Slashdot Mirror
Considering Watercooling Your PC?
An anonymous reader writes "Thinking of taking the plunge into water cooling your PC? These guys have rounded up three systems ranging from cheap and cheerful, to stylish and pricey."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I once thought peltiers would be great with water cooling but we read on /. the other day that these devices are 5% efficient so that's a no.
Water-cooling has a few kinks like electricity near water and corrosion - at least a few years ago that may be solved no days with Antifreeze but you still are at the mercy of the ambient room temperature. It's finicky enough that you couldn't build a machine with water cooling and leave it in a room for 3 years so that leaves a hole in reliability as I couldn't leave my machines on while going away for two weeks on vacation unless I didn't mind rolling the dice to seeing fire trucks at my home.
Considering Water-cooling Your PC? This was the leader I was until I saw a home made active cooling system. I first saw active cooling systems from http://www.vapochill.com/ (website down?) and have been waiting for someone to take an AC compressor and attach it to a computer case. It seems that were just on the verge of DIYers of achieving satisfactory results in active cooling systems; therefore, I will hang on to old reliable (the passive radiators) until I can muscle up the nerve to go the active cooling route.
OK, so water is cheap, but why not go for materials with better cooling properties (like in a fridge), which would be more efficient?
Something that is non-destructive to PCBs if it leaks would also be a bonus.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
The major hangup I have about watercooling systems is fault tolerance. How the the whole system handle 1) pump failure, 2) water leak, 3) coolant loss, etc without destroying the PC, or worse, starting a fire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Damn, if I'm going to pipe water through my PC, I want it to be reliable and effective. That's it.
Who the hell cares if it's neon?
If you're using water cooling for noise-reduction purposes, okay. But if you literally need it in order to keep your chip cool, there's something very wrong.
We should NOT be encouraging chip makers to continue avoiding power problems. It's environmentally irresponsible.
Go invent something. Go build something. Heck, even go break something while learning about it. Join you local tesla coil or ham radio club and learn something. Contribute a patch to an open-source project. build a watercooling system out of parts from Lowe's. Be proud of that.
Go buy something? Something that's largely non-functional, and unreliable? And bolt it on to your computer? Oh, yeah! You da man!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
"With proper care, it's safe and a quiet way to cool your machine."
The thing is, i don't wanna HAVE to be careful. When these things ain't need no proper care nor love nor sissy feelings at all, THEN they will be ready to hit the masses.
I don't have a sig.
After i did a few calculations and "wonderings" of my own i decided to just build my system around a better heatsink similar to the design of the radiator found in most normal watercooling systems. Most people use watercooling for performance, but there are others who use it for stability and the noise factor. The problem is that the manufacturers will tell you that watercooling is better because:
1.) better cooling
2.) less noise
3.) less vibration
The fan that is currently installed on my copper based heatsink is realatively quiet and i can control it with the rheostat i put on the front of the computer. What most computer "hobbiests" don't realise is that a watercooling system must include a fan that is larger then the fan used on most modern heatsinks.
What watercooling systems do is transfer the heat away from the CPU quickly. However because the water has to cool before being recycled, to the "plastic" resevoir so common in today's designs, it must be pushed through a large metal maze similar to the radiator on most cars. This radiator must be cooled by a fan, and more often then not the radiator is placed outside the case to achieve maximum performance and airflow. So in conclusion if your looking for performance, go straight to vapor cooling (that's real quiet). But if your looking for silence stay away from watercooling.