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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."
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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"
Maybe it's a japanese one...
Super Lucky Best Cheerful Watercooler 100% !@#!@# ^_^
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
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.
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Only on /. could a watercooling system be called "stylish."
"Hey baby, check out my new Abercrombie watercooler!"
For those Do-It-Yourselfer's that want to measure the water pressure for PC cooling, take a look at this manometer which, while it doesn't look that dandy, works quite well as the principals of pressure are pretty simple.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
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?
skipping the pump and hooking directly into a low-flow water line? This would be the most expensive option (water bill), but eliminates the possibility of pump failure, and isn't reliable on ambient roomj temp (my water is quite cold when it comes out of the faucet, regardless of how hot the house is). Of course, if a hose leaks, a self-contained system would stop dripping when the reservoir was empty, while this would flood the whole house! Anyway, something to think about
That's right, I read at +2 and post at +1. Not even I care what I have to say.
It was fun, i only had one leak (that was my own fault) but it was expensive. These systems are not for real world computing. They are for hobbyists that want something to do. I chose to do mine semi-homebrew style. I fabricated some stuff myself, and bought the other parts.
The only reason i did it was that it was nearly silent. Of course, you can do that with conventional cooling nowadays.
Another interesting fact is that i got out of high performance PCs, and now my only computer is a 12" powerbook.
I saw a color tv floating in a tank of this at a trade show years ago, something about a running color tv floating in liquid is just wrong.
But I'm sure It would be much better than water for many many reason.
"Fluorinert FC-77, a specialty fluid from 3M, to cool the laser tube. It is a colorless, odorless liquid (just like water) and if you get some of it on your fingers, it is harmless, just wash your hands with clean water (according to 3M).
Here is the description from 3M web site:
"Heat Transfer Fluids
The wide liquid range of Fluorinert liquid FC-77 (-110C to 97C) makes it ideal for use in automated test equipment (ATE) and other semiconductor process equipment. Its high dielectric strength means it will not damage electronic equipment or semiconductor wafers, chips or packages in the event of a leak or other failure. In addition, FC-77 liquid is chemically stable, nonflammable and practically non-toxic".
- F1 NEWS
I have some experience with watercooling. With proper care, it's safe and a quiet way to cool your machine. For those of you who move your computers around though, becareful what materials you use. I built my computer in a warm dorm room which meant that my copper block to plastic piping worked fine. Then I took it home to my freezing basement and water went everywhere. I think the metal shrank while the plastic didn't, and water came out of the connections.
Other than that I never had any problems. I don't use it anymore because it's too heavy to carry around all of the time.
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Their server is certainly not cheerful anymore...perhaps because their stylish water-cooling system could not handle the deluge of Slashdot clicks, leaving behind an electronic trail of tears and thus flushing any attempts to RTFA down the toilet.
I decided this weekend to try and quiten my PC by following some other members lead and going down the water cooling road. The fans on my PC were really starting to drive me mad
The first thing that I did was to remove all the fans. The one on the processor and graphics card were no problem but the one in the power unit was a bugger to get out.
The most difficult part was sealing all the ventilitation openings in the PC case with silicon. I also put silicon all around the joints on the PC case. The smell of silicon was dreadful but when my wife complained I told her to be patent as it will be worth it when we have a completely silent PC.
Because I had completely sealed the PC case the only opening near top was the DVD drive. So I opened that and put the small hose I had purchased specially for the job into the DVD drive as far as it would go. With what I can only describe as great excitement and anticipation, I turned on the water. It really is amazing just how long it took before the case was complete full, and boy was it heavy. That didn't really bother me as I didn't intend to be moving the PC anyway.
Read on...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
A few months ago, i saw this clip which had some folks at Good Morning America showing off a liquid that doesn't get things wet. they had a tank of this stuff and put some (powered) electronics in them (laptop, LCD TV) and they operated just fine underwater. They put a book in this stuff and none of the pages got wet as they pulled it out. Check it out
anyway, it would be cool to find out if you can just put your whole computer in this stuff. cooling problem solved, right?
