new water cooling project, need some advice

[Gandalf81]

Hey everyone,
I`m new here, I have a new project for my pc and needed some help because I`m pretty much a noob at watercooling.

my idea is to make a completely ghetto/home made water cooling for my pc.
coulpe years ago I bought a used acer predator (the 1st one, big orange thing, lol) With time I bought "new" (used) mobo, ram, and a new gpu, (changed ram and mobo cus it didnt let me oc. So I pretty much customized the whole pc and now I want to take it one step forward. I have a closed loop system asetek 510LC and I would like to switch to a custom loop.
so here goes my idea.....

I want to take a heater core radiator and a good water pump (thinking something like an aquarium pump) and do a custom loop.

My first question is do you think I can use the heat sink from the closed loop that I already have or do I have to buy a new one?

cheers

Gandalf

 

[EarthDog]

Heat sink... you block for the CPU? I would say no as that also contains a pump in it. You would want a CPU block without a pump in it.

As far as knowledge goes... check out the beginners guide to get some basics under your belt.

 

[trents]

By "closed loop" do you mean a pre-built, all-in-one ("AIO") unit you bought retail? What make and model? That would answer a lot of our questions.

 

[EarthDog]

By "closed loop" do you mean a pre-built, all-in-one ("AIO") unit you bought retail? What make and model? That would answer a lot of our questions.

...

I have a closed loop system asetek 510LC

 

[trents]

Oops! Missed that.

I suppose you could use the rad but you would have to find hoses and clamps that would fit and maybe fittings. Not sure if those AIO units use fittings that are standard components or if they are proprietary.

 

[EarthDog]

On most (all?) closed loop systems they are not standard barbs.

 

[Diggrr]

I don't see any part of the Asetek system being reusable.
The radiator and the water block are aluminum, and to be honest mixing metals freaks me out...don't do that.
The pump in the water block is too weak to be useful with any decent system, being 2.5 watts .vs the current 18 watts of the Swiftech type pumps, and that would also be way under powerd for a heater-core.

You certainly can use a heater core and fountain pump, honestly that's how the whole water cooling thing got started. My first 4 (at least) systems were exactly that.
There are some decent copper based water blocks out there for not a lot of dough, just make sure your heater core is also Brass/Copper to match the water block base material.

The tubing is nice, I use the black Norprene tubing myself. It keeps the light out, and also doesn't evaporate water from it nearly as much. It's a Tygon Product you can find at Frozencpu.com.
It's not cheap however...