Plumbing Inquisition

So, i recieved some very nice components to add to my existing water cooling rig the other day. namely, a D5 pump from a great seller mr rufus, and a new silverprop gpu block from glasslicker.

I was soooo excited to install these items into my case and set to work rebuilding my loop, trying to maintain as much of the original plumbing seen here;



this system has seen a lot of revision over the 8 months i have watercooled it. given the space constraints of a fully loaded super lanboy case, I think i did well!

However, upon installing these two new components, i managed somehow to destroy my 6600GT agp card inexplicably. Perhaps i crushed the core, or damaged a resistor when mounting. or perhaps the capacitor i soldered back in place myself a few months ago finally had it. For whatever reason, i now have a 633mhz paperweight =).

So, i went out and got myself a shiney new AIW X800XT to max out my agp system untill i move to AM2 sometime this year or maybe even next year.

I didnt take a pic of the loop i built yesterday, but my loop went Rad>T>Pump *which is retardedly quiet at full speed*>RBX>Chipset>GPU
maintaining much of the existing tubing already installed.

I wasnt exactly gentle, so i assumed i cracked my cpu of all things.. i have posted pics of this thing, it is mutilated, but for extraworldly reasons, still works.

In any event, i stripped the rig down completely, and have these parts to use;

I also have a mattboard shroud i built that i will post an article on later, how to make your own custom radiator shroud for $5.

Before i go back to working on this box, i want to get a quick opinion on which path i should take. I want to try to use all my components, because with all three major heat producers under water, the noise of the D5 and 2 case fans was so low ic ouldnt hear it over my moms brand new alienware, which has all the amd cool and quiet stuff setup. that machine is really quiet at idle.

SO, unless there is a passive sink i can locate that will fit the neo2 and provides enough surface area, I would like to keep the maze 4. Even though i know it sucks *** =D

1


2


3


these are the loops im thinking of doing. Would love some input on which of these, or any other sollution would be best.

The first looks like your best bet. Option 2 is interesting, but you might have to add some restriction to the chipset branch to keep it from stealing too much from the GPU. The third option is just like the first, but with more tubing.

with the third option, he is trying keep the nb from being heated up by the gpu, which would "in theory" be a good idea, however, it really doesnt matter much as the water will only change 1-2degrees C throughout the entire loop.

Exactly. In practice, it's just like the first option, but with more tubing.

I was running with option 3 before but getting all the tubing to run properly without kinking would be a challenge for even tygon tubing. the gpu and the motherboard chipset block are within 3" of each other and the cpu another 3" above that. basicly i had a huge pretzel in the middle of my case, where the most difficult tube to route was the cpu inlet line and the chipset > gpu line.
I wanted the cpu line to be as short as possible, just a straight line from the pump to the core. but i wonder if it really matters how much excess tubing is in there.
I used to have about 4' of tubing that ran to everything. if i lax up a little and have some give, say 8' to allow for softer bends, is that going to kill my flowrate and temps?
what if i allow for a 2" inlet run that has a nice soft arc to it?

option 2 is nice because it allows me to plumb the inlet the way i want, and not have to worry about the Y/T fitting im using blocking the way. I had to angle that fitting just right so the lines coming off the rbx were the same length. This may or may not have done anything to equalize the outlet pressure of each barb though since one columb of water was colliding with another that were running perpendicular to one another.
this is a difficult thing to plumb ill tell you. not a lot of space to work with.. i almost wish i had either a two barb cpu block like an apogee, or a motherboard with a standard layout...
Im probably going to try and work with method 3 as best i can, but i might try out 2... bleh..

if the Gpu feeds the left side of an upside down T, and the chipset feeds from the top, will that give the adequate restriction for the gpu to get more of the flow? do i want the gpu to get more of it? do i want to try as best i can to keep the outlet pressures on each side of my rbx the same?

Tight radius bends are far worse for flow than some extra tubing.

Having two separate paths for water is likely to screw up the flow to one of the areas: whichever has less restriction will get more flow. Tough to balance this out.
The two barbs on the cpu block exit are NOT likely to have a great deal of difference as far as restriction WHEN you go into a "Y" with about the same length of tube and bends- different blocks are likely to have a huge affect though.

I would say go with #1, or #3: whichever one is easiest to route without kinks.

Worries about how LONG tubing is as the LAST thing to look at- 12" of extra tube may not even show any temperature difference by itself.
One BAD kink will.

Congrats on the new stuff.
Enjoy.

