6*C Cheap and Easy!

6*C Cheap and Easy! [Long Post]

Awww, man,

I am so embarrassed, but feel I should post my recent experience as a "friendly" reminder. Hope I'm not patronizing or insulting anyone's intelligence!

My sig is hopelessly out of date. I apologize. Need to update that. The sig WC info is accurate tho, but my current main rig using this WC set-up is now an E6600 2.4 @ 3.4 on 1.4Vcore (actual) riding an Asus P5B-Dlx.

This current E6600 main rig was operational, as described above, since bought new and assembled by me in OCT '06. The WC system has been through three major systems upgrades over, maybe two years, or so. These are computer system upgrades...the WC has never been touched, since all my comp upgrades were LGA775. I run this rig caseless, so it's just laying, as a bunch of components, on my bookcase desktop.

I always proudly pointed to the fact that I never touched my WC system for two years...didn't even need to top off the res, as an argument to my friends that "dis" water for a multitude of reasons. I actually "prided myself" over it's remarkable robustness and lack of req'd maintenance. And this machine runs full load Distributed Computing 24/7/365!

The machine is in a room with several other machines running Distributed Computing 24/7, and is not airconditioned, since no small window aircons can seem to keep up with a room full of comps running full load 24/7, w/o dieing or tripping breakers. I just open up the two windows on opposite sides of the room, and have a single window fan evacuating the hot air in a "flow thru" pattern. Since the outdoor temps have been climbing to near 90*F as we go into summer, the room ambient temp has, as well.

My temps always appeared fine, even on really hot days, and since my ambient changes radically, it's hard to keep track of my "average" temps, like I could in a more controlled environment. The system(s) with the WC have performed flawlessly...I'm really very pleased with their performance and reliability, including the current system.

Oh, the fans are in "pull" mode on the rads.

So, anyway, I noticed a lot of dust build-up on the back of the rads, and decided to clean them. I didn't have any compressed air on hand, so went to work with a toothbrush on the non-fan side of the rads, with the fans on full speed. Since the fans are set @ 95CFM, and in "pull" mode, they did a very good job pulling the loosened dust out of the rad's crevices. Man, there was dust flying every which way and sideways! I'm sure this method worked very nearly as well as compressed air, or mostly any other method, for that matter. When done, I could clearly see the shiny gloss of the OEM paint finish on the inside of the rad fins, using a flashlight. Pretty clean, I'd say.

This took, maybe 5 or 10 mins at most, and part of that time was spent getting an old toothbrush! So I'm reasonably certain there was virtually no change in room ambient in that short time. I then went back to look at the open TAT GUI on my monitor to see what results, if any, this had, vs the temps I noted just before using putting the toothbrush to the rads.:

Oh Baby!

6*C!!!

As measure in TAT.

Yeah!

I was blown away!

So, the moral of the story is: "Yeah, the simple basic stuff matters"!

We can talk about a few hundreth's CW between between blocks, flow rates and head pressure, and rad efficiency and design, but a simple basic routine maintenance matter had way more effect for me than any of the more esoteric issues we often discuss here. Not that more technical matters are not worthy of discussion; they certainly are. But, basics first!

Whoa: Sorry about making this post so long before getting to the point. Got carried away a bit, I guess. I wanted to provide a good background as to how this situation came about, and how easily it can creep up on us, unawares.

I apologize in advance if this sounds like a rant...that was not my intention when starting to write this post.

Regards,

~ Strat ~

<edit>

Tried to add "[Long Post]" to the thread title...it doesn't show up in the main forum title, only local to the post...sorry

Dust can be a pretty good thermal insulator. Might want to consider adding filters to make that job easier.

Filters ftw

6C is a nice drop for 10mins work.

Yeah, I know what you mean about the dust buildup on the radiator. It's about time for me to take down my daughter's rig and thoroughly clean it, which is the watercooled one at my house. I will probably just put a vacuum to the radiator for now but will be rebuilding it to it's next iteration probably in August, upgrading it to C2D then also. I just got a fine deal on a Storm in the classies.

An occasional trip outside and a measured blowing out with a compressor works wonders.

Hi guys.

Thx for the responses.

Yeah, you guys stated pretty much what I kind of knew I "should" be doing. But thru laziness, and wanting to keep running 24/7, I let things deteriorate. Was pointing out how quickly the time went by, and how one never notices such a gradual degradation of performance. I was actually thinking of lapping the CPU, too, to get a few x-tra degrees, and BAM...there they were, with jus a simple 10 minute cleaning!

I'm also going to do a bit of research into the best methods to purge and clean the system internally using the "search" function here. I suspect after two years, it wouldn't hurt to change the water and anti-fungal.

I think this is a stellar endorsement of the Swiftech products I used, and H20 in general, when assembled properly. Amazing that I literally didn't do a single bit of maintenence running 24/7 for such a long period of time (several years). Trust me, I have quite a few friends that either fear water cooling (most), or had bad experiences (several). Wuss's!!!

Thx again for your responses.

~ Strat ~

Clockwork_Apple said:

6C is a nice drop for 10mins work.

Click to expand...

And the price was right, too!

~ Strat ~

thats the best... i sometimes purposly let my hs's get dusty just to have the satisfaction of better temps lol.

I think it's because you ran 24/7 that things needed less maintenance. If someone leaves their watercooled PC off for days at a time it gives things a chance to settle and stuff to grow.

nd4spdbh2 said:

thats the best... i sometimes purposly let my hs's get dusty just to have the satisfaction of better temps lol.

Click to expand...

Haha...Actually I shouldn't laugh!

Except for some external rad cleaning, I'm actually (slightly) toying around with the idea of not purging my system, now, but leaving it to continue on running. Imagine, oh, 4 years of 24/7 running w/o touching it? Talk about a reliability endorsement!

Well, unless I FUBAR it, ending up with a messed up CPU block or rad.

But, we'll be on a different socket series WB by then, anyway, I'm sure.

But, yeah, after two years, there's a part of me tempted to "see what she'll do". Crazy, I know.

~ Strat ~

Clockwork_Apple said:

I think it's because you ran 24/7 that things needed less maintenance. If someone leaves their watercooled PC off for days at a time it gives things a chance to settle and stuff to grow.

Click to expand...

Ahhh...interesting thought.

Thx.

I made my living starting first in EE, then in Telecom...in Telecom uptime is a real big deal (always shooting for the "five nines").

So, I very much subscribe to the 24/7 school of leaving comps on, wether running DC, or not. I didn't think of the bacterial/fungi angle, but yeah, I do definitely give credence to the electronic's thermal stress angle. I suspect that would also continue to thermal stressing the H20 components and connections as well, even tho I'm used to thinking in terms of electronic's thermal shock, as well as "inrush" current. Niether are good things in electronics. I suspect not good in thermal management solutions, either.

Good catch.

BTW - Nice nick!

~ Strat ~