- Oct 20, 2006
- 1,248
- 0
- 19,310
I had finally built a game machine that I think will last for many years, a machine that could still be upgraded in the future.
The only thing I could see that needed improvement was the cooling solution for my 8800 GTX SLI cards because the stock solution is not adequate. There were times that they would hit 89C while playing games, I don’t think that speaks well for longevity. So I started looking for a solution and came to the conclusion that air was not going to work. I had notice that BFG had water cooled cards that they were selling and knew that it wouldn’t be long before others would start manufacturing similar blocks to replace air coolers. In March Tom’s Hardware had and article “A Beginner's Guide for Water Cooling Your PC” which featured the EXOS-2 external water cooling system and I was impressed by it. I then went to Koolance’s site to see what they had and found they also had a full coverage GPU block for 8800 GTX and it would be available on April 6. So I built an order on their site and patiently waited for the blocks to become available.
I mentioned this on one of the forums on Tom’s Hardware and had a bunch of people tell me how Koolance’s produces were nothing more than over priced toy’s made with crappie material. Well, from what I read on Koolance’s site, I didn’t believe that could be true and when the blocks became available on April 4 I ordered everything from them and again waited patiently six days as it was shipped to me. I thought that the price I paid was reasonable (563.37 + 20.09 shipping) even with the extra parts I ordered to make the external unit detachable, in case I had to make changes to the internal cooling. It all arrived on April 10 nicely packaged, I open it to find everything I ordered and everything looked fine.
I took my time installing the system and thought to my self, that you would have to be a moron to put this water cooling system in your machine and have a leak.
After I installed everything I added the liquid with no problem and ran the pump until all the bubbles were gone.
Now came the moment of true will it really do the job I bought it for. I turned on the machine and about a minute into the boot up on the display there was a message “no video signal”, I thought it must be a driver problem but after 10 minutes of trouble shooting I came to the conclusion that I must have installed the GPU coolers wrong. I was glad I made the external unit detachable and with the 2 extra female shut off vales it was easy to drain the internal loop.
( This problem Has been fixed by Koolance the third one I bought for my triple SLI worked perfectly)
What I found when I took off the first block was unbelievable the surface of the block was not even touching the GPU, there was no thermal grease on it from the GPU and this was true of the other block.
I called Koolance’s tech support and they told me to request and RMA which I did only to find out it would be 24 to 48 hours to get a number so I could ship them back at my own cost. I called them back and asked why, they said it was just a disclaimer but here it is almost 24 hour’s later and I still don’t have a number. I also ask what if the ones they send are bad also will I be left without a gaming machine for weeks on end, answer you can always put the stock coolers on. Really? I think he should’ve thought about that answer a little longer. I sent this part of my review to their support in an email and about 10 minutes later I had a RMA number. I sent off the two water blocks Fed-X next day Friday morning delivery which cost me $64, I know it’s a lot, but if I hadn’t done it that way, it would mean I’d have to wait 2 or 3 weeks in stead of a week.
Friday when I got home from my part time job and checked the Fed-X web site I saw they delivered my GPU water blocks to Koolance at 9am west coast time. I waited until the after noon and called them at 2:30pm there time 4:30 my time and they said they would get them out today. I expected them to ship them back to me at least two day shipping but when I checked with them the following week on Tuesday I found out they shipped them ground and I wouldn’t get them until Thursday. Their customer service is not very good for a mistake they made in their manufacturing; I guess they just don’t really want people buying their stuff.
That gave me plenty of time to dress the wiring inside the system better and I also made the external water tubes longer and refilled the unit. I wanted to mount the EXOS-2 away from the system because case was not made to have anything sitting on top of it. Also I replace the double spaced L-bracket on the GTX cards with a single spaced bracket.
At 2:45 pm the UPS truck pulled up with my coolers and I was ready to install them only to find out I had the same problem. So I immediately called Koolance tech support and this time they told me that the tolerances of the board’s between manufactures was not as tight as it should be so they worked with some boards and not with others. They said they contacted NVIDIA about it but hadn’t hard back from them yet. They said I should grind 1mm off the four stand off’s around the GPU and that would fix the problem. I did as they suggested and installed them and they worked amazingly well, they dropped my idle temps from 70C down to 45C, Serious Sam 2 from a game high 89C down to 69C, none of the games get above what I idled at before. I think a better way for them to fix the problem , rather then have the customer grind down the stand offs, send different size stand offs with the cooling blocks.
Remember if you do this to keep all the parts you take off the graphics in case they should go bad because if your using a card made by EVGA as I am they want it back the way you got it.
Over all I like Koolance’s system, I like the looks of it, the easy of the way it goes together, and I especially like the hose connectors because they make it virtually impossible to have a leak unless you do something really stupid.