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
You would probably be better off..
the heat transfer equation H=h*a*(delta T)
H=heat
h=heat transfer coefficient
a=surface area available for cooling
delta T=diff between temperature of device to be cooled and surrounding cooling fluid
shows that the easiest way to cool something is to reduce the temperature of the fluid that cools it..
If you lower the air temp in your computer case by 10c, the processer temp drops by 10c, assuming the fans all stay at the same speed.
Increasing "a" is limited by fin efficiency (which is what these water cooling systems are trying to get around, but a sealed evaporator/condenser would be smaller and more efficient, there is a metric buttload of patents now on sealed passive boilers/condensers), and as air speed increases, "h" rises less and less in proportion)
If you want more info, look at the free download of the heat transfer textbook I list in my journal.
From the second page you listed:
;-)
The best candidate seems to be an eutectic solution of sodium and potassium, (NaK). The melting point is as low as -12 C. Its density and viscosity are similar to water but it has a lower specific heat and a much higher thermal conductivity. NaK can be used with nickel, chrome and steel but it is aggressive to cadmium, antimony, bismuth, copper, lead, silicon, tin, and magnesium. It also reacts violently with air and water. It is apparent that this alloy is associated with several material and handling problems. Liquid sodium has nevertheless been used as a coolant for nuclear reactors, which shows that these drawbacks can be managed.
Sure, but do we want to manage flammable liquids that combust when exposed to air in our home? Pumped through our computer? Not to mention that it eats away at silicon and most likely the PCB itself.
I can see why no one considers this.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
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.
Last time I tried water cooling my computer, the pipe started leaking, there was a short circuit and I accidentally set my computer on fire, which needless to say was neither cooling nor cool... After that accident I gave up altogether and do you know what I did? Instead of overclocking my CPUs, I started to underclock them. I noticed that in many cases even a 15-20% lower c;ock speed may eliminate the need of having any fan at all, as long as there is a large radiator with good contact and a reasonable air flow in the case. Sacrificing those few percents of megahertzes might sound very "not elite" but guess what? It still can display websites faster than I can read.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I'm considering to put the cooling aluminum laptop
tray in the freezer overnight so I can get at least
30 min of work in the morining in my damn HP Pavillion ze4042 without the damn thing turning on the cpu fan that makes more
noise than my neighboors leaf-blower.
The laptop cooling trays are worthless.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
How about computer-heating my pool?
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.
Check it out in this video.
Cray's phase change uses Fluorinert, while the average PC uses Freon.
I went with an XP-90 to air cool my new Athlon 64. The heatpipes arguably make it passive phase change cooling.
To the admin. of /. Have you thought of turning the power of /.'s smoking servers into an additional income source? I mean, you could offer to "Load Test" some outfits new servers for a fee and then just post a link on /. announcing something like: free beer and women who love geeks-click here. If their servers could take that, then they could be assured that their servers could stand up to anything short of a direct hit from nukular WMD's!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Water can only cool to the ambient temperature of the room, and not below as some people seem to think - which is why it is no better than air/fan solutions, except for lower noise.
You'd be better off cooling your room with AC, and getting the benefit of cooling yourself, not just your processor!
#include <sig.h>
The EER rating on air conditioners (a common heat pump) tell you the ratio of heat moved to power expended to move it. The units of EER are messed up though, it is BTU/HOUR divided by Watts, multiplied by some factor of 10.
First of all unless you're using some seriously exotic components it's going to be solid at the temps you'd deal with in an average compouter (15-75c).
Secondly the materials needed to contain your liquid metal aren't cheap.
Thirdly it makes inspection for any potential flaws a real pain in the ass.
Fourthly you have to consider the viscosity of liquid metals vs. water or other coolants. The amount of energy you have to use to move them is going to be substantially higher.
Fifthly, the conductivity of most liquid metals vs. water (even water with electrolytes) means that most leaks are going to = dead computer.
Oh yeah. . .also. . .I totally forgot about toxicity issues, reactivity (sodium and potassium as you've selected would be really fun to have leak out of your computer and hit, say, a patch of wet floor). . .
