it may be time to retire my 17 year old watercooling loop. Upgrade ideas?

[GTXJackBauer]

I would actually keep those rad fans. They are pretty premium and go for about $22 a piece.

You could possibly sell the AIO in our classifieds or on ebay if they won't take it back for full refund in the worst case scenario.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

True or ebay but they have fees, id probly lose some money though obviously but hopefully not alot, there is nothing wrong with it, how much do you think i could get for it tbh ? Do you think i should put those fans on a push pull then ? I want to put the radiator in front with the 3rgb fans i have you see in my pics.. I could use the 3 fans you mentioned and put em on the other side of the radiator i guess ? Whats so special about these EK fans that came with the kit ?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Those are just good performing rad fans in general but obviously non-RBG. You could use the Vardars as case fans or use them if you decide to add another rad just because or in another system or just sell them if you want to keep the rig all with the same fans. I wouldn't recommend though on using two different sets of fans since their specs will be different. Maybe you could but idk, I personally wouldn't just make sure the fans blowing are at the same level.

I would use the RGB fans, subtract those from the AIO and just sell the AIO by itself or with or without the Vardars. Not sure what you'll want to sell it for. Maybe $15 for each Vardar and see how much the AIO costs without the fans and go from there.

Yes, ebay will want 10% not including the shipping costs.

 

[maxfly]

can you remove the hoses on your aio easily to implement the aios rad into your loop?

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

can you remove the hoses on your aio easily to implement the aios rad into your loop?

Honestly the Connections on the aio rad and waterblock look weird to me. Deff not threaded conmections because the tubing can swivel 360 degrees in any direction. I think the ends are pressed on and sealed by o rings. Im thinking you could actually just pull it out if you had enough force but it could also break the plastic 90 degree angle ends inside the rad and block. And if nit they dont break its still not threaded for normal fittings

The only way i could do this safely though would be to cut the tubing off leaving maybe 3 inchs or so of the ends attached then go to lows and get 4 nylon barbed -- tube fittings and press that into the hose ends and this way i could connect both radiators and the cpu and gpu block together so both loops are together. The only thing i WOULDNT be sure on is the pump. The kit i got yesturday the reservoir has the pump built in and obviously that one is strong enough for a gpu and cpu together. But what about the built in pump on the thermaltake block ?

Id have two pumps in the system. Would they fight with eachother and cause a pressure build up or even sucktion in the loop? or Would it work Or could i simply just not plug in one pump to a fan header and see if the other can pump through the thermaletake block with its pump off. ?

I know i can simply remove the TT block but i do like its rgb lighting so itd be nice to keep it on. But to eliminate the double pump question. id have to cut and remove the TT block.pump from the cpu.. use the plain block provided in the kit i got.. Then loop the tubing into the thermaltake 360mm rad and the other 360mm rag and the gpu block. This would probly work fine

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Yup, don't try that as someone already broke the plastic 'fittings' on the block itself. Not threaded as some think like regular blocks. I would just sell it and use that EK kit for everything but to each their own if you want to experiment with a brand new and pricey AIO. lol

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Yea i know how its fitings are They are push in connects with o rings pressed in the pump.block and radiator its very clear just looking at it. And it looks to be a one time connect and wont come back out. Not sure why that person who broke his couldnt see that lol

But as far as cutting the tubing. That wont mess anything up.. As you know there are --- shaped barbed fittings you can just stick the cut ends on. So if i wanted to make this one loop gpu and cpu into both 360mm radiators i can easily do that. But again would two different pump affect eachother ? The pump on the TT block and the pump on this kits reservoir. You know what i mean ?

Lets say i keep the AIO and decide to cut the two tubes. add some barbed fittings and extend the tubing into the other loop. Would the two pumps conflict with eachother..

And tbh im thinking right now.. Why woulf i connect both together.. Cooling wont change.. Itll be exactly like having two seperate loops... Am i making sense ? Two radiators.. one cooling just the cpu one cooling just the gpu... If i add the gpu and cpu together ill be doubling the amount of heat.. But with two radiators together ill double the cooling... But that makes no sense to me because itll be the same cooling wise seperatly ??

NOW i can see temperatures being higher if i add the gpu and cpu together with only the one 360mm radiator like youre sughesting.. Am i right ?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

For pumps, I've heard both sides of the argument. One side says there should be no issue putting two separate spec'd pumps together in serial or w/e and the other side says, it's best to use the exact same pump if you're using them in the loop so they are sync'd together otherwise one pump will be working harder than the other and could affect it's longevity, etc. I personally go with the later as that's what I have setup without a hickup and works great.

