Water cooling

[SplinTAH]

Hi. I am considering water cooling my cpu, but i am on a quite tight budget. I know i need a pump, a water block and some way of cooling the water, but do i need to use a radiator? How else could i cheaply cool the water? any ideas?

y0s

 

[error_911]

there's no other way of going about it - you need a radiator to disipate the heat. You could always go to a scrap-yard and pull one off a car (the heating radiator that is - its small enough) or you could always pick-up some copepr piping and make one yourself - its up to you how much you want to have to mod.

Have you ever stuck your finger in a Vantec Tornado? That's 5700rpm right there - ouch. Today's public service announcement: don't play with plugged-in fans - especially Tornados..heh.

 

[svol]

Yes... wit a low wattage peltier on an aluminium resevoir. But you need additional heatsinks and powersupplies to cool the peltier and power it.

A car heating radiator would be the best option.

My dual-PSU PC is so powerfull that the neighbourhood dimms when I turn it on 😱

 

[SplinTAH]

Any idea where i can get a peltier, i live in the UK by the way. I think i would be able to get a pump, and a water block, the tubing would be no problem. However the peltier might be harder to get hold of. Any ideas?

y0s

 

[svol]

I hope you know what a peltier is before you start with it... it is much more complicated then a radiator. You also need heatsink and maybe even fans to cool the peltier.

But they can be find in some overclocking stores.

My dual-PSU PC is so powerfull that the neighbourhood dimms when I turn it on 😱

 

[SplinTAH]

yes i know what peltiers are.

y0s

 

[svol]

Well if you're going to cool a only CPU that generates 75W heat at full load, and you have a pump that generates 10W... you will need a couple of low wattage peltiers that are atleast 85W combined. Otherwise if you run your system for a long time the water will start to warm up. But you don't want to strong peltiers otherwise your water will get below ambient and you need to insulate all tubes. This will take some calculations and maybe a voltage regulator for the peltiers to make it run smoot IMO.

My dual-PSU PC is so powerfull that the neighbourhood dimms when I turn it on 😱

 

[knowan]

You could use an evaporitive or "bong type" cooler. Put a low flow showerhead inside a long tube. Drill lots of holes in the sides of the tube. Blow a fan or 2 through the holes and let evaporation do its stuff. You could also try a shorter tube stuffed with brillo pads (plastic scrub pads for washing stubborn dishes). The object is to spread out the water as much as possible and to have lots of surface contact with the air.

Bong type watercoolers were popular for a while, but the constant re-filling of the system as the water evaporated plus the dust and other objects which got mixed into the water soon killed them off. They're pretty efficient though, and can actually get you water cooled to a degree or two below ambient temps (the power of evaporation!).

Other options: Use a very large resevoir, hopefully in a metal container. Run a hose from your cold water tap to the waterblock and then out to a drain. Use lots of copper pipes or copper pipes running in front of an air conditioner or through a fridge/freezer. User a water cooler (the type that you see in an office with a big plastic bottle of water on top of it).

Unfortunately, all of these options (with the possible exception of the water cooler) make your computer pretty stationary. You won't be able to move it without great difficulty. I've seen them all done before though, and they all worked. As a matter of fact, Calv used the large resevoir trick and he should be on this forum somewhere. He ran into the problem I just mentioned though, he had to move the computer and had to disassemble his cooling system to do so, then went with an HSF instead of trying to run the water lines up to another floor (his large resevoir was located in the crawlspace beneath his house).

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Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend. Knowan thinks you're great.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

If you dont want a radiator consider a really big bucket or bathtub. go for sheer surface area and volume to dissapate the heat.

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