Im done with air, time for some water.

[Cluster]

So, after looking what all im going to need to go through to get my system setup for some extreme air cooling, i've decided its just not worth it, and i can probably do better on water anyway. But im a total nub to water cooling, and this is where you fine folks come in

Now, i've been doing some poking around and im starting to get some ideas together. One thing to keep in mind, is my computer is close to a window, and what i'd like to do is have my rad outside to take advantage of the cold weather. I have some styrofoam insulation going in the window opening so i dont freeze myself out, and i'll be having the tubing run through the styrofoam to the rad outside, then back in. How much of an effect is going to have that i have to run 10-15' of hose to get to the rad outside? I plan on insulating the return line from the window to my case so my room temp doesnt warm it up much. I suppose i'll be needing a touch bit more antifreeze in my line, 60/40 mix as the temps have been known to hit -40c in my area. Is this going to be a major issue?

Aside from the cold weather mod, i've read some people saying that its not really worth it to bother with sticking a WBlock on the northbridge. I may overclock my northbridge a bit more, but im not sure if my ram will take it anyway, and im only seeing 31c from it with passive heatpipe cooling. But, the heatpipe that cools the northbridge is also tied into my mosfet sink, and i've been seeing that go over 40c, and i havent started pushing this cpu to what it will go, so should i just replace both? I remember seeing someone with a waterblock for the mosfets on the same board as mine, not sure where they got it though. For the northbridge i was looking at a Swiftech MCW30 going for $30 bucks, seemed cheap enough and i believe its hard-mount will fit. For a pump, im looking at picking up an MCP655. Seems like one of the better choices.

As for the cpu/gpu, i really dont know what to go with here, there seems to be alot of choices, and some of my choices seem limited shopping in canada. Also, the gpu blocks seem quite expensive, most having prices over $100, which is way more than im willing to spend.

Well, thats where i am now, suggestions?

 

[Conumdrum]

No time for major input, but take a gander around here for more input:

I'll steer you to some more technical links, please spend a few days (DAYS) reading posts, searching, learning. Don't forget to look for your case with WC. Google your case and the word watercool or some combination of that. WC stuff is larger than you think, I know from experience. WC setups done right are awesome and almost silent.

Great place, not wayyy over the top with uber WC guys.
http://www.ocforums.com/index.php
Uber place, owned by one of the worlds winning OC guys in the world. Not a place to post or ask questions by noobs, but an awesome place to learn.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/
Another good place to learn
http://www.overclock.net/water-cooling/
http://www.martinsliquidlab.com/ PLEASE READ A LOT HERE, will be closed in 30 days or so.

Great places to buy WC stuff
http://www.dangerden.com/index.php [...] e&Itemid=1
http://www.petrastechshop.com/
http://www.jab-tech.com/

 

[Spawn-Inc]

petras and jabtech will ship to Canada as well, i got my setup from jabtech and it was a great experience. and i ordered pt nuke from petra's.

 

[Conumdrum]

If you put your rad on long hoses like you said, come up with some bracket to hang on the window when you really want to push your clocks then bring it in for regular use would be pretty cool. I wouldn't leave the rad outside tho. Running hose that long can be calculated onece you kinda know your parts. Go to
http://www.martinsliquidlab.com/ and D/L his flow rate calculator, you can add lots of hose to it. You need to stay about 1 GPM or higher or your temps will suffer. That site will be gone in under 30 days, so learn all you can there.

One problem with really sub ambient temps (20C or lower than room temp) you could have condensation build up on the hoses and blocks. That isn't something you want to deal with, water on the Mobo etc. You could read up on insulating the mobo etc in the Sub-cooling forum here and at xtreme forums.

Cooling the NB? A good 60-80mm fan on the NB itself is usually plenty. Your right about the heatpipe issue. You have to get air HS for eash Mosfet if you go water. There are other air HS options but varied and can be found at the vendors. I didn't mention Performance PCs or Sidewinders for 'stuff'.

Petras and Danger Den ship to Canada, you might have to talk to them, great peeps to talk to.

A GPU block is a VERY nice thing. More noise from that than anywhere else. You can cool your GPU for under $100 easy usually. Get the MCW 60 and some HS for the RAM/Mosfets. MCW 60 I saw at $40, add $20 for copper enzotch HS, your good to go.