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
The original points of this were:
it's easier to trace small leaks with neon or florescent dyes in use. Use opaque hose, and bring an actual black light near it, and you have one of the world's best cheap tests for system integrity.
Stock antifreeze is florescent green anyway, and it prevents some kinds of corrosion, so why not use it.
Now the case modders are going for the whole hobby effect, with transparent case windows to show off the glowing water inside, and built in UV sources to heat up that case they are trying to cool down (and even cold cathode lights produce some heat), so they are worrying more about apperance than substance. It's the geek equivalent of oversized exaust extensions on a rice burner. But originally, this was about being reliable and effective.
Who is John Cabal?
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I had the same concerns alot of people on here seem to have about watercooling. I shelled out around $900 for a Koolance case a little over 3 years ago and popped in a Intel MB w/ P4 1.7. I also have my 6 300GB HDs and GF FX Video card water cooled as well. I have been in the case quite a few times, and even upgraded it to a P4 3Ghz, new Intel MB, and new Vid card. I even had to replace my old socket 423 cooler for a socket 478 cooler and no probs. To this day (3+ years later) I have NEVER had a single problem with my case. No leaks, no overheating, no problems period. Yes, it only cools as much as the ambient temp in the room, but on a really hot day that is only 100degrees F. As I type this I am running at 92f.. during intense gaming (ie. Doom 3) The temp never exceeds 110f on the CPU (which is where the temp probes are). I have never been able to get my heatsink/fan CPUs to cool nearly this good under intense loads. Just thought I would share my personal experience with watercooling.
While most of the poeple using watercooling does so to gain performance (ie overclock) It wasn't why I did it.
:(
You see, my computer is located inside a closet. While being the quietest computer around, I can dry my clothes with that brand new Prescott 2.8E.
I needed a way to remove the heat from that closet, So I drilled holes in the walls and installed the pump / radiator in stair room going to the basement.
I do miss wearing those warm clothes on cold winter days...
Introduction
Despite a rather slow and shaky start, the water cooling revolution is well and truly under way. If the falling component prices aren't testament enough to this fact, the sheer number of kits being touted by a plethora of vendors surely is.
Nobody has ever doubted the advantages of water cooling as compared to air. Water is some twenty five times more efficient than air at conducting heat, which makes it an obvious choice for cooling all manner of hot running computer components. Unfortunately it also comes with several disadvantages too.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle water cooling has had to overcome is the natural fear in all of us that comes from pumping a fluid around the insides of an expensive, electrically powered computer. Common sense tells us we just shouldn't be doing it. Then there are the other dissuading factors such as high cost, tricky installation, bulk, weight, reliability and aesthetics - all of which have conspired to make water-cooling a fringe activity enjoyed by the elite and the brave.
However, things are changing. Water cooling is getting cheaper, safer, increasingly compact and more aesthetically pleasing with every passing day. The whole premise of liquid cooling your PC is now more viable than ever before, and with the trend for ever-increasing cooling requirements showing no signs of abating, it might be a case of when rather than if you make the switch to the wet stuff.
To help you make the plunge, we've decided to take a closer look at three different approaches to water-cooling, each theoretically suited to a different level of experience. Whether you're a LAN gamer who demands ease of transportation, an overclocker who needs top-notch performance, or even a case modder who values good looks as highly as good performance, there's something here for everyone.
Before we get stuck in, let's introduce the three kits on test: Asetek's WaterChill KT03A-L30, Eastar's Cool River Deluxe Version, and Koolance's Exos-Al.
--= I have the rest of the article copied if anyone wants me to post the rest =--
My PC at home has been watercooled for about a year now. I would definitely say it's more for tinkering than performance. I haven't read the article because it's been slashdotted, but watercooling isn't really anything new. (Consider Sony and Alienware's prebuilt systems with watercooling.) I've had one spill and that was really my fault and all my hardware survived (but it was a good excuse to buy new stuff anyways). Pros: It did allow me to overclock a bit more. It was much quieter. Fun to tinker with. Cons: I have to be paranoid about leaks. I have to check water levels once in awhile. I brought it to a LAN once and it wouldn't boot up because with the pump, it sucked more amperage than they allowed per socket.
