Liquid cooling gone a bit mad...

Hi all, bear with me as it's late on friday night and i've had a couple of erm, beverages. I just thought i'd let you know what I'm going to do to my poor old Barton 2500 (AXDA 2500DKV4D Y85027827 0297 AQXEA 0324 SPIW - is this a locked version, I never did check)...

Anyway, I bought a freezer the other week for a massive £10 ($18?). It's a decent size with R134a, I think, refrigerant and I've had it running empty since buying it to check it works, which it does. I popped a few cheap temp gauges in to see what it can do and at any setting it goes beyond the minimum -20C (about -30C at a guess) shown on the scale. So, as i'm a skin flint I've decided to water cool my barton on the (fairly) cheap.

Here's the deal - one asus nf2 board, 768mb 3200 (crucial) ram - would have been more but a stick of kingston value ram (I know) wouldn't play with the crucial so I'm limited to the 768. Did I say I was cheap?
So, I've been toying with the idea of dropping the liquid (roughly 60% water 40% anti freeze) well below ambient via the freezer which is contained in an erm, container then pumping it direct to the cpu via an Eheim 1048 pump to a Danger Den Maze 4 water block which is surrounded by silicone sealant plus the usual dielectric grease.

So far I've sealed the cpu in grease, coated the front and rear of the board in silicone, fitted the maze 4 and cut a hole in the freezer top for the in/out pipes. I won't be using a rad as I want the water flow to be chilled by the freezer asap. I had to stop progress as i'm in the attic and the noise of me cutting the freezer lid at 12 o'clock is a bit much to ask of the wife and baby, so, tomorrow i'll finish it off and will post results here.

Befor this experiment I was runnig at about 46C cpu with 24C amb idle and 48C cpu with 24 amb when running BF2 (this was with an o/c from the usual 2500 to 3200 speed). I've seen those cpu temps run into the 50's in the few weeks of summer we get here which made me think of this.

So, anyone care to guess the final result - Will it work? Will it clock WAY over the 3200 it is now? Have I fugged it right up? Will it be better than air? Will we rid ourselves of this plague we call "The Mullet". I don't know, but I will post my findings tomorrow anyway.

See you then, unless I electrocute myself - which wouldn't be the first time...

I have no idea if it will work, i too have had a few jars, £10 is cheap for a freezer and ninthebin (the only other scouser on the boards) has a mullet so unless we seal him inside the freezer the mullet will live on.

Yours
Mighty Marl (A man with a plan)

it should* work, just make sure you insulate the tubing as well so it doesn't drip on your psu or hdds or whathaveyou. only one way to find out if the freezer has the capacity for a cpu, you'll notice your temps climb after a long time if it doesn't. if i were in your shoes i'd put a fan on the consensor coils of the freezer.
have fun

She's Alive !

Well, I've finished the job. And it works !

I was getting 46C idle and i'm now getting 26C. The freezer has only been on about an hour so hasn't reached it's max temp yet but so far things are looking good.

I now need to clean my attic as I seem to have aquired a shed load of pipe work and silicone.

I've placed a 2"x2" fan behind the freezer to help it loose it's heat load and I'm running nvidia monitor to log the temps.

Hopefully it will drop to 10C'ish (more would be nice) in a day or so of idle runing.

I'll let you all know if things change...

Bugger, I killed it.

After switching the pc off last night I looked at it today only to find the water block had frozen. Good, I thought, the freezer is at max temp. Then I noticed the water on the board. So, I stripped and cleaned it and coated more of the board in silicone to protect against the water. I put it back together and on posting it wouldn't recognise my ide ports so I swapped the h/disk to the secondary channel and it booted. I checked in windows device manager to see if the primary/seconday ports were ok which they were (primary not showing up as nothing was connected). Then I checked the auto detect box and the monitor went off. The fans etc. were still going but no vid.

Anyway, after much swapping of parts - pulled the cpu and tried it in another board and tried another cpu in my board - no joy. So, it looks like i've fried my barton and killed my nforce2 board in one go. Excellent.

Shy kids get nowt as they say, unfortunately I got the temps down to 8C then it was all taken away. Sob. Still, at least this means I can upgrade to something naughty.

Of course, once I get my new kit I know what I'm gonna do to it....

