How do I go from water cooling back to fans?

[guitarama101]

Hey all,

About two years ago, I bought a liquid cooled PC from Cyber Power. I admit, I did this because I'd always heard about liquid cooling and was drawn to it because I thought it was "better". The last few years have been awesome, but I recently reached a point where a game has officially decided it doesn't want to play well on my machine (Battlefield 4). So I thought "Alrighty, time for an upgrade!".

This is kind of ridiculous, but I'd never really looked inside my tower aside from an occasional glance, so I was surprised to see recently that the liquid cooling system is connected to my CPU (i5-2500k @ 3.30 ghz) and GPU (EVGA GTX 580). Basically, I have no clue how to upgrade this thing because I never built it for myself. On top of that, I looked up liquid cooling GPUs and aside from there not being many that I could find, the ones I could (EVGA Hydro Copper series) are way more expensive than the fan cooled cards of the same number.

My question is this: Can I take out the liquid cooling system completely, and replace it with fans? My plan would be to replace my GPU with a fan cooled 770, get a fan cooler for my current CPU and rip out the whole cooling loop. Is that possible? Basically, I don't want the hassle/extra parts cost for maintaining a liquid cooled system, but I don't want to get a whole new rig either, if I can help it.

I really appreciate any answers to this, and if you guys need any pictures or more information about my rig, ask and you shall receive.

Rowan

PS. I thought my computer would be able to handle BF4, but I can't get it to run at 30 fps on even the lowest settings. Does that seem weird, or do I just probably need a new GPU?

PPS. Since someone might suggest it: I actually can't overclock this card when I play BF4 or Direct3D crashes immediately. Supposedly some bug that BF3 suffered as well, which sucks, as it makes my ability to overclock because of the liquid cooling completely useless with this game.

 

[ConfigZero]

It is very possible. you take the whole water loop out (would definitly recomend watching videos on how to do this), then buy a CPU fan I would recomoned a coolermaster 212 hyper evo its a very cost effective CPU cooler. Make sure that your case has clearance for it first. you will also need to buy thermal paste to install the 212 evo over. once again, watch a video on how to replace a cpu cooler, because it works pretty much the same way that a water cooler works. this involves removing old thermal paste and replacing it with new. over all, its not that hard of a process until you get to the graphics card. With this, you will have to remove your graphics card from the system. then take the water cooling block off of of it. then you will have to buy a fan cooling system that is compatible with the gtx 580, like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118094. to install it, its similar to the CPU, so you will be able to use the thermal compound that you use with the CPU. Would definitely watch a YouTube on how to install thermal compound properly on the CPU and GPU. Watch another video(YES MORE) on how to install the GPU cooler properly as well. DO NOT TURN ON THE COMPUTER WHEN ANY OF THE COOLERS ARE REMOVED. this will cause the cpu/gpu to overheat, and would cause major damage to them.
TL;DR You can move back to fans from water cooling

 

[Meoricin]

TBH, if you've already got most of a loop going, and it keeps your PC cool up until now - it'd be worth reading the sticky thread on watercooling (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky), and consider keeping the loop.

Removing all of the watercooling would be simple, but feels like it'd be a waste to downgrade your cooling potential when you're otherwise upgrading. If you can get your head around the watercooling sticky, you'll be able to get a much better picture of what you're looking at component wise.

You don't need to buy a GPU with a waterblock already installed, for example - you usually buy a reference design card, remove the air cooler that comes on it as standard, and fit the waterblock yourself. This does mean you have some extra expenditure over the standard card, but it's not a massive increase like buying one with a manufacturer fitted waterblock is.

Another option for you could be to simply remove the GPU, and leave just the CPU watercooled. The new GPU you could leave on air. This would have the benefit of you not needing to really learn about watercooling beyond how to drain and fill a loop, and you'd only need to buy one length of tubing to bridge the gap between CPU and wherever the GPU went to.