[dostov]

Hi everybody!

I'm transfering this worklog from Abit Forums to here as there is rumors saying that they will pull the plug there soon and I don't want to lose this. Also, as my projects always fall between the cracks, I didn't know in which section to post it, so I decided here would be okay. So here goes:

January 28th 2008

During December 2007 holiday season, a stupidly big watercooling idea crossed my mind. A part of this project made it to the building and it's now up and running, so I thought I'd put up a worklog in case someone's interested in the DIY part.

I took the nearly new radiator (4 months old) out of my newly deceased Nissan Sentra '89 (which served me well for over 2 years), cleaned it thoroughly and installed it in the basement just below where my PC stands. As you can see in the pictures, I first had to drill holes in my Armor Jr. cause there were none.



I did that using a 1" Bi-Metal hole-saw and finished it with a dremel to smooth out the edges. Then I applied some channel molding to give it a clean look. I routed the tubing trough the wall (through the plate that's still not screwed)...



...and through the floor to the basement where the radiator is.



I had to build a wooden frame around it to hang it to the wall.



Hot water enters at the top (from the reservoir) and exits at the bottom where the Via Aqua 1300 120v AC pump shoots it back upstairs (to the blocks). Most of the work is done by gravity is such a system so the pump doesn't have to be bigger that it would if it was in the PC like in a common configuration.

Best thing with this project is the fact that the sheer size of the radiator allows me to use it without fans. Further more, the pump being in another room removes additional noise so the system is totally silent from my office.

[dostov]

March 23rd 2008

Here are the latest news about my stupidly big watercooling project:

In an attempt to maximize cooling efficiency, I installed an old kitchen fan on which I stumbled while cleaning the mess in the basement. Although the radiator was providing me with more than adequate passive cooling, I wanted to have the possibility to put the system in turbo mode for gaming.



As you can see in the pics, this is no small fan. It's 10 inches in diameter and pushes an awful lot of air. I connected both the pump and fan to a power outlet that I control from my office to shut the fan down when I'm not gaming. I can also turn off the pump the rare times I shut down the PC.





Here's a detail from Speedfan showing a 13 minutes run at the middle of which I turn the fan on.



Idle CPU temps goes from 38 to less than 27. Under load, it's even better as temps goes from more than 50 to less than 30 at all times including GPU. This will be especially useful trying to push my video card a bit further.

[dostov]

October 16th 2008

Alright, so the old kitchen fan was unbearably loud! No matter it was dumped in the basement junk in the first place!

The Via Aqua 1300 was also not all that quiet either and was consuming some 28w which is a lot for a pump that small.

So I replaced the fan by a bigger, quieter fan that was given to me. It blows more air to a wider surface so the temps are now much better when it's used. Also I can adjust the speed on it so it's much better for the changing seasons and the cooling I need depending of the temperature at a specific time of year. I replaced the Via Aqua 1300 with an Eheim 1048. It is also a 120v AC pump but consumes only 10w while being dead quiet! Even though it consumes nearly one third of the power the Via Aqua consumed, it still pushes 600L/min @1.50m head (compared to 1300L/min) which is more than enough for my setup. I also feel I can trust it much more with my PC. Eheim have a good reputation and the construction and operation of this pump makes me realize why!



I still use the fan only when gaming or benching, the rest of the time it's passive and it works great!

[.aT]

[TUBBYTUBB]

Sweet project man if I can ever get all the bugs worked out of my rig I may try to do a watercooling setup similiar to that.

THOMAS

[pgcrooks]

Very nice! What temps did you get by using the bigger fan?

[dostov]

Thanks guys! I'll update this worklog with further developments in the the future.

Very nice! What temps did you get by using the bigger fan?

Right now it is set up at it's lowest speed to prevent noise as much as possible, but my CPU @3.0Ghz never go pass 37 Celsius under consistent full load. My GPU reaches 40 C because it is last on the loop. This is because the room the radiator is in, is very hot in winter (26-27 C) as it is the furnace room. It gets better in summer!

Note that the temperatures I got with the smaller fan were on an Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition which dissipates much less heat than the Phenom 9850 I'm currently running.

I guess I could get lower temps by putting the fan at high and with some other small tweaks, but noise is more important to me than temperatures for everyday use.

Cheers!