With the kit's pump, I think you're ok as long as you aren't building a massive complex loop with it as that will need the more powerful premium DDC or D5 pump(s).

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Ima just use two seperate loops i think im just complicating this. With this case there is no "clutter" in using two radiators. I mean can you honestly say this is clutter ? id mount the other kits radiator up there if i removed the the AIO so it wouldnt matter. and putting the 2nd 360 in the front 3 fans.. You wont even see it with the way my case is sitting on my desk next to my monitor.. Youd have to turn the case completetly sideways to look at the front inside the case to see the 2nd radiator.. With 1 Loop, Ill only save on two less tubes showing and thats it. And with two loops cooling will be gpu specific and cpu specific, seperated from eachother so they wont heat eachother up

The ONLY downside to having two seperate loops, is the tubing on the AIO is black, and the tubing im using for the other kit is clear with a lime green coolant i bought from EK.. That and well i kinda paid $175 more then i had too.. But its still two seperate loops so better cooling for the cpu and gpu by themselves. So whatever.. Ill just think of it as a long term investment lol

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

One question though, the pump for the new EK kit i got says it needs to be in the CPU fan connector... Now this board has only one and its wayy on top by the cpu socket and the first AIO from TT is using it.. Plus the cord on this reservoir is only like 2 inches long anyway so i dont see how the hell they expect to plug it into a cpu fan header..

The Asus Strix 1080ti has two fan headers for case fans.. And i assume this controls case fans based on GPU temps, much like the cpu fan header does.. SOO couldnt i just plug the EK pump into the gpu fan header to control the pump based on the gpu temps, i mean it is cooling the gpu.. So to me this seems like a win win ?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

If its good enough for you, it's good enough for us. Enjoy your rig as it looks good and thanks for sharing your pics with us.

Ok so I went around looking about those headers on the GPU and they are 4-PIN but don't know if they are PWM or not. I mean I would assume they are but it doesn't say anywhere and I don't know why they won't just say it if they are or not.



Asus FanConnect

Assuming you're using the Vardar's with the EK kit, those fans pull 0.12 Amps. Most motherboard headers cap at 1 Amp. It doesn't say how much those headers can handle so I'm not sure what to tell you when it comes to load or if you can even chain those front rad fans from the kit to those headers.



If you are going with another set of RGB TT PWM for the kit, you might be able to just hook the hub that comes with the fans to the header just for PWM signal while the hub gets PSU power, presumably speaking.




I wish I had the answer but I don't. Don't have this kind of gear in front of me and their info is kinda vague. Nothing new on the TT side but at least they walked away from aluminum mixed custom liquid cooling. lol

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

The RGB fans themselves i have plugged into Usb 2.0 on the motherboard they dont use fan headers. The CPU fan header is used by the pump on the cpu block. The TT RGB fans i cant see rpms in hwmonitor only in TTs software.. I can adjust their speed in TTs software as well they have a range of 400rpm to 1400rpm.. I just set them to the max so once my cpu creeps to the 40s from just light load the fans kick up to 1000 rpm i noticed.

Thats fine for me. The 140mm fan in the back of my case is on fan header 1 and i set the power management in the bio is manual and maxed out the power it seems to raise rpms based on heat but i think this fan moves based on case temperature ?

But the questions is not the fans for the radiator on the gpu its the pump on the EK reservoir.. where would i plug that pump into ? Since my mobo only has one cpu labled header.. And its on the top anyway i dont get how EK expects someone to plug that into the cpu pwm.. I mean my board has like 4 PWM connections all the 4 pin connections.. Does the pump HAVE to be in cpu ? .. I mean youd have to mount the reservoir by the rear fan ne,t to the cpu for that to work which is what i see ppl doing.. and that ugly as sin.

I need to figire out if the pump can be plugged into the gpu header. Im not concerned with the RGB fans as they are controlled by the TT software which seems to go off the cpus temperatures but then that sounded dumb because this is for the gpu lol..And i want to use them to cool the 360 rad im mounting it in front of the cases 3 fans.

If those 3 rgb fans cant cool that gpu radiator enough then Ill mount the thing on the empty side of the case and use the vadars fans and thrn ill need to figure out how and where yo plug them into. Ill have to remove ny HDD bays though.. The TT case mounts HDDS on these removable plates behind the case if that makes sense ?


Im so confused on how to route the fans and pump right now....

