Post by racerblur on Jul 2, 2007 14:45:45 GMT
After the suggestion of Aqua-mac I decided on getting a Swiftech H2O-220 kit --
It's a 240mm radiator with a Dual 120mm fan system that comes with a apogee GT water block, hi-performance pump and easy to bleed fill tank.
Having a rather small case, there was no way I could mount the 240mm radiator internally and of course if you mount the radiators externally, you get the bonus of not getting the heat from the other heat generating devices inside the case. It a little easier mounting the radiator externally using a rather ingenious adapter called the "radbox" design by Switech, but because the pci slots were too close the radiators -- I need to extend the mounts another 2inches or so. I ended up building a sturdy cage of stand-offs using fan guards, and nuts and it ended up looking like a space station connected by “back-to-the-future’s” flux capacitor or something ridiculous.
This a picture of a close up of my rig -- ridiculous (yeah, I know, I know, but it works!)
Yeah, I know that is a lot, but I didn't want to have trouble having access to the pci slots and other ports in the back. My insane design had another benefit by separating the exhaust air from the rear of the case so it doesn't end up being blown directly into the radiators. I thought about using shorter stand-offs and squeezed my monitor cables under the radiators but I didn’t think that was worth the troubles that it would cause to my monitor cables and besides the computer had plenty of room behind it, being underneath the table. I also drilled two 23mm holes in the case using bi-metal hole cutter to route the tubes so I could keep them as short as possible. I also had to cut into the internal fan with a dremel tool to get it to clear my tubes.
Here is the final picture with the system total bleed of air and all the cables under control, well the cables are mostly under control.
Was it worth effort? How’s 10-20 degrees lower temps. And I can now easily deal with heat of my Core 2 Quad, even over-clocked!
I also changed my power supply to a Corsair 620Watt HX to deal with the added load of the Core 2 Quad and high amp water pump (it’s extremely strong and barely fits into my mid-mini case)… yikes…
Here is another picture of the system being bleed, yeah the cables are all over the place, because I just installed a new power supply. You can see the huge water pump located at the bottom of the case -- there's barely enough room to mount it anywhere else.
I tried bleeding the system using an external 12 volt hard drive power supply, but it couldn’t even power the pump – I had to use an old 500watt atx. I did the little green to black wire short trick to make power supply turn on without a power button. I was surprised that it took so long to get all the foam and bubbles out of the system in about an hour and half later the system was bubble and foam free!
The hardest part was fitting the tubing on to the barbs of the connectors – using boiling hot water and a little liquid soap did the trick, but the pump had little large connectors that took a lot of effort getting on, but it was well worth it. 32 to 47 isn’t too bad, still waiting for the thermal grease to “break-in” and I might go down a degree or two… And of course I learn a lot about water cooling... It's awesome.
It's a 240mm radiator with a Dual 120mm fan system that comes with a apogee GT water block, hi-performance pump and easy to bleed fill tank.
Having a rather small case, there was no way I could mount the 240mm radiator internally and of course if you mount the radiators externally, you get the bonus of not getting the heat from the other heat generating devices inside the case. It a little easier mounting the radiator externally using a rather ingenious adapter called the "radbox" design by Switech, but because the pci slots were too close the radiators -- I need to extend the mounts another 2inches or so. I ended up building a sturdy cage of stand-offs using fan guards, and nuts and it ended up looking like a space station connected by “back-to-the-future’s” flux capacitor or something ridiculous.
This a picture of a close up of my rig -- ridiculous (yeah, I know, I know, but it works!)
Yeah, I know that is a lot, but I didn't want to have trouble having access to the pci slots and other ports in the back. My insane design had another benefit by separating the exhaust air from the rear of the case so it doesn't end up being blown directly into the radiators. I thought about using shorter stand-offs and squeezed my monitor cables under the radiators but I didn’t think that was worth the troubles that it would cause to my monitor cables and besides the computer had plenty of room behind it, being underneath the table. I also drilled two 23mm holes in the case using bi-metal hole cutter to route the tubes so I could keep them as short as possible. I also had to cut into the internal fan with a dremel tool to get it to clear my tubes.
Here is the final picture with the system total bleed of air and all the cables under control, well the cables are mostly under control.
Was it worth effort? How’s 10-20 degrees lower temps. And I can now easily deal with heat of my Core 2 Quad, even over-clocked!
I also changed my power supply to a Corsair 620Watt HX to deal with the added load of the Core 2 Quad and high amp water pump (it’s extremely strong and barely fits into my mid-mini case)… yikes…
Here is another picture of the system being bleed, yeah the cables are all over the place, because I just installed a new power supply. You can see the huge water pump located at the bottom of the case -- there's barely enough room to mount it anywhere else.
I tried bleeding the system using an external 12 volt hard drive power supply, but it couldn’t even power the pump – I had to use an old 500watt atx. I did the little green to black wire short trick to make power supply turn on without a power button. I was surprised that it took so long to get all the foam and bubbles out of the system in about an hour and half later the system was bubble and foam free!
The hardest part was fitting the tubing on to the barbs of the connectors – using boiling hot water and a little liquid soap did the trick, but the pump had little large connectors that took a lot of effort getting on, but it was well worth it. 32 to 47 isn’t too bad, still waiting for the thermal grease to “break-in” and I might go down a degree or two… And of course I learn a lot about water cooling... It's awesome.
. Maybe I should go with a VaporChill? Hahaha... Yeah, I guess it would be easier if I bought external system like a Koolance exo, but I am strangely happy with my set up. It works great and temps hover around 35 degree in OS X when given a good workout (mpeg compression) and playing quake... If it's true the temps are reading 15 degrees above normal, then my water cooled Franken-hack is one COOL hack. 
