PS3 cooling? waterblock vs. submerged?

[upjeeper]

i've had two PS3 units die on my due to the red light of dead. i'm thinking about doing a water cooling project and i'm looking for advice / experience

a water block would be cleaner but my concerns are if there heat buildup in the board a waterblock may not thoroughly pull heat from there, where a submerged system should keep the whole unit cool (of course I'd keep the bluray drive and other necessary features over the "waterline")

Just for clarification, i'm a mechanical engineer and have worked on cars and do my own computer and home repairs, so technical details shouldn't be a problem.

thoughts?

 

[Conumdrum]

Read up on Puget sound Pc's and we discuss the issues with mineral oil systems in threads going back years. You will probably stillneed a radiator and pump to remove the heat, so look at watercooling. Less mess and easier.

In fact, we have 2-3 PS3 WC systems in our forums, one in the last year. Might read up on that post.

 

[skorpien]

You'll definitely need to use heatsinks and a fan on the rest of the motherboard (I'm the one from the last year that Conumdrum speaks of), and be sure to check and double check the mount of the block. I'm struggling with random shutdowns due to what I'm sure is overheating and I suspect a bad mount.

If you need any advice, feel free to ask. And if you search the water cooling forums for my thread, there may be some info there that might help.

 

[upjeeper]

You'll definitely need to use heatsinks and a fan on the rest of the motherboard (I'm the one from the last year that Conumdrum speaks of), and be sure to check and double check the mount of the block. I'm struggling with random shutdowns due to what I'm sure is overheating and I suspect a bad mount.

If you need any advice, feel free to ask. And if you search the water cooling forums for my thread, there may be some info there that might help.

you're referring to a water block setup specifically?

will search for your past posts

 

[skorpien]

Yes, sorry I should have specified. I have a waterblock with a 360 radiator and a 120 mm fan attached to the bottom of my PS3 to cool the rest of the PS3's motherboard that the block doesn't cover.

 

[upjeeper]

got it. thanks

how much $ do you have into the project?

 

[skorpien]

You know, I can't honestly remember. It sort of blew out of proportion. I would say easily $350+ and that might be on the conservative side. I'm sure I could have kept costs down if I didn't also want it to look good. (I know that's more than a new one would have cost, but mine is a first gen w/ hardware backwards compatibility and I really wanted to do it more as a fun project than anything really.)