The only thing I could see that needed improvement was the cooling solution for my 8800 GTX SLI cards because the stock solution is not adequate. There were times that they would hit 89C while playing games, I don’t think that speaks well for longevity. So I started looking for a solution and came to the conclusion that air was not going to work. I had notice that BFG had water cooled cards that they were selling and knew that it wouldn’t be long before others would start manufacturing similar blocks to replace air coolers. In March Tom’s Hardware had and article “A Beginner's Guide for Water Cooling Your PC” which featured the EXOS-2 external water cooling system and I was impressed by it. I then went to Koolance’s site to see what they had and found they also had a full coverage GPU block for 8800 GTX and it would be available on April 6. So I built an order on their site and patiently waited for the blocks to become available.
I mentioned this on one of the forums on Tom’s Hardware and had a bunch of people tell me how Koolance’s produces were nothing more than over priced toy’s made with crappie material. Well, from what I read on Koolance’s site, I didn’t believe that could be true and when the blocks became available on April 4 I ordered everything from them and again waited patiently six days as it was shipped to me. I thought that the price I paid was reasonable (563.37 + 20.09 shipping) even with the extra parts I ordered to make the external unit detachable, in case I had to make changes to the internal cooling. It all arrived on April 10 nicely packaged, I open it to find everything I ordered and everything looked fine.
I took my time installing the system and thought to my self, that you would have to be a moron to put this water cooling system in your machine and have a leak.
After I installed everything I added the liquid with no problem and ran the pump until all the bubbles were gone.
Now came the moment of true will it really do the job I bought it for. I turned on the machine and about a minute into the boot up on the display there was a message “no video signal”, I thought it must be a driver problem but after 10 minutes of trouble shooting I came to the conclusion that I must have installed the GPU coolers wrong. I was glad I made the external unit detachable and with the 2 extra female shut off vales it was easy to drain the internal loop.
( This problem Has been fixed by Koolance the third one I bought for my triple SLI worked perfectly)
What I found when I took off the first block was unbelievable the surface of the block was not even touching the GPU, there was no thermal grease on it from the GPU and this was true of the other block.
I called Koolance’s tech support and they told me to request and RMA which I did only to find out it would be 24 to 48 hours to get a number so I could ship them back at my own cost. I called them back and asked why, they said it was just a disclaimer but here it is almost 24 hour’s later and I still don’t have a number. I also ask what if the ones they send are bad also will I be left without a gaming machine for weeks on end, answer you can always put the stock coolers on. Really? I think he should’ve thought about that answer a little longer. I sent this part of my review to their support in an email and about 10 minutes later I had a RMA number. I sent off the two water blocks Fed-X next day Friday morning delivery which cost me $64, I know it’s a lot, but if I hadn’t done it that way, it would mean I’d have to wait 2 or 3 weeks in stead of a week.
Friday when I got home from my part time job and checked the Fed-X web site I saw they delivered my GPU water blocks to Koolance at 9am west coast time. I waited until the after noon and called them at 2:30pm there time 4:30 my time and they said they would get them out today. I expected them to ship them back to me at least two day shipping but when I checked with them the following week on Tuesday I found out they shipped them ground and I wouldn’t get them until Thursday. Their customer service is not very good for a mistake they made in their manufacturing; I guess they just don’t really want people buying their stuff.
That gave me plenty of time to dress the wiring inside the system better and I also made the external water tubes longer and refilled the unit. I wanted to mount the EXOS-2 away from the system because case was not made to have anything sitting on top of it. Also I replace the double spaced L-bracket on the GTX cards with a single spaced bracket.
At 2:45 pm the UPS truck pulled up with my coolers and I was ready to install them only to find out I had the same problem. So I immediately called Koolance tech support and this time they told me that the tolerances of the board’s between manufactures was not as tight as it should be so they worked with some boards and not with others. They said they contacted NVIDIA about it but hadn’t hard back from them yet. They said I should grind 1mm off the four stand off’s around the GPU and that would fix the problem. I did as they suggested and installed them and they worked amazingly well, they dropped my idle temps from 70C down to 45C, Serious Sam 2 from a game high 89C down to 69C, none of the games get above what I idled at before. I think a better way for them to fix the problem , rather then have the customer grind down the stand offs, send different size stand offs with the cooling blocks.
Remember if you do this to keep all the parts you take off the graphics in case they should go bad because if your using a card made by EVGA as I am they want it back the way you got it.
Over all I like Koolance’s system, I like the looks of it, the easy of the way it goes together, and I especially like the hose connectors because they make it virtually impossible to have a leak unless you do something really stupid.
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