water cooling systems

[romanstopme]

im thinking of building a pc with a water cooling system. i was looking at GIGABYTE GH-WIU02 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling will this system work with most cases or a specific one. and also is it better if i have an external reservor? or the one like this pump has?

[romanstopme]

or is it beter to stay with a traditional fan system?

[redwudz]

If you have room in the case, an internal reservoir would work fine. Are you having temperature problems with the CPU or other devices? Overclocking? Water cooling has it's advantages, but you do have to keep an eye on it more than a air cooled system.

I would also go to some of the overclocking sites and look for reviews for any liquid cooling system before you commit to one.

[romanstopme]

could you help me out with some of the sites what are they?

[jman98]

http://www.tomshardware.com has some articles about water cooling. As we don't know what your needs are, we don't know if it's necessary or not. If you're not an overclocker, don't particularly have heat problems and it just sounds interesting to you, you might want to pass. Water cooling is really for people who push their systems to edge, usually via overclocking, and normal cooling fans aren't working. It's probably not likely to happen, but I assume there is always some theoretical chance that a water cooling system could either stop working due to some sort of clog or it could leak. If either of those happens, it will be very bad. Worst case would be for a leak, which I'm sure could do significant damage.

[TooLFooL]

water cooling is somewhat of a 'geek-novelty'. water and electronics is obviously the wrong combination.

[rallynavvie]

water cooling is somewhat of a 'geek-novelty'. water and electronics is obviously the wrong combination.

Though completely pure water does not conduct electricity and would never cause harm to sensitive electronics like a motherboard, it's actually the impurities in water that make it conductive :wink:

I think a lot of the coolant mixes out there are non-conductive but they lose this property over time and there is always a risk of contaminants in the coolant that will bridge traces and such. As everyone has already stated there is no need for it unless you're overclocking or you're in an environment where air cooling isn't effective. Even if you overclock your system there will still be some room for it on a good air cooling system, the water cooling and phase change stuff is for a little more extreme measures. I still don't buy into it being a quieter method of cooling. For instance the new Antec 900 has two large fans and one enormous fan and is a very quiet case because of this. There are a lot of savings to be had going the air route leaving you more money to spend on better computer parts. It could be argued that the difference in cost between air cooling and water cooling would be able to afford you a faster processor that would be altogether quicker than the overclocked system anyway

[TBoneit]

I'll agree that Distilled water is non conductive however I still feel water and electronics are a bad idea. Suppose your Distilled water does leak into the computer. The dust and such in there will make it conductive and of course water and oxygen = corosion.

I seem to rememer hearing when I was school years ago that the Tektronics scopes were sometimes cleaned in a liquid solution using ultrasonics.

Just get a faster CPU with the cost of the water cooling and be more stable in operation.

[RickA]

Greets,

I do not subscribe to the water cooling is a 'geek-novelty' concept at all. That is kinda like saying that only a true 'driving enthusiast' could ever appreciate a spin in a fine Porsche or Ferrari. Computer buffs and gadgets go hand in hand, why fight it?

Water cooling is a very viable solution to cooling for computers. Have used them for about 6 years now and never had a worry. Started out with an all-inclusive box kit and been building my own ever since. I prefer a system with the radiatior outside of the case. That way you are removing a heat source from within the case and making things that much cooler inside it. You are also not venting heated case air through the radiator. Or you are not expelling heated air from the radiator into the case if setup to draw outside air through it. If the radiator is external then you are drawing cooler room air through it.

I also prefer the reserviour being outside the case for the same reasons. You do not have the heat from within the case warming the fluid in the reserviour. Depending on your setup with a little bit of tubing you can put the pump, cooling radiator and fans 5 or so feet away so that you do not hear them.

Just be smart when you put it together. Take your time to do it right and you should not have to worry about leaks. It is a closed system so you do not have to worry much about water loss. Does not take that much effort to look at the reserviour level every now and then. People who fear or allow it to go dry are probably ones who never ever check the air in their tires or oil in their engine and solely rely on the idiot light in their dashboard to let them know something may be wrong. Sure hope they are smart enough to keep track of the fuel gauge.

The only real downside to water cooling is that if you have an internal setup it could make your case slightly heavier when you move it. External, it may make things a little more cumbersome if you carry your rig to LAN parties alot. I prefer a nice waterblock against my cpu to one of the massive and heavy heatsink / fan combo's that seem the rage these days.

I suggest not going with a super small, compact setup. The cooling potential is just not as great as with a somewhat larger system. You are looking into this for more cooling power, so why restrict yourself from the start? When you see a setup you like start Google-ing reviews on it to make sure it is not just looks you are getting. That the thing actually can cool enough to be worth the money, time and effort you are putting into this. Feel free to PM if you would like more help.

A Google search of 'computer water cooling' will yield you gobs of info. From entry level, to DIY, to the hard core peltier setups. This site can help get you started with info http://www.overclockers.com/topiclist/index31.asp . Good luck on your project.

Cheers,
Rick

[redwudz]

My worry with any liquid cooled system is the thermal shock of any cooled liquid leak landing on a hot electronic component and causing it to fail. Which liquid used isn't really the problem.

Liquid cooled systems can be very dependable and efficient, but maybe not yet for the novice or someone without a special cooling requirement. The newer heatpipe sealed systems seem a very good compromise with many of the advantages of circulated liquid cooling, but no maintenance and less risk of failure. Even with a liquid cooled system, most times you are still using air cooling at the radiator or at other points in the system.