So, you need a TOP pump for the hose length. MCP 355 with a quality aftermarket top.
Big rad. the Thermochill or fesser 120.3 size for top cooling, or the MCR320 for almost as good and cheaper too.
Res, the Swiftech mini res
GTX CPU block if it fits your AMD, you can't go with a restrictive flow block is the first requirement.
MCW60 and HS for your GPU
No NB cooling except a fan
1/2" ID hose, you NEED the best flow rate for long tube runs
The MCW 60 and res have plastics barbs, get metal ones
The rad comes with none or plastic barbs, get metal ones
I'd look at Danger Den Fatboys, great flow rate.
1/4" on the fittings doesn't mean the hose size, it's the fitting size, much confusion on that.

BTW, spending just a few hours reading would really help. These posts (except the rad outside concept) is discussed at least once a week here. You'd have it already figured out except the ouside rad concept if you'd just slow down and read for a few days. More to learn than just what to buy. Take your time, it's a hobby, not a job.

 

[Cluster]

Oh, no worries, im not rushing anything. Im mostly wanting to get an idea of what im looking for so i can do some frugal shopping. I've seen some of these parts can be pretty pricey, but bargains can be found if one knows what to look for.

As for the long runs and the outside rad, im looking to make that more or less permenant. I realize its not conventional, but eh, i wanna take advantage of my adverse climate They are calling it to be colder in my area this year than it was last year, and last year i had my fair share of -50c and under. So looking forward to it

As for the condensation issue, i also have air ducting bringing in cold air to keep my case temps below ambient. ATM my room temp is 19c, case temp is 15c, and intake air is 4c. I would think my case temp would drop a good bit with water taking most of the cpu/gpu heat out of the case. So long as i keep my case temp close to or below zero i would think the inside should be fine against condensation? Though i may have to insulate the case itself, which isnt a big deal. I've got access to an ample supply of styrofoam insulation, i'll take the mobo out of the case and make a styrofoam box for it if need be.

As for the pump, i realize im running a little longer than most setups. Elevation wise im not going up/down much, it will all be quite level. Wouldnt going with a higher throughput pump help? If its going to be an issue, than my alternative is to go with the styrofoam box idea, and bring the cold air to my res/rad. Like i said, i've got an ample supply of that stuff, about 30 full sheets of 2-3".

 

[Cluster]

Ok, im going to go with the idea of getting rid of the case and modding together something out of the horde of sytrofoam insulation i have. Most of it is 2" styrofoam, might even be some 3" stuff. I'll be making a make-shift ducting out of the styrofoam to bring cold air from a window to my system. I'll put 2-3 large fans (140-200mm depending on what i can find) inline in the ducting. This phase will be done before the WC gear gets setup. At the moment i've got a hackjob duct that gains about 8-9c over 6', and CFM is crap, so this will help regardless.

Now, for the box, what i have in mind is a 2 compartment box with the initial compartment isolated from the compartment my system is in. My thinking here is that a) I can dissipate alot of heat into this cold air and vent the air into my system compartment and b) i can control the temperature and airflow in my system compartment better.

As for the res/rad. Im thinking heater cores all the way here. Cheaper, and from what i've read perform better. The only tangible benefit to the inflated price of purpose-builts is the ease of use. Considering what im willing to go through already, i think i'll take function over fashion. Now, as far as placement, is there any difference as to wether i place it before or after my blocks? Perhaps both? I'll have to crunch some numbers more on this but kind of what im aiming for is having my water going to the CPU block to be as close to ambient as possible, which will in a few weeks be into the -30 to -50 range. I'll do some looking around to see what the effects of sub-zero water has when the ambient temperature is also sub-zero. The air around my area is relatively dry, and im hoping condensation wont be an issue if everything is kept sub-zero.

Now for the blocks you were mentioning that i restrictive wasn't an option, was this because i was planning long runs? Assuming that would change if i go with short runs? As would be with my plan above.

Another option im considering also is isolating the cooling portion of the system from the block loops. Have one pump take from res and go straight to my blocks and back, no rad in that loop. And have a seperate loop cooling the res water. Isolating like this would give me more flexibility in the # of rads and restrictivness of the rads. Could go with something much more effecient without impacting my block loops. This also sets me up for the option of super-chilling with phase change at some point.

I'll do some research on what kind of coolant mix im going to need, obviously straight up distilled isnt going to cut it when the temps get where i like them.

 

[Cluster]

Bit of an update, got most of my parts ordered, and got my air duct in place.

Here's the duct fitted with an round metal duct fitted on top of my stock heatsink. Eventually that will get removed and vent directly into the styrofoam box.


Couple of more pics of the duct itself.



Not quite finished with this as i need to give it a wrap of insulation.

