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Do-it-yourself CPU Water Cooler
Foss writes "This article on EIMod.com shows a (very) cheap and effective way of getting that usually-expensive water cooling system that many of us have thought about. There are some pretty pictures too :)"
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just cover your hardware in saran wrap and dump ice in the box. works like a charm to keep it cool.
These are the sorts of instructions I don't like to see in a mod! At least it doesn't mention chewing gum...
Believe nothing -- Buddha
Sure, for the ten minutes that the article mentions that the pump runs before overheating.
was at the London Smackdown tournament that I went to. This guy had to carry around an extra cooling pouch with all the stuff built into it. There are 3 pics of it here, here, and here. The third pic is the best view of the pouch and the first two show you the in'erds on the computer.
Why go to all this trouble? This is obviously the way of the future.
The words 'cheap', 'water' and 'computer' used in close proximity do not inspire confidence or an incentive to try this mod out.
Then I read about the cotton...!
"Information wants to be paid"
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Okay, so his water pump is only designed to run for a max of 10 minutes before overheating. Since overclocked CPUs generate heat, an underclocked CPU must be able to absorb heat, right? RIGHT? Why not slap an old 286 onto the pump, underclock it to run at, oh, say, 2 Hz (not mHz, but plain ol' Hz) and the 286 will absorb all the excess heat off the pump! Voila! :-)
:-P
Or should he just get a water cooler to put on the pump, which would in turn need a water cooler for ITS pump, which would need a water cooler for ITS pump, which would . . . oh, wait, this is infinite nesting, isn't it?
With the money he spent on this "cheap" water-cooler, he couldv'e PURCHASED A 1GHZ CPU!
Oh, and it'd work for more than 10 minutes too!
The things a guy will do...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Water conducts electrisity. Well, pure water doesn't, but pure water will eat metal until it does conduct. That means you have to keep your water carefully sererate from everything else.
By contrast, oil doesn't conduct, doesn't disolve metal. Fill your case with oil, and you have better cooling than air, and much easier to deal with. (Note, oil isn't as good as water for heat capacity, but it is still better than air and has all the other advantages)
Water cooling requires that the water, passing nearby a heat source, absorbs the heat and carries in on to a place where it can be safely transferred into the surrounding environment. The old Second Law, Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, etc etc.
So why would we opt for water, which would be a less than optimal coolant? Because hot water makes *coffee*. Imagine! You could have a water-cooled server *and a coffee machine* all in the same rackmount!
The possibilities are endless.
As someone who has built his own homemade watercooler, this setup is very jury-rigged and definately not recommended for any sort of serious long term cooling. The copper-tube inlets need to be replaced w/ brass fittings to avoid leakage, and the rubber bands should be replaced with cheap and much more effective band clamps. This waterblock design is not effective water-distrobution wise either as the water is not forced to flow through out the entire design. This would let the side furthest the inlets get hot due to poor water flow. An open chamber is only good for small waterblocks. Lastly, using thread to attach a waterblock to the cpu is ghetto as hell. Either quickly engineer a heatsink clamp yourself, or just look up a guide on the net for this, its pretty simple. Watercooling is one of those things that can be done many different ways, but this particular method is a little more 'amature' than is recommended to put on any piece of equipment that you value. If you are going to take the time to make your own watercooling, also take the time to make sure its engineered right.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
I run a watercooled machine as my primary work box. It's great, and the noise savings were incredible. No more whirrrrrr. Fits snugly into a standard mid tower case.
I have a page up with all the details of contsruction for you who are interested. I've been running it for a few months, 24/7, and there have been no problems whatsoever. I took a few additional precautions, but the system as been moved around several times without any difficulties whatsoever and I highly recommend it to others who are interested.
..don't panic
my friend had me mill one for him for a science experiment. actually , ended up about 5 of them. he bought 2x2x1" aluminum blocks. i milled two holes through (one end to the other), side by side. he tapped them, and attached plumbing devices to the newly threaded areas. The other method was to bore four holes - two holes one one side that went 80% through, and 2 holes on the adjacent side that also went 80% through. tapped, and attached appropriate connectors. no leaks to patch. since the tops were flat, he also took the old heat sink + fan, removed the fan, and used that to dissipate evem more heat.
i never got the results back, but if anyone's interested, i can get the data to you, along with pics and more details.
moox. for a new generation.
These guys have some time on their hands.
That's cool though- they are just thinking up ideas and trying them out. They are not worrying too much about convention apparently.
How many great ideas started that way?
More than I could name.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
if you turn the thing on with a cool reservoir, the CPU temp stays below 76F. but after being on for 10 hours, the reservoir temperature raises to about 113F due to my lack of money to buy a real radiator. so my equilibrium CPU temp with an Athlon XP 1600 is 123F, when the fan it came with ran it at 145F.
you can see pictures and stuff here.
granted, copper slugs and machining equipment and "free" swagelock (and peltiers!) is not something everyone has, but use what you got, right?
hope someone finds it useful or interesting.
muerte
"1 - 3 grams of solder should be enough, but it's always best to buy excessive amount just to cover yourself."
Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't covering yourself with solder hurt like hell?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Yeah, pretty grim.
For the benefit of that guy, if he's reading...
1) Most of your water will go straight in and straight out again without doing much cooling. A heatsink should force the water to go all the way round the heatsink - try adding some baffles inside the box to improve that.
2) Have you never heard of hose clips? 50c each and 100% reliable at clamping off flexible hoses without leakage.
3) Get some heatsink compound between the heatsink and the processor. Without it, a fair chunk of the heat is never even getting to the heatsink, so the whole point of having a nice efficient heatsink is wasted.
Grab.
...to shed heat from the coolant. Just run the water coming from the cpu to a shower head (or similar) suspended above an open reservior. The water is dispersed by the shower head (increasing surface area) and cooled by the air as it falls into the container below.
Granted, this approach requires an open reservoir outside of the case, but it's simple, effective, and cheap.
Bonus: it can also replace those stupid "Sounds of Nature" tapes that people use for background noise at bedtime.
I take drugs seriously.
Watercooling can completely eliminate system noise. In addition, in my experience, my system was much more stable when watercooled than when it wasn't. I run simulations that can run for a day or more, and stability issues can present themselves - no more with the watercooler.
:). And, you can usually overclock to as high as the motherboard will allow as a side benefit.
There's two reasons for you right there
..don't panic
This story actually teaches a lot about how not to build a water-cooling system for a CPU.
Some specific observations:
- The low delta T (temperature difference) for the water going through the system is a sure indication of low efficiency. The most likely culprit is poor contact between the block and the CPU. Thin sheeting was used, and ripples are clearly visible in the pictures. The block is probably only touching in a few places and there is no mention of using thermal grease. A stiffer bottom plate was clearly called for.
- As mentioned elsewhere, hose clamps should have been used. (String? Let's not go there...)
- There is no radiator to dump the heat back to the environment. The heat transfer from the surface of the tank is probably not sufficient to keep the temperatures low. The radiator should be after the pump, to dump the heat from the pump also.
Perhaps the story should have been posted with the "laugh, it's funny" icon.BTW, I prefer Indium foil as the thermal gasket between the CPU and heat sink, not thermal grease. Unfortunately, Indium is usually as expensive as gold.