.

While no appreciable voltage or overclocking gains have been made, the lower temps are at least likely to increase the life of the power supply AND other components in the case somewhat.

extremecorvette · Apr 13, 2004

Giblet Plus! said:
I don't want the heat produced by a psu dumped into the same loop as my cpu, and I don't have room for another loop just for a psu.

I'm with him.

I've seen it done. I just moved my power supply inside of my case and use two huge 172mm fans to pull air throw my case. I replaced the two 80mm fans in the power supply with thermaltake fans and put the power supply next to my hard drives. My case runs at 20-23C and under full load for 5hrs it goes up to around 26C I don't have my water-cooling project done yet so I don't have my waterblocks in the computer case yet, but I do have the rad and fans. I'm just using those two fans for the case cooling at this time. I know my temps will go down once I put blocks on the CPU, GPU, and NB.

I would want two loops. One for the CPU and NB. That goes CPU-NB-Pump-Rad
The second would go
GPU-PS-Pump-Rad

Soulds like a nice setup, the cost and room would have to be taken into account. Pluse them you have two rad's and you have to have fans on them. I think you would have the same amount of nose with the PS water cooled or not.

What do you guy think?

AngryAlpaca · Apr 13, 2004

The real question I have is the actual wattage of a power supply. I'm guessing that it's well above 250W, (8A*110V input, ~450W output???) and that should make a huge difference to your water temperatures.

feyd83 · Apr 13, 2004

aquacomputer.de has been selling this one for a while. Here's the linky to the description and such. (All in german).

I'm gonna be having an extra L30 and rad on hand pretty soon. I'm tempted to get a few Maze3 or 4's and slap my psu mofsets on them.

noxipoo · Apr 14, 2004

well looks like you are going to have to get a new PSU anyway, with the new graphics card reviews that came out today.

JoT · Apr 14, 2004

When someone figures out how to watercool a PC&P, I'll be first in line

blackjackel · Apr 14, 2004

I remember someone mentioning that the dangers with watercooling as just as apparent as the ones for PSU watercooling.

Dont know if i'm the first one to say this, but, PSU watercooling is WAY more dangerous than watercooling the rest of the case...

There are high voltage capacitors in powersupplys that hold enough voltage to kill some people. The more powerfull the powersupply the more dangerous this is.

Modding a powersupply would require an immense amountof knowledge and experience and woult NOT be a good idea for the average commercial audience.

Putting a WB on a PSU would NOT be anything like putting a wb on a CPU, it would be highly dangerous.

This is why i believe PSU watercooling is not so popular, kinda scary the thought of water leaking inside your powersupply...

not only could it kill through electricution, but through fire, and its most certainly would fry everything in your case if the water hits the correct spots inside the PSU.

ls7corvete · Apr 14, 2004

This power supply might be a good canidate:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-181-001&depa=0

knowtice how the heat sinks are nice and flat on the top?, just begging to put a HDD water block on top.

Cant say enought about saftey but the equipment to discarge a power supply is out there and and relatively inexpensive(considering we are talking about WCing here). If someone knows some good tips on how to do this safely then this thread would be the place to say it.......

Why not WC a psu?

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