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

btw what are two other plugs on the pic for the gpu ? EK has a adapter that plugs a 4 pin header into what looks like one of those smaller plugs ?

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-cable-pwm-fan-adapter-for-gpu-50cm

The kit came with a 3way fan to 1 way pwm so i can plug all 3 fans into one 4pin.. The pump is only 6watt draw. the 3 fans are 1.44watts each.. Thats 4.32W

1 amp is 12watts.. All fan headers are 1amp rated like you mentioned So the two 4 pin headers on the gpu assuming they also go off the 1Amp standard should be able to power the 3 fans and the pump and control them based on gpu temperature. This is what a cpu pwm does correct ? It controls the fans or pump based on cpu temperature and thats why they want you to plug your pump into the cpu pwm right ? But sinve this 2nd pump is for the gpu then it would make more sense to plug it into the gpu.

And agsin lets assume the gpu 4pins are 1Amp like all 4 pins are. Then It should habe no issues controlling the vardar fans and pump.

The only reason i wouldnt use the vadar fans is dust management i want to keep positive air pressure in this open case.. If i were to use 3 varder fans and mount the rad on the side of the case removing the two HDD trays then lll habe 7 fans blowing air out.. and only 5 blowing air in. But if i mount it in the 3 rgb front fans.. Then ill have 5 going in and 4 out. But those 3 fans are cpu controlled by TT software. So it wouldnt be controlled by gpu temperature.

Uhg lol looks like i got alot of experiementing to do.


EDIT: I just called asus, and even the tech support guy couldnt help me lol, he said there is no data on the amp or wattage rating for the fan headers, and there is also no info for the other 2 plugs he said too. Seriously.. So he escalated it to the "design" department he said and they will have the info for the fan headers and if its ok to plug the pump into it and what those two other plugs are for as well

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Very complicating to say the least. LOL I guess that's what happens when you mix AIO with custom liquid cooling and multiple software controls.

The red header on the GPU is for an RGB strip. Again, not sure the capacity it holds or how many LEDs you can have on it but it can control RGB lighting presumably through the Asus software you'd control the fans with. I have RGBs based on another ecosystem and my RGBs display the temp range my liquid is set so I can see if the PC is cool (Blue), medium (Purplish/Orange) or warm/hot (Red) from afar or just next to it without checking my temps via sensors.

When it comes to controlling fans, I have the luxury to use my water temps or deltas of my choosing so the fans and or pumps if you choose too, are regulated through a curve for a gradual change. If you just go based on chip temps, you will see erratic behavior and can seriously become annoying as you'll have fast ramp ups or downs depending on the chip's temps. If I were you, I would find the sweet spot based on temps and leave everyone static on that setting.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Yea lol.. So anyway i hooked the pump up to the gpu fan header.. asus gpu tweak software had a hidden section you had to dig in and find that allows you to adjust the fans speeds for those 2 headers on it. I turned it to 50% pump wouldnt turn on. but it came on at 60% but this reservoir.pump from EK is too small.. The pump causes a typhoon inside the reservoir even with the EK logo in it which is suppose to stop that... And the suction of the pump actually sucks ao hard it pulls air unto the loop and i filled this resvervoir to the tippy too.

I looked online and others had this issue.. Also the DD pump is (air) cooled with no heatsink on it. and they tend to smoke and burn up.. EK fixed this by adding a heatsink to the pump.. mine doesnt have that.

So i decided that isnt worth the risk. i returned the kit.. kept the fittings though ( sue me lol) and i bought a EK PE 360 radiator that was on sale from 87 to 69.. And i got the EK D5 140 RGB pump.reservoir. Its taller so it shouldnt be sucking in air.. and its RGB lol and its cooled by the liquid vs the other one so i shouldnt habe any fires like the other one. Price ended up the same as the kit lol so i didnt spend any money.. And i didnt need the fans or cpu block in that kit and well i kept the fittings lol.


Anyway.. This pump has a 4 pin pwm connector but its got only 2 wires.. which just control fan speed and power is via the molex connector it has.. It also has a RGB connector.. So i can plug the 4 pin pwm to the gpu to control the pump the molex to the psu for power and the rgb plug to the gpu to control the lighting.

.. Just gotta wait for my waterblock.. hooefully thermaltake doesnt take forever to ship it. Its already been 2 days and nothing shipped yet.

