The point of water cooling!?

[beavereater]

I know we all want to keep good temps for our PC, but is using special devices such as water cooling really necessary!? Isn't the fan that comes with your CPU or case enough?? I don't know because I have never had anything fry on me, nor do I know anyone thats had anything fried on them. What I do know IS that if you have a window into your PC, it does look cool, and its always nice to be able to say "My PC is water cooled"

[BJ_M]

for extreme overclocking -- water cooling is a good thing ..

[indolikaa]

Water cooling is for extreme overclockers, or geeks who are insecure in their nerdiness and need to express themselves in a way that overcomes this issue.


I never water-cooled. I peltier'd. Much more dangerous, which makes it that much more fun.

[BobV]

Water cooling is for extreme overclockers, or geeks who are insecure in their nerdiness and need to express themselves in a way that overcomes this issue.

Sounds a little like they're overcompensating for somthing like a very small hard drive.

[holistic]

for extreme overclocking -- water cooling is a good thing ..

Not always the case good sir.
If done incorrectly it may increase temperatures.

The idea of cooling something is NOT to cool it per se, BUT to remove heat from it.
Items are made physically cooler by REMOVING heat
There have been some systems I have seen where the evaporator (radiator) was inside the case. Absolutely retarded.

My system has 3 adda 80mm case fans, 2 fan ANTEC P/S and a Volcano 9 CPU H/S fan. With 2 fans pulling in external air and 1 80mm + the P/S fan extracting, I manage to maintain internal case temperatures of about 5 degrees C above ambiant (usually 25 degrees in case) . This is important, as a hotter case will just add to the overall effort the CPU H/S and fan combo must exert to remove heat from the CPU.

The point of water cooling!? in my case would be to obtain a quieter system for a given FSB/voltage/multi setting.

Intresting read
http://www.procooling.com/articles/html/cooling_technologies_explained.php

[indolikaa]

@BobV

Good one!

@holistic

Radiator inside the case? Not going to raise the nerd status, would it?

Interesting reading...

[holistic]

Radiator inside the case? Not going to raise the nerd status, would it?

The pink hose may though.
http://www.dangerden.com/images/Cases/VexxWC/IMG_0026.JPG

[indolikaa]

With a UV cathode, that just might be tolerable. Maybe.

It depends on how many Zima bottles were in the equation...

[BJ_M]

for extreme overclocking -- water cooling is a good thing ..

Not always the case good sir.
If done incorrectly it may increase temperatures.

The idea of cooling something is NOT to cool it per se, BUT to remove heat from it.
Items are made physically cooler by REMOVING heat
There have been some systems I have seen where the evaporator (radiator) was inside the case. Absolutely retarded.

My system has 3 adda 80mm case fans, 2 fan ANTEC P/S and a Volcano 9 CPU H/S fan. With 2 fans pulling in external air and 1 80mm + the P/S fan extracting, I manage to maintain internal case temperatures of about 5 degrees C above ambiant (usually 25 degrees in case) . This is important, as a hotter case will just add to the overall effort the CPU H/S and fan combo must exert to remove heat from the CPU.

The point of water cooling!? in my case would be to obtain a quieter system for a given FSB/voltage/multi setting.

Intresting read
http://www.procooling.com/articles/html/cooling_technologies_explained.php

i was being simplistic .... for more indepth you can also go to another site im moderator on (of several) at 3dgameman.com

also -- if all things being equal and if rad was inside case with same amount of exhaust as an air cooled system only .. and the same amount of heat was produced in both cases .. how would water cooling raise any temp of the cpu ?

inside the case would be warmer because you are moving a larger amount of heat away at a faster speed .. but not the component cooled by the blocks...

though -- true,,, putting a rad inside doesnt seem like a good idea on a number of of fronts -- but im just pointing out the physics of it ..

[BJ_M]

also -- i dont do it myself ... except to test and play around with the stuff couple of days at a time max at home ..

[hhhhbk]

its a nice toy but the idea of mixing water with electricity is stupid
the tiniest leak and you wreck your system

far better idea to buy expensive fan/fans
you can still over clock with them
water cooling doesnt reduce temperature much more than decent fans
although it looks good it is not cheap, clutters the case and is time consuming to empty and fill every time you take your tower somewhere

[indolikaa]

its a nice toy but the idea of mixing water with electricity is stupid

Now what kind of a post is this?!