The wires are running to a 140mm fan at the entrance. The duct comes apart just past the elbow, where i'll be putting in 2 120x25mm Sunons. The duct itself is going to vent into the chamber with my WC gear, and i've got 2 Sanyo Denki SanAce 120x38mm to strap onto the back of that.

Here's my list of what will be going into this.
Fuzion v2 cpu block
Fuzion gfx2 gpu block
77 bonni heater core
Laing D4 and Swifty 355 pumps
Tygon Norprene tubing (rated to -60c)
and a res which i havent built yet.

Im not sure what to make the res with yet, was thinking i could make some sort of metal tub, something thick enough to tap the barbs into, and maybe solder some fins onto. Might help knock some temps off the water temp.

Another part im still unsure of is a decent cooling mix. Some of the extreme setups i've seen go with alcohol. But im not thinking this is gonna go that far. I'm expecting -30 to -40 air temps pushing through the rad, so a little more than that for water temps, depending on how far i crank those denkis up to

Its starting to come together though, everything is in the mail awaiting arrival, might have something up within a couple of weeks.

 

[flopper]

Bit of an update, got most of my parts ordered, and got my air duct in place.

Here's the duct fitted with an round metal duct fitted on top of my stock heatsink. Eventually that will get removed and vent directly into the styrofoam box.


Couple of more pics of the duct itself.



Not quite finished with this as i need to give it a wrap of insulation.

The wires are running to a 140mm fan at the entrance. The duct comes apart just past the elbow, where i'll be putting in 2 120x25mm Sunons. The duct itself is going to vent into the chamber with my WC gear, and i've got 2 Sanyo Denki SanAce 120x38mm to strap onto the back of that.

Here's my list of what will be going into this.
Fuzion v2 cpu block
Fuzion gfx2 gpu block
77 bonni heater core
Laing D4 and Swifty 355 pumps
Tygon Norprene tubing (rated to -60c)
and a res which i havent built yet.

Im not sure what to make the res with yet, was thinking i could make some sort of metal tub, something thick enough to tap the barbs into, and maybe solder some fins onto. Might help knock some temps off the water temp.

Another part im still unsure of is a decent cooling mix. Some of the extreme setups i've seen go with alcohol. But im not thinking this is gonna go that far. I'm expecting -30 to -40 air temps pushing through the rad, so a little more than that for water temps, depending on how far i crank those denkis up to

Its starting to come together though, everything is in the mail awaiting arrival, might have something up within a couple of weeks.

love the idea.
Its little over the top but just lovely.

Condensation can be an issue, not that familiar with that phenomena but it looks like a nice set up.

 

[phil178821]

you are insane lol..

cool idea but what an i sore.. lol

also, who pooped on your disk drive?
hahaha

ah its good to be immature sometimes.

all in all, Conumdrum pretty much covered every pointer i would give.


also, this appeared to go from a normal WC to a hey ,i wanna place it outside, to hey, i am using a heatercore now and building a bunch of stuff in like two seconds. cool stuff. give us some better photos of your styrofoam coffin

and -50C? jeez.. kill me

 

[hank123]

Condensation.

Dude you better isolate your mobo. Take the time and the little money to do it.

 

[Hsnopi]

Ok you are crazy but that is awesome!

If I may present some ideas?
1. As everyone has said, condensation. Read int he peltier cooling foprums about how they deal with that.
2. the first this that hit my head was squirrels and birds. I hope there is a screen or something there.
3. you could make that work as a shelf or something if you added supports to it. if you, inside the part by the window, stack MDF in a few columns then add a second layer on top of the thing you may be fairly well supported.
4. you can't spraypaint styrofoam iirc, you could spend $20 and get some wood veneer for it.
5. if you want to forgo the case altogether you can try mounting it ont he wall in some kind of artistic fashion. but not very lan partyish. granted with that cooling I doubt you were planning on going anywhere. I have ideas if you want to try that.

Keep up the work

 

[Cluster]

As far as condensation goes, the whole point of the styrofoam box is to maintain an ambient temperature that is lower than my water. Not that im claiming experience or anything, but most of the people that are insulating for condensation issues is because their ambient temperature is far above their cooling temps. As im using my outside temperature as the ambient for this box, as well as to cool my liquid, i dont really see a problem? Except for maybe outside the case, when the cold air gets vented out of the box, but i'll deal with that when the time comes.

give us some better photos of your styrofoam coffin

Sytrofoam coffin, love it

The 'coffin' itself isnt built, im waiting to get the rest of my wc supplies in, i want to lay it all out before i cut the sides to fit. Im not 100% sure on the height yet, or how i want to partition things, but for sure, once i get all my gear together and the box glued up and insulated, i'll have some more pics.

