Watercooling!

[Greebe]

The prices being charged for waterjackets are insane and the biggest reason I made my own

[Technoid]

Well know I only wonder if I should test it on my athlon....
I really want to test a MSI 745 ultra and it is not compatible with the Alpha, so I had hoped that the watercooler would atleast be comparable because it does fit
Or mayby I should wait for the MSI 746 Ultra and hope that it is compatible

[Technoid]

Found a copper Waterblock thats only 35$ the coolance cpu-100, its within my budget....

[Ali]

Now I might be in the wrong thread, but yesterday I was reading around here and someone (Greebe?) said that the water flow should go: Pump, Radiator, water block. Ive found in my system that going pump, water block, radiator is quite a bit better.

The reasons (I think) are two fold.

First, the water comming from the pump goes straight into the waterblock above the CPU slug, thus you are getting the fastest flow there.

Next, a radiator will cool a hot fluid to a warm fluid better than it will cool a warm fluid to a cool fluid. The higher the temperature differential between your 'hot side' and 'cool side' the better.

In my system the water comming out of the radiator is flowing much slower than the water comming out of the pump. This suggests that the waterblock/pipes etc are slowing down the flow noticably. I feel its best fot the water to spend as much time int he radiator as possible to cool down, and as short a time as possible in the waterblock to remove as much heat as possible.

Now this probably wouldnt be true of a system that didnt have a resevoir.

I havent tried sucking air through the radiator rather than the blowing I have at the moment, as I didnt think it would make much difference. Ill have to have a try though.

Anyway, my system was made for noise reduction, not overclocking. (Athlon 1.4 @1.4).

Ali

[Technoid]

Ali,
I thought the same as you about the order of flow....

But as both the manual and Greebe said that it was right I complyed

I'll check if reversing flow makes any change and also if turning the fan makes any change....
It will shutoff if the temp rises to high anyway (only good thing with P3&4's )

But I' still going for that copper waterblock

[Greebe]

The flowrate will be the same regardless of it's location. For all practical purposes water is not elastic and thus will not change.

As far as hottest temps go, the highest temp would be achieved by feeding the waterblocks exhaust to the pump adding additional heat to it and then into the radiator as it will have the highest cooling effeciency.

[Ali]

The flowrate ISNT the same. I know this for a fact.

When I was putting my system together I did it in the bath tub, just so I could play around.

If I had the output pipe form the pump going nowhere, water would squrt about 1.5 meters.

Once I had put the system together, I could only squrt about 30cm from the output of the radiator.

The loss of flowrate is due to the friction on the pipes.

If I didnt have a resevoir and had the output of the radiator going into the input of the pump, then you would be right. The water would flow at the same rate thgoughout the entire system.

I also did temp readings with the system set up both ways. I drop about 6C by doing it my way (With no fans running). If I was actively cooling the radiator with the fans, it might not make as much difference.

For efficency, right now my 1.4 is running at 37C and the room temp is about 17-18C. Thats with no fans running. If I turn the fans on it should drop to about 30C over the next half hour. That is measured with an external motherboard probe, that has been coated in thermal wax and is touching the back of my CPU. Motherboard Monitor is set to read 10C higher than the measured temp (I feel this is about as accurate as I can get it, and is probably reading too hot if anything). Oh, havent been doing anything too stressful, just Delphi stuff, but its 5:31pm now, and the computers been on since about 8:30-8:45 this morning.

Ali

[Ali]

Heres a pic if anyone interested. Its quite old, and the water is no longer green (it was anti freeze).

The radiator is the silver thing at the top. The two relays are to turn the pump on when the computer is turned on, and to activate another output on the back of the case that turns on my external SCSI case and amp.

There is a pump override on the back of the case, so I can turn the pump on without the computer being on.

The chipset fan has changed also looking at that.

Ali

[Technoid]

Ali,
Your radiatoris abot 3-4 times bigger than mine

[PeTe]

Forget watercooling, Im going straight to phase cooling.

Hmm.. lets see when i some money to acually BUY everything.. still waiting for barton. But i might get the cooling +mobo+mem before that.

Pe-Te

[Greebe]

That's one of the reasons (and often misdirected) as to why a high flow rate pump is neccessary in a water cooling setup..

On your setup everything is mounted above the pump. All devices do induce friction/striction and thus reduce flow rate... this is also why many dealers/ makers of water cooling systems mention how easily water will flow through the radiator. More restriction less water flow.

Now here's the kicker... high flow pumps are only neccessary when trying to lift water through a more restrictive radiator, waterblock, hoses, elbows et al which negatively detract from flow rate, but this is only due to the friction/striction of all components used and is only because the head pressure of the pump not being stout enough to handle the load and because of the lifting heigth of the water in a typical PC setup.

To get around the limitations of a low head pressure pump I'm using (will lift upto 28" of water or 96g/hr at zero pressure) I used oversized 1/2"ID clear polyvinyl tubing throughout so that the skin effect would be minimized. The elbows have an ID of 1/2" and again for the same reason.
The radiator choosen was part cost and type. It came with 3/8" OD nipples... serious striction issue. So I cut them off as the tubing that passes through the rest of the radiator is 1/2" OD. Now that I achieved minimal losses through all the system I needed to come up with a means which met several specifications to ensure an optimal cooling without hampering the pump any more.

1. need coolest air to radiator
2. minimize lift heigth to ensure flowrate
3. put together in such a way that if a leak did occur the only point that could get water on any electronics would be the waterblock (unavoidable)


To answer 1. I placed the radiator underneath the case so it would draw air upfrom off the floor where it's the coolest. This novel placement met Items 2 and 3

The pump/reseviour is placed on the bottom of the case (as is yours) meeting items 2 and 3 again.

Also by placing the pump/reseviour between the radiator and the waterblock it minimized pressure losses (lifting heigth) which meets item 2.

With this setup there is 4.5" of distance between the bottom of the radiator and the bottom of the pump (inlet). The top of the pump (exhaust) and the middle of the water block is 7". This not only improved head pressure by using gravity as an aid (balancing the inlet/outlet load), but prevented flowrate from being crippled.

As added benifit to the radiator placement the dual 80mm case fans that cool it are also blowing upward into the case and thus chilling all interior components at the same time

[Technoid]

Now I have ordered the copper waterjacket or waterblock ( wich ever name you prefer ) and If I'm lucky I will get it tomorrov or wensday....

But I woulden't hold my breath.....

The one I'm ordering has a much better clip than the one I got now....
That waterblock is designed by intelnatics that just happened to remeber that some people are evil and use amd so they spent 20 min to construct something that could perhaps be used as a clip on socket A.......

[Greebe]

I actually prefer waterblock to waterjacket... reason: none of the so called waterjackets actually encase (surround) the cpu.... it's just a block that sits on top of it.

[Technoid]

I remember a guy that actualy did a waterjaket for his cyrix....

he glued it to the cpu....

[Technoid]

Changed the flow....

It made a diff....

2-3 degrees down....

The water is hottest in the tube going from the block, colder from the rad, and coldest going into the block

BTW:
I droped a temp sensor into the tank so now i can measure how hot the reservoir water is

Hm...

When I get the copper block, do I have to worry about it making itself a battery against the aluminium? (btw I have a stainlessteel fitting in the water tank... )