When you say something like this, you take all the fun out of modding a computer.

It's no worse that putting a peltier in and having ice crystals form on the area around the processor. What's a hobby with no challenge?

[rallynavvie]

Technically water is not conductive, it is the impurities in water that are.

[Cobra]

Water cooling is quieter and much less prone to temperature fluctuations due to the high specific heat capacity of water. Personally, I would love to have water cooling.

However, I would build my own as opposed to buying an overpriced kit that uses plastic tubing and seals in the case. I'd use insulated copper pipes, with solder joints all round. Just like house plumbing, very unlikely to leak when made well. And anyway, it's more fun to build your own, to your exacting specifications. Hell, why not couple it with a Peltier cooler on the outside, chill the water right down to 1 or 2 deg C, using a thermostat to stop it freezing?

Now - if you'll pardon the pun - that's cool. 8)

Cobra

[adam]

Ever read that forum post where the guy just sealed the case to make it water tight and then filled it up with water and then blamed the guys in the forum for not explaining it properly?

If I ever wanted to water cool it would just be to make a near perfectly quiet system. My pc is very loud.

[Cobra]

the guy just sealed the case to make it water tight and then filled it up with water

That's almost as bad as what I was reading in CustomPC about a German company who had a PC returned to them... Filled with potatoes. They replaced it for the customer, but he came back in later and demanded a full refund, as his PC was broken again, being packed full of potatoes. The police were involved and he was sent away, complete with his expensive potato oven.

Reason? Who knows.

CObra

[Capmaster]

It's no worse that putting a peltier in and having ice crystals form on the area around the processor. What's a hobby with no challenge?

I never had much luck with those because the thermocouples are so inefficient. They need the hoover dam to run them. The damn thing generates its own heat and has to remove it plus the proc. heat. And they're expensive as hell. They are kinda cool though.

[Craig Tucker]

its a nice toy but the idea of mixing water with electricity is stupid

You better throw away your kettle then

[Cobra]

It's a deathtrap!





Cobra

[indolikaa]

Somebody save the fish! AAUUGGHH!!

[adam]

Hmm, an aquarium might make a cool pc case. You could put fish in there and everything. I think I've seen a modded case with a very small aquarium inside before. But like has already been said, only geeks do this kinda stuff.

[hhhhbk]

-----edit-----
have put the watercooling gallery on my free webspace at ntl

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wynfordjones/page1/index.html

im pretty sure i can setup a poll
so everyone can vote on the best looking system
in the near future

i would like to have it but
(1) its not cheap
(2)my case doesnt have a window and to me its main benefit would be how pretty it looks
(3)i move my tower around a lot back and forth to university and lan party etc so its not really practical as filling emptying bleeding leak testing it a couple of times a month would be very time consuming
also with the amount i move it around there is a good chance the tubing would come loose and the system would flood so for me electricity and water [in this way]is not a good idea

want to stick it on my next tower if i build one which is going to sit in the same place for a long time

[hhhhbk]

-----edit-----
have put the watercooling gallery on my free webspace at ntl

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wynfordjones/page1/index.html

im pretty sure i can setup a poll
so everyone can vote on the best looking system
in the near future

[zanos]

the whole purchase of water cooling is because it's quiet unlike fans. It keeps your computer cooler but is completely unnecessary.

[Cobra]

It keeps your computer cooler but is completely unnecessary.

A bit of a contradiction there!

Cobra

[hhhhbk]

-----edit-----
have put the watercooling gallery on my free webspace at ntl

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wynfordjones/page1/index.html

im pretty sure i can setup a poll
so everyone can vote on the best looking system
in the near future

[Craig Tucker]

Looks like its the next days bandwidth

[hhhhbk]

-----edit-----
have put the watercooling gallery on my free webspace at ntl

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wynfordjones/page1/index.html

im pretty sure i can setup a poll
so everyone can vote on the best looking system
in the near future

[flaninacupboard]

how about a series of PC's warming up the water for a tropical fish tank? that'd be quite smart. how warm is a tropical tank, any ideas?

[Cobra]

I think it was about 24-25 deg C.

Cobra