Sorry to hear the death of componants. read sig :O

Thats too bad, dude. I just had the same problem here with my barton, and im still ticked at the fact that it happened. My sig will read "Semperon" for now until i get enough funds to go 64 bit.
Poor barton cores... they never see it coming... lol
btw, it seems like you might still have a good cpu there, just water hit some components on the mobo. Mine on the other hand, has surface rot (?) on the resistor network just under the core (ouch). I plan on trying to clean it off and try the cpu once more to see if it still works (blank screen/no post), but i don't have high hopes.

i know a guy who made a sick liquid cooling setup with where he had a 70 foot copper radiator (copper tubing) in a mini fridge and had the water in a 5 gallon cooler with "ice bombs" (water bottles with frozen water) in it and he made a custom heatsink for his 6800gt (he took the pate of an artic silencer and welded copper tubing on it) and he has another heatsink (he bought) on his cpu and he got temps of like 28c on full load and he had his stuff OCed to hell for the most part (his 6800gt anyway)

Here I go again...

Well, after a bit of fuggin around with my m/bo and cpu it is confirmed - I killed the m/bo only. So, I still have my barton and I just got a replacement a7 board. I have a couple of bids going on ebay at the mo for another (spare) a7 and a 2500 mobile which i'm going to use on air (till i get this cooling thing sorted) then i'll swap components and get what I can from the mobile.

FYI, I heard the "no post" symptom could be due to a fried bios, so, when I got my new identical board I "hot swapped" the chip from the old board and reflashed it in the new - it worked but the old board is still dead. Ah well, if ever your bios gets fugged try that, it might work for you.

Any ideas about insulating the board better? I used silicone (where can I get liquid paint in the uk?) to cover three/four inches around the cpu (front/back) which wasn't enough, then I tried again covering about a third of the board around the cpu - this ended in a dead board. I've heard mouse mat foam can be used? Let me know before I kill another board ! BTW i'm going for 2.5 from my current barton and maybe 2.8(!) on the mobile (if I get it).

Cheers

What you really need to have is some insulation around the waterblock and your hoses. Neopreme is the best kind because moisture cant get through it.

I'm sure I already posted this but....

...I was thinking about submerging the entire m/board in anti-freeze. This would negate the need for frost protection around the cpu. I've seen other people do this so I don't think it's impossible, but, I also want a pc which will last...

I would be leaving the graphics card's (9800xt) fan above sea level so it can move the air etc.

Any ideas on this?

Cheers.

zx7r said:

...I was thinking about submerging the entire m/board in anti-freeze. This would negate the need for frost protection around the cpu. I've seen other people do this so I don't think it's impossible, but, I also want a pc which will last...

I would be leaving the graphics card's (9800xt) fan above sea level so it can move the air etc.

Any ideas on this?

Cheers.

Click to expand...

That would not work too well I think.

Lots of insulation. I run my radiators outside in the winter sometimes, with lots of antifreeze in the lines. My cpu would get down (on a tbred) to a little below ambient. So I never dealt with condensatin.

Silicon and neoprine(sp?) are the way to go.

Submerging your board in antifreeze will kill your board as fast and effectively as a sledgehammer.


Just insulate it.

Insulating will also decrease your water temps.

I agree on the insulation. This is the same reason you have it wrapped around the pipe coming into your house from your central AC. If you didn't you would have water dripping down in your basement when the ac was running.

I use a small piece of neoprene in my cpu socket as well. Just a little something to fill that empty space so there is less air beneath the cpu.

what?! nobody asking for pics yet?
pics please this sounds pretty interesting and cool < haha get it....

Good to hear your barton still works.

one thing i can say, which i can attest to...

SEAL IT UP TIGHT!!!
If you have an old mousepad, cut a piece to put in the area underneath the core in the socket. You may have to cut a slit in it for the thermistor (blue sensor under the cpu-does this board have one?).
Also, make sure all the coolant tubes are covered up with insulation.

I missed out on the other a7 on ebay but have got my eye on an nf7-s. I also bought some neoprene today so will prob. have a go tomorrow (sunday) again using silicone grease to protect against water this time. I'll post pics once it's done if anyone is interested.

I would have started on it today but after last nights, er, "couple of drinks" I would have probably electrocuted myself.

Cheers.

Well, it's done, again...

I've seated the water block using as5, i've wrapped the maze 4 in neoprene and used a load of silicone grease around the cpu socket. The freezer has been on for about 4 hours and the temps according to nvidia monitor are 19C and dropping (idle). It's 24C ambient and the board sensor is at 22C. The barton 2500 is o/c'd to 3200 speeds.

So far it's cost me one dead a7n8x (£65 for a new replacement), £90 for the cooling equipment - pipes, block, grease, pump and pipe clips.

I bought a radiator (from an old bike) which I may use to cool the return liquid - should give the freezer an easier time.

Pics attached.

The pic of the inside of the freezer has been brightened as i'm still getting used to my camera.

Any questions?

Don't do the radiator if the water is already below ambient. Under normal flow rates, the water temp raises by .25C at the most in its pass through the waterblock.

Good job, did you get any pics of the mobo?

Thats basically the same thing the person i was talking about /\ did