Slashdot Mirror
Swiftech 8500 Watercooling Kit Review
playafly187 writes "OCIA has posted their review of the Swiftech H20-8500 Watercooling Kit. The following is a direct quote from the review: 'This kit is aimed at those who want the low noise operation of watercooling, but are confined to a somewhat small case and/or those who don't want to fool with extensive modding of their case to accommodate a watercooling setup. The only requirement for your case is at least one 80mm rear exhaust fan opening and an empty 5 1/2" drive bay. I will take a look at each component provided in detail, then will walk you through our installation and testing.'"
However, they forgot to mention that one little hole in your equipment will ruin your computer without warning.
Of course they did.
Quote the article:
The disadvantages of watercooling are obvious; H20 and electrical components don't mix! Should a watercooling setup spring a leak while your system is on, you had better plan on purchasing some new hardware
According to this image (*):
...this device is compatible with modern Intel and AMD CPUs. What I want to know is, will it work with my old slot 1 Pentium 3? My modern AMD CPU doesn't need to be overclocked (it's fast enough for me at 1753MHz), but my P3/600 running at 800MHz (or 1GHz even) would be sweet indeed... and unlike the new CPU, I don't mind taking the chance of blowing up the old one attempting to overclock it, since I've gotten a couple years of use out of it already, and it's `retired' now.
:)
http://www.ocia.net/reviews/8500/liquid9.jpg
* Does anyone else think it's ridiculous for a web designer to use a JPEG image to represent a block of text? Especially with such a tiny font size? The capital letter E in that image is 8x9 pixels, which is hard to see even for me, using a 21" monitor at 1440x1080. If I were using 1600x1200, I wouldn't even bother trying to read it, just click along to some other site... Also, if it weren't an image, I would have been able to copy & paste the text into this post. Of course, this rant complaining about it represents more keystrokes than it would take to type the text I wanted to paste.
Never really found any tips on the Interweb and previous "ask slashdot" noice tips to really work for me except for;
1. Panflows or Vantec Stealth fans are great. Both are really quiet, but you do sacrifice a bit of air flow. Not really a problem for me because I didn't get the fastest cpu (therefore lots of heat and requires lots of cooling)
2. Distance and barrier. A great solution if you can get it to work. You can buy extension cables for USB or your monitor, mouse and keyboard. I got one which had them all in one. I then stuck the whole thing in a nearby closet and closed the door leaving space for the cable. Only have to access the computer to change cds, but its well worth the inconvence.
Using this, I got the noise down to where I can hear my CRT monitor.
3. (Never had to do this but I think I would have) You can buy noise cases. Wooden cases surrounded by sound adsorbing materials. I like this idea because its used by sound engineers. But it is expensive.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If you know what you're doing, there isn't really anything to worry about. One little hole in your car's cooling system could cause thousands of dollars damage too. I have run a watercooled system nonstop, 24/7, without incident for almost 18 months now. The hoses are still in great shape, and the pump works fine. The reduction in noise is signifigant, although the case still requires some ventilation.
My original installation is here: http://www.nyx.net/~smanley/watercool
I've since moved to a lian-li case to get some more room and haven't had a chance to post the pictures. The installation is similar, even easier with all the extra space. The watercooling setup allows me to run a AMD XP2100 at 2Ghz, a mild overclock of a few hundred mhz, but I can do so at a idle temperature of 42C in a 30C room.
This gets posted everytime one of these articles comes up here. Don't spread FUD, no, it isn't for newbies, but no, it isn't inherantly dangerous either. If you don't know what you are doing, don't go near the kit. The biggest additions I made were fuel injection hose clamps, pinch-free, and a GFCI outlet so that if the pump shorts, my gear shuts down in a nanosecond.
I'm currently working on another setup for home to help deal with the noise problem on the box here. It is very expensive to do properly, though.
..don't panic