Here is what I think, first one is more tubbing but less bends, ie less kinking.

Second is with a res, thats how I like to use the double barbed blocks like you have.

that drawing is hard to read...but it seems to me like you would have water going from the gpu, to the nf3...and then thru the pump to the CPU???....seems like you would want the coolest water going to the cpu...unless i misunderstood the diagram

tyshy said:

that drawing is hard to read...but it seems to me like you would have water going from the gpu, to the nf3...and then thru the pump to the CPU???....seems like you would want the coolest water going to the cpu...unless i misunderstood the diagram

Click to expand...

CPU first is best but it looks like he is going to have some kinking problems to me.

I went with type 3 again, but used some old hose clamps to take the kinks out. Leak testing now attached to my p3's psu. the d5 is a very quiet pump.. its really quite amazing. that d5 and 2 120mm evercool fans as 7 volts are all thats cooling my winny at 2.6 and my x800xt at xtpe. =D

tyshy said:

that drawing is hard to read...but it seems to me like you would have water going from the gpu, to the nf3...and then thru the pump to the CPU???....seems like you would want the coolest water going to the cpu...unless i misunderstood the diagram

Click to expand...

While the theory is sound, the difference in temperature is going to be so small that it's not worth worrying about. For instance, if the pump dumps 20W of heat into the water, and you've got a flow rate of 1 GPM, the difference between the pump inlet and outlet temperatures would be about .08C.

Up and running with a max load temp of 34ºC midday. the gpu block is clearly doing its job too. this x800xt is only a few days old and only just got a fresh coat of AS5. running 560/555 right now under water with no ramsinks and thats with water coming from the cpu ->: chipset as shown in the above picture.
im very happy with the performence of the cooling and how little noise it makes. I cant hear it with my moms alienware on about 10 ft away, and its 2 ft from my ear.

I guess this is a first for me. Not in watercooling, but in watercooling that works as intended ^^.

Congratulations, Valk.

Are you leaving the old clamps in place or switching out to something else to retain the round shape?

http://ev0one.net/ocforums/wctemps.jpg

im using the new clamps for the main fittings and the old ones to keep the tubing round. works pretty well.

Those evercool fans are damn quiet huh?

Usually people go with a bigger rad when their cooling their CPU, VGA, and chipset.

Is your heatercore this one?
http://www.dangerdenstore.com/product.php?productid=47&cat=14&page=1

Yes, but i got mine locally from canadian tire. I would love to have a bigger rad, but its not really nessisary atm. my temps are great.
Im quite happy with my evercools. at first glance they are cheaply made with the plastic impeller screwed to the aluminum frame, but these fans have run 24/7 since the day i baught them coming up 3 years.
I thought they were expensive then, but they are probably the only part of my computer that has survived this long.

im still looking forward to trying out my delta when it gets here. that 220 cfm monster that will definatly work well for some retarded overclocking, but for everyday use, my watercooling performs exactly as it should.
Clocked my x800xt to 570/570 and having it so quiet is awsome. Ill fliddle around with my cpu a little later. trying to oc it for daily use is quite a hastle since my memory is kind of finiky on what speed it will run with what timings. Its easier to run it 1-1 with lesser timings than to use a divider, but im pretty stubborn and like to keep 2-2-2.

Valk said:

Yes, but i got mine locally from canadian tire. I would love to have a bigger rad, but its not really nessisary atm. my temps are great.
Im quite happy with my evercools. at first glance they are cheaply made with the plastic impeller screwed to the aluminum frame, but these fans have run 24/7 since the day i baught them coming up 3 years.
I thought they were expensive then, but they are probably the only part of my computer that has survived this long.

im still looking forward to trying out my delta when it gets here. that 220 cfm monster that will definatly work well for some retarded overclocking, but for everyday use, my watercooling performs exactly as it should.
Clocked my x800xt to 570/570 and having it so quiet is awsome. Ill fliddle around with my cpu a little later. trying to oc it for daily use is quite a hastle since my memory is kind of finiky on what speed it will run with what timings. Its easier to run it 1-1 with lesser timings than to use a divider, but im pretty stubborn and like to keep 2-2-2.

Click to expand...

Use the divider, there is no performance hit there.

you can always go back to 1:1 and 2-2-2 if you dont get much further with the CPU.

Looks good, get some coolsleeves when you can, you will like them. Just add them to the next order you put in for cooling parts, no need to pay shipping just for them.