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View Full Version : Experiences from water cooler rigs?


Dennik
05-17-2004, 07:52 PM
I was thinking lately about buying or building a water cooler rig for my pc. I have so many fans inside that have caused me a permanent high pitch noise inside my ears. I just want to have a quiet workstation for once in my life. Its not much about the heat, or any intentions for overclocking my p4. No... Basically its about the noise.
So if anyone has such a cooling rig, please let me know what you think about it. Could i also do something about the power supply?
Are there any risks of leakage? Is there a way to permanently glue the pipes connected with the water blocks that are close to the motherboard, just to make sure? And anyway is it worth the purchace?

mayakindaguy
05-17-2004, 09:09 PM
but Well, watercooling is always risky business and it may not be the cheapest solution for what your intent is. The best and most cost effective solution for a water rig is to buy certain premade parts and customize the others. You will still have to leak check the thing and make sure not to buy cheap parts like plastic water blocks. Make sure to have a copper covering. There was an individual on another site that had their water block crack and burst and fortunately he pulled the plug in time to prevent serious damage and injury. So this is deifnitely serious business and you really should know what you're doing. For a silent solution Zalman sells their Reserator which is supposed to great for what its design is for, Being quiet. However, it does not cool as well as a true and self assembled system. But it is easy to use, but is expensive, I believe in the $300 range. If you're really interested in watercooling check Hardforum.com or overclockers.com for more info. If money's not an option there's always vapochill :D but if you're going to put out that sort of cash you probably want to overclock.

Just wondering, what kind of rig and fans are you using. I have some coolermaster case fans and a Zalman7000Al/Cu for the heatsink fan and my rig is pretty darn quiet. Admitedly there is a slight sound that sounds like blowing, but it is rather soft and I could even sleep easily through the sound. Don't know if it's that I'm not sensative to it or it really is that quiet, but I'm happy with it. That's 5 coolermaster case fans/ 2 psu fans/hsf. If you don't currently have the Zalman7000Al/Cu I suggest checking that out before water since you're not overclocking. It's a small investment of 30-40 dollars, but if you get the itch for performance and have some time for a project then by all means water water water. Just remember to buy the good stuff and research research research.

Hope that helped a bit.

BrainFaucet
05-17-2004, 09:14 PM
I've met a couple people who had their setups leak and ruin their machines... I too would love a silent machine (I have have one of those hair dryer videocards and four hard drives... with fans.)

But I'm a bit scared of using water in my workstation... I literally can't aford for it to die right now.

My suggestion would be to hold off on the water route until it's not just done by the super enthusiast and leaks are all but unheard of.

Here's a couple non-water quiet PC articles I found VIA google.
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-118-1.htm
http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=66&page=922
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=silentpc3&page=1&cookie%5Ftest=1

jsa2001
05-18-2004, 07:04 AM
All my computers are watercooled, i only have had one leak which was my fault for not putting a tie rap on the tubing connected to the radiator. I just dryed out the parts, since the water i used was distilled i was ok with no broken components. One or two people i know have used pure vodka in the system, although i have never tried it.

In my opinion you won't have any problems providing you install the setup correctly, you just set up the closed loop system if thats what you are going to use out side the pc before installation and run it over night just to check for leaks. If all is ok install it into you're computer.

They're easy to set up, you dont need to glue anything as you tighten the nuts on the waterblocks they seal up, also the pump has its own plug for the mains so no need to worry about the psu.

Is it worth the purchase, yes! in my opinion if you want a slightly better cooled machine with much reduced noise. Bare in mind you will maybe still have noise that comes from the psu but it still beats 9 or so fans blasting away.

splintah
05-18-2004, 12:58 PM
the next thing i am gonna buy if i got money is a watercooling solution

i guess here in europe austria/germany we have different stuff

but a good choice is to take those tube connectors
http://www.watercoolplanet.de/gfx/kuehlergalerie3/kuehler-23-1.jpg

because they won´t leak
you need pvc tube for those

pump: get an eheim 1046
powerful and quiet

radiator take a tripple one and run it passively
or with papst (i hope you got them) at 5V
thats inaudible
www.rrcooler.com "275 big block" is pretty good and cheap


northbridge, GPU, PSU and HDD can be watercooled too

stephen2002
05-18-2004, 01:13 PM
You can make a pretty quiet system with air cooling if you go for the right fans and heat sinks.

Take a look here for more details:
http://www.quietpc.com/

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