[rallynavvie]

Another thing to consider is that the recent crop of processors run much cooler than a lot of the old, "fatter" chips. Even the monolithic heatpipe coolers that are being touted as the next best thing are a tad overkill. Only a few of the really high-end chips are still putting out enough heat to really warrant anything large or complex.

Besides, everyone knows only phase change cooling is the way to go for extreme systems 8)

[romanstopme]

thanks alot for the advice im still not to shure about every thing. i was looking at the link that RickA gave and i like the water cooling systems that have the cd rom base unit. but im not shure do i have to buy an extra part to cool a graphics card or just use a reguler fan to cool it. im thinnking about having my pc run 24/7 and some times my house gets hot so my pc temp goes up really bad cuz i dont have ac. im thinking of getting an full atx case witch will have room for every thing. im not shure about the mother board yet sugestions are welcome . im thinking of getting a GeForce 8800GTS Video Card maybe possibly even two. i dont know about the proccesor im thining of getting a quad core or doul core. so please sugest something. i dont want to buy alot of crap and then regret so here i am at my fav site asking questions. i will mostly use my pc for large video projects like filming my schools whole football season and my curent pc canot handel HD video

[redwudz]

If you plan to run dual SLI you will need a large power supply and a lot of cooling. Those cards really use the power and generate a lot of heat. Unless you are planning on gaming with that computer, that kind of video setup is major overkill just for editing or viewing.

Invest in a quad core, lots of models available. I prefer Gigabyte motherboards myself. At least three hard drives, keep the boot drive separate. SATA recommended. 7200RPM drives are sufficient for most purposes. The faster drives may not operate any faster, depending on the speed of your drive controller.

Water cooling is still more of a add on for overclocked systems, but may be worth looking into.

[romanstopme]

i was looking at GIGABYTE GA-X48-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard and if im going to use a water cooling system do i have to remove the cooling coper pipe that goes to the north bridge in order to use water cooling ststem? or i just dont use the water cooling system for the north bridge and just use the reguler coper pipes?

[TBoneit]

I'm not sure with Gigabyte what they do however I know with some models of Asus they give a seperate fan that clips onto the heatsink for the northbridge for use with water cooling only.

To put it another way they have a fan that clips on for cooling the northbridge chips heatsink that is only used when water cooling. When noy watercooling the air from the CPU heatsink also blows through the Northbridge chipset so that the extra fan isn't needed.

Do not remove the heatpipe from the northbridge or your motherboard will have a very short life as well as voiding the warranty.

From the Desription for a ASUS P5K motherboard as an example "
Fanless Design - Heat Pipe Zero failure
Support side-flow fan or passive cooler
The Heat Pipe design effectively directs the heat generated by the chipsets to the heatsink near the back IO ports, where it can be carried away by existing airflow from CPU fan or bundled optional fan. The purpose of the innovative heat pipe design on this motherboard is that the groundbreaking fanless design does not have lifetime problems as a chipset fan does. Furthermore, it provides options for users to install side-flow fan or passive cooler. The Heat Pipe design is the most reliable fanless thermal solution to date."

Note the part that says "bundled optional fan" This is the fan needed for water cooled systems. So if you are thinking water cooled make sure you can get a fan designed for your Northbridge or else a water cooled pad that can be applied to the Northbridge keeping in mind that removing the factory Hestsink assmebly will most likely void yoyr warranty.

Good Luck

[jollyjohn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8shVDvMdo4&feature=related

[KBeee]

Some Gigabyte motherboards (X38 DS5 for instance) rely on the "spillage" of air from the CPU cooling fan to cool the northbridge/southbridge heatpipes. The heatpipe cooling fins are arranged around the CPU for this purpose. Replacing the HSF from the CPU with a waterblock can make the surrounding chips run hotter, unless you replace the heatpipes with additional waterblocks, or fit a large slow-running fan to blow cool air across the heatpipe fins.

[fatbloke88]

Some of the asus boards(blitz formula etc) have heatpipes fitted to the northbridge but the block also has the facility to attach pipes for watercooling making cooling it very easy and neat as well.I went this route with my pc and a zalaman passively cooled rad because i got fed up with my pc sounding like a low flying jet, its probably not the most efficient set up but it makes less noise than my laptop and will run flat out 24/7 without any problems.

[TBoneit]

Sad to say yesterday Dell had a Q6600, 500Gb HDD, 2Gb Memory and a 20" flat panel for $699. I don't think I could build it that cheap. Cost to build equivelent. Mobo, CPU, Case, Memory, HDD, Optical drive, Windows license, 20" display. Full size case. $50 gift card too.

I've seen these and tested them under a encoding load. I had to batch the encoding as all I had was a short 20 Minute clip to test with so it would run for a couple of hours as the computer was fast. It stayed very quiet. The case stayed cool to the touch. Oh yes it had PCIe 1X and PCIe 16x slot as well as 2 regular PCI slots and two empty memory slots, room for another optical drive, a floppy drive and another HDD, all SATA only. My only quibble with it was the brightness of the blue power light.

Right Now I'm thinking I should have jumped on that 530 Dell and used it as a spare. Unfortunately I hesitated and yesterday was thelast day. However with Dell I'm sure there will be another limited time bargain.