Im going to hook up the pump to the system right now. just using a 12 inch long hose to U into itself and test it out like the other one

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

Okay i hooked the new pump up, works great, except the 4pin pwm isnt adjusting the pump speed.. Once i hooked up the molex power connector the pump just runs at one speed.. Tried every setting from 50-100% nothing changes.. Ive read that these molex or sata power connectors for 4 pin pwm's sometimes do this.

Whatever i dont care if the pump runs at 100% or not, at least it runs and the rgb is syncing with the video card

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Looks like it worked out for the better. I probably would have returned the fittings as well which would have been the right thing to do. They might charge you for that if they inspect the package.

Either way, the pump's RGB is compatible with Asus's RGB which tells me the wiring is the same and as we can see in the image it worked out nicely.

The problem with the pump speed could be of two things. The PWM signal from the GPU is too weak therefore by default, these pumps run at irrc either 60% or 100% when there's no PWM signal by default or the header on the GPU isn't PWM at all or needs to be enabled via software, again not sure.

The radiator you picked is 19 FPI as opposed to the 8/9 FPI rads for low speed fans and low noise. I would recommend not going lower than 1200 RPM on this rad or at least find the sweet spot you're comfortable with via temps and audibles.

Whatever you do down the road, you got a really nice D5 pump in your hands that should last a while as they are one of the premium pumps in the market place and this particular one from EK has 15% more performance than your standard D5 pump.

For fluids and tubing, I would recommend EK's clear premix fluid or Aquacomputer's clear DP Ultra with a annual drain and refill, don't forget to add a drain port at the lowest point of the loop or just outside the reservoir via T-line of some sort to make your life easier when draining during maintenance, and for your tubing I highly recommend the PrimoChill Advanced LRT and the choice of color since you're better off staying away from color fluids.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

I already bought tubing in microcenter when i got the kit. I bought tubing from a brabd called primoflex..

Tbh though 30$ for tubing is a bit iverpriced i can find clear tubing in lowes for like 40 cents a foot.. But oh well. I already bought lime green coolant.. I poured some in the small loop in my pic to see what itd look like.. i forgot leds wont show the color spectrum with dyed liquid. I poured it back into the jug.. rinsed the small loop out.

Ill jusy use that 5 hour energy sized bottle that came with the primoflex tubing and mix it with distilled water for a clear liquid.. Since i want the RGB on the waterblock and this reservoir to show.. If i dont like the look of clear liquid ill just use the lime green stuff i got.. It did look cool in the tubing itself. But i know dyes lose color overtime and stain stuff so well see.

I have 5 other 120mm fans i can use with speed settings if the 3 rgbs in the front arent enough. I could do low speed push.pull combo too vs just a push. I got this PE radiator because its better for cooling then the SE so i know what type i got.. Gatta say though this d5 pump puts alot of heat out.. With it on for only 10 minutes the small loop i made by connecting a 12 inch line to the inlet and outlet to just test it.. the water got really warm.. quick lol.


Oh and microcenter inspects boxes when you return it.. Once they give you a refund they cant just charge you based on a missing oart.. Without my authorization or debit card for the matter itd be impoasible for them to do thst to begin with. 6 fitting when i spent 2300$ there in the last 2 weeks is hardly worth mentioning

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Ok slow down. You're jumping too much and not doing enough research before buying and assembling. LOL Patience is key.

The tubing you purchased should be that tubing I just referred to unless it's from a very old stock of their older problematic tubing but by now, I think that should be cleared out by now. The proper branding of tubing is called PrimoFlex Advanced LRT. If that's the name on your product, that's it.

Trust me it's worth every penny and might be a bit more where you purchased it from. The other tubings would have issues for PC loops because of plasticize and clouding. Glad you didn't go to your hardware store and install those cheaper tubings.

The '5 hr energy looking bottle' is just a cleaner. It's NOT to be used as your fluid for your actual running loop. It's just a cleaning solution to clean out your gear. I would just advise to just use warm distilled water and clean out your gear i.e. rad dance and grabbing as I stated the premix fluids from those reputed companies. You're just better off grabbing EK's to stay within their warranty.

As for admitting to theft, we don't condone it here. Not to be picky about it but it's best to keep it to yourself because in the end, those added costs tend to be spread to the rest of us when buying gear.

 

[Cnaydmancangt]

No the kit for the tubing had two bottles.. one for cleaning and one you mix in a gallon that you use for the loop..

here isa pic of the kit. Says to mix wqith 1 gallon of water, thats far too much Ill just measure half the bottle for half a gallon of water






I wont debate ethics with you..