As for how the ducting looks, that going to change once i get my insulation wrap. Im putting a layer of the insulation they use for commercial/industrial ducting, its basically fiberglass insulation with a heat reflective backing. Once the seems are sealed, its basically air tight.

Ok you are crazy

you are insane

Its little over the top

If you only knew the half

 

[flopper]

We love extremists in cooling.

 

[Cluster]

Well, i have a couple of updates. Still waiting on some of the gear to come in, might come in tomorrow(hoping), but it will likely be the first of next week before my order from petras comes in. I got my 4 Sunons, the Bonnie heatercore, and i picked up a MCP355 off the bay for 20bucks, heck of a deal on that one, just need a top for it now.

I did finally get my ducting together more permanently. I was waiting for the Sunons before i sealed it up good. Here's an inside look at the ducting.

This is the side that is through the window. There is another 140mm fan that is behind that with a filter.


Here's the straight duct that attaches to the elbow and goes straight into the box itself.


The joint where the two pieces meet. Those two fans sit about 150mm away from each other, and move ALOT of air!


Here's a 'retro' shot of the ducting hooked up to my AMD heatsink with a piece of flex duct wrapped in insulation and duct tape.


Not sure what happened here, but it was... well... trippy!


Right now with that ducting setup and only aircooling my stock amd sink, 9850 running at 3.2ghz/1.5v, my idle temps are 7c, load temps are 19c. With only 1 sunon running, idle is 12c, load 28c. Prefer to keep it a bit warmer for now as the heatsink was starting to develop some frostbyte!

Hopefully i'll have more to come once the rest of my gear comes in.

Cheers

 

[Burninate35]

When I saw the duct tape I was thinking foil tape. You could put that on the Styrofoam. I am not sure how it would come out but I think it may make things look nice and shiny.

 

[Hsnopi]

those two fans move enough air? that looks like a big space. but hey, your temps don't lie.

 

[Steven-1979]

lol where do you live? those pics out your window look like zombies are going to start comming out of the horizon

 

[Cluster]

lol where do you live? those pics out your window look like zombies are going to start comming out of the horizon

hahaha, you cant see out my windows, they're covered in frost

those two fans move enough air? that looks like a big space. but hey, your temps don't lie.

Those two fans are just for pulling air through the duct. There's actually 3 fans in that duct, theres a 140mm at the entrance with a filter material. Once this is complete, there will be 2 more Sanyo Denkis pulling air through a radiator, and a couple of more of these sunons moving around through the rest of the box and into a down spout so i can catch condensation. So in total there are 6 fans, 4 120x25 sunons, and 2 120x38 Sanyo Denkis, i think they'll move enough air

I'm working on a drawing of it, i'll post it up when im done. The rest of my gear didnt come in today, so its likely to be monday or tuesday before i can start slapping things together. Which is fine by me, because its supposed to warm up to -5 for xmas, and then drop back down to -30 for new years

 

[Cluster]

I finished my layout design of how things should look once all the pieces come in.



Some parts are a bit tight. The mobo seems like it will be the tightest fit. ATX spec calls for 244mm width, plus i need room to plug in sata, I/O panel/monitor and such. I have about 240mm, so need to buy myself some more room around the mobo.

All i need to find now is a decent top for the MCP-355, any place local wants me to wait 2-4 weeks for an XSPC top, and being xmas... i wont get it till sometime in january, shipping from the US costs more than the top is worth! So im not sure what to do about that... unless there is some trick to making 1/2 tube work with 3/8 barbs, im all ears (im still trying to figure out what moron decided to go with 3/8 barbs on that stock pump top...)

The only thing i have left to do is build the reservoir and the shroud, but i might gimp the shroud out of it for now, somehow i think 2 sanyo denkis are going to work fine shroudless In case your wondering what the two grey lines are in the reservoir, they're baffles. An original thought was two seperate reses, but i quickly thought of the mess that would come out of two pumps at different GPM would turn into. The idea with the baffles is to have somewhat the same idea, localized temperature. This way im hoping that the coldest water gets fed directly to the block pump. We'll see how it works out.

Will hopefully (crossing fingers), have this up and running by new years.

Something i forgot to mention. There is two seperate heights to this thing. The back part, the dark grey walls, are 500mm high, the front was trimmed down to 250mm, the light grey walls. After putting a small mock up together, 500mm was just to tall to be able to access parts of the mobo. Need to be able to change ram when im benching. The 500mm back was needed because the duct sits high relative to the base(i could change that, but this works fine). Also it gives me room for a double heater core and a bigger res if i plan that in the future.