i wanna water cool my rig. how should i start?

my main goal in this project is to learn watercooling. i do not
need uber gear to get uber clocks. i would prefer to go as cheap
as possible, but am willing to go up to $150 if need be (cheap eh? ).
ideally, id be happy with slightly lower temps than pure air cooling.
of course id also want something stable and reliable because id probably
have no idea what to do if something broke. i also need to consider
mobility - at the moment, it seems like ill be travelling about 2-3
times this year.

rig:

e4400
p35 ds3r
x1950xt
antec 900
enhance enp-5150gh
1 dvd burner / 3 hds
sound blaster live! *

* if necessary i am willing to ditch the sblive in favor of onboard
audio for extra space. actually, im not even sure if the live is even
better than the ALC889A.

im ... not very good with tools. any type of modding, i probably cant
do. as ive said before, this is more about learning than oc'ing. i think
id be happy with just wc'ing the cpu and gpu. so then... is this feasible?
ive heard that the antec 900 is pretty bad for wc'ing, and my travelling
might make it even harder. second, if it is feasible, how should i start?
any suggestions / tips?

ok, i lied. i wanna wc to get the girls.

i would recommend reading the WC stickies they're very helpfull, also once you go over 50 posts here you can get access to the classies where people offload their equipment for sale.


one big tip is dont skimp out on tubing buying that lowes or home depot stuff is a pain to work with. also, i would reccomend to use metal clamps and barbs for maximum seal if you get good tubing you wont have any leakage if sealed properly.

make sure you put it together dry then take it out throw your water into it and leak test for at least 12 hrs ... if not a full day. i wouldn't recommend putting everything in and winging it lol.


edit: the 900 is a good case for WCing if you're doing duals you can mount it up front or a single 120 in the back. for your setup i wouldn't recommend going with a single 120mm radiator. that ATI will generate some nice heat

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=520139


Will cost a bit more if you're cooling the GPu.

At 101 posts you get access to the classifieds

In the past my first WC setup I went cheap, like a fish tank pump a heater core for my rad, and mainly PVC pipes to make a res/ do most of the piping to fit into a small case. It worked, and did vary well on traveling trips, but the temperatures sucked due to the compact design of it.

The 900 case is big, but like you said its hard to think where to put the rad. You could reverse the thinking in the case and cut the inside of the front of the case and put a dual 120mm rad in there and push the air out of the case (really don't want to reintroduce heat into the case), or mount it off the back of the case using a bracket design.

With that said you'll want dual 120mm radiator of some sort. Thats defiantly the first step to start looking, as for water blocks for the CPU and GPU. I love my swiftechs but it probably send you over budget just looking at them. Pump is one of the key things you don't want to skimp on theres a few different types but surely you DO NOT want to skimp on that, because if it goes out your system could be shot unless you have it set up in the bios for shut down at certain temps, besides if its not good as well you won't see the benifit of water.

Tubing wise well I've used crap tubing gotten from local stores, and more expensive stuff from online. IMO they are similar. Mostly the ones online are more resistant to staining from dies in the loop, thats if you get the pricier stuff. I just keep it low cost, but you want to make sure the wall thickness is good enough otherwise you could have issues of it cinking and then well less water pressure and bad flow = increased temps.

As for barbs for things, I've used both metal and plastic. Truly I think Plastic is GREAT. It works great on the metal parts from my experience it makes it less prone to leaking, besides the fact your not going to F'up the threads on anything with a plastic barb.

Overall run down the water section here take a look at a few threads and see whats there. I know you can run a cheap WC setup, at least for just the CPU not sure if both the CPU and GPU can be done at that price point though since you'll want a decent size radiator for running both of them as well.

As well welcome to the boards

You are not going to get a quality watercooling system for both CPU and GPU for only $150 using new components. Maybe if you find some used stuff for a good price and make a rad out of a car heater core? Maybe you should just start out with a CPU loop if you are on a tight budget? If you can spend more, check out this Petra kit.

http://www.petrastechshop.com/pecogpuba.html

yea ive been doing research on this all day. 150 is definitely too low,
especially since i might have to get a new case. this antec 900
is looking waaaay too hard without serious modding, which i cant do...

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=520139
.....

deathman20 said:

At 101 posts you get access to the classifieds

Click to expand...

oops my bad, i was thinking about a diffrent message board

jellysandwich said:

yea ive been doing research on this all day. 150 is definitely too low,
especially since i might have to get a new case. this antec 900
is looking waaaay too hard without serious modding, which i cant do...

Click to expand...

not really ...... that case is nice for modding a watercooling system. you make it sound more difficult than it is its cake, trust me

gangaskan said:

edit: the 900 is a good case for WCing if you're doing duals you can mount it up front or a single 120 in the back. for your setup i wouldn't recommend going with a single 120mm radiator. that ATI will generate some nice heat

Click to expand...

Doing that would force you to remove both of the hard drive cages and leave you with only 2 slots for your optical and floppy drives. Definitely not a very good choice imo. There are better for WC.

you could still use the back fans for the radiator(s) i think the top is a 140mm?

if it were cake, id do it :/
edit: would there be any good guides to modding? ie, what tools and
techniques to use for cutting holes and stuff? ive got some time to
kill, and may consider it if its plausible

i dont think i can fit a dual rad in the hd cages... at least not without
modding. the back only has 1 120mm fan and cant fit a dual rad because
the motherboard connections are right under the fan

so ... i think im stuck

I know personally I'm not a heavy modder I've done little things to my case prior to my WC setup now. Dremil and Tin snips are basically the gods of modding for the case. Dremil might be expensive tool, make sure its corded but it does its job vary well IMO and has lots of other uses.

Look into the Swiftech's H20-220 Kit. That was my first kit and I never looked back. Someone said you should just look at the kit, and buy the parts separately. Much cheaper that way. And you could go with a T-line, save more money, instead of a reservoir.

jellysandwich said:

if it were cake, id do it :/
edit: would there be any good guides to modding? ie, what tools and
techniques to use for cutting holes and stuff? ive got some time to
kill, and may consider it if its plausible

i dont think i can fit a dual rad in the hd cages... at least not without
modding. the back only has 1 120mm fan and cant fit a dual rad because
the motherboard connections are right under the fan

so ... i think im stuck

Click to expand...

you could use a swifty rad box and put it externally ... but you would have to drill holes i'm sure you're capable of that right?

gangaskan said:

you could use a swifty rad box and put it externally ... but you would have to drill holes i'm sure you're capable of that right?

Click to expand...

no, drilling is too hard!!!

yea i can, but then the question becomes, where?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...ck+Steel+ATX+Mid+Tower+Computer+Case+-+Retail

if it was a single rad, i could probably do it. but double rad looks hard...

jellysandwich said:

no, drilling is too hard!!!

yea i can, but then the question becomes, where?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...ck+Steel+ATX+Mid+Tower+Computer+Case+-+Retail

if it was a single rad, i could probably do it. but double rad looks hard...

Click to expand...

you will have to mount the rad box and get a general idea of where. it will be in the back more or less towards the upper portion of your case.

crikey. im getting the urge to up my budget to 250