*Your ad here*
I wanted to chime in here. My friend and I put together HIS Zalman Reserator (not mine -- got no extra money for these things) and Antec Aria SFF PC a few weeks ago with tremendous results. The Zalman Reserator retails for $250 at Frys. Most online vendors charge more for it.
It's basically a 2.5' tall heatsink/radiator with a submerged pump. It includes a waterblock for your processor (Intel and AMD) and all the tubing/hardware you need.
You lose the ability to easily bleed the thing, although clamping off hoses and pouring nearly 3 liters of water out the top of a Reserator doesn't really seem all that troublesome to me.
Bottom line -- he dropped his idle temps by 20C and his load temps by a similar amount. This was a few weeks ago when it was slightly warmer here in Georgia. He now idles (running a P4 Prescott) at about 27C. It's pretty amazing.
For more information, see here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=783557
IronChefMorimoto
Anyway, now I can overclock my P4 from 1.8 to 2.4 with no problem... and anytime I start getting lock-ups, I just throw in a few more ice cubes from the freezer.
Meh.
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.
I've been doing my own water cooling systems for a few years now and have come to the conclusion that if you aren't a complete idiot you'll never have any trouble.
r essed.jpg
Here's my first project:
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1009/index.asp
I finished my second last September and have been using it since. I built the whole case from stainless steel tubing. One side of the case is pressurized for water distribution and the other side is a reservior. Here's a pic:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/zackbass1/IMG_0023comp
The great thing about is that I'm able to run my little 2.4C at over 3.4Ghz (I built it in Sept 2003, so it was a big deal) completely silently. The radiator is large enough that it doesn't need any fans. The only noise that comes from the case is the hard disks spinning.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
In actuality, water's a superior refrigerant so long as you're not trying to cool down below freezing and can come up with a compressor with the right volumetric capacity under vacuum. When water boils, it pulls roughly 2700 BTUs out of the surounding environment per liter boiled. At 6 bar, water will readily boil at somewhere around 40deg F, dragging that much heat out of the environment as quickly it can be absorbed by the water under those conditions. The big issue is that it's volumetric rate (how much volume you have to pump out of the low-side of the system...) is roughly double any other possible refrigerants out there. There's currently not that many vacuum pumps that can actually DO this sort of thing and the ones that do are typically rather expensive- so we don't currently use water as a refrigerant.
Now, as to why water's used instead of refrigerants is that it's cheap (An R-134a system would set you back a solid 500 or so, a watercooling rig will set you back only $150-250 and does a better than adequate job (especially if you're looking for normal operation with less noise and less CPU heat...), and it has a heat capacity that makes for a very nice thermal transfer medium. It's why you water cool cars and trucks.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This would depend entirely on whether you exceed the heat-pumping capacity of the refrigerator. If you don't exceed the amount being pumped out of the space, it will cool down, the rate being dependent on the rate of thermal transfer above and beyond the heat source's generation of heat.
I've seen active refrigeration systems coupled with water cooling that were based off of mini-fridges (There was one that won a case-mod prize at QuakeCon 2003...). The CPU was cooled down below ambient and he was able to keep Bawls and Cokes cold in the thing.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
you could take a look at my site
http://www.surfbaud.co.uk/news.php
which details experiments with peltiers and water cooling.
For those who can't be bother it boils down to this.
1/ water cooling is OK if done properly, but all the commercial "home" watercooling products are absolute shite
2/ peltiers work, but add huge heat loads to the system overall, and should never be directly interfaced to silicon.
Hopefully in the next few weeks (having just bought a vacuum pump) I can get around to playing with large scale home made heat pipes and report on those.
HTH etc.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
You can buy Fluorinert it in 250cc or 1L bottles here:
http://www.parallax-tech.com/fluorine.htm
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Why couldn't you run mineral oil instead of water in an enclosed system. I ran the numbers and it looked like it should be able to pump about 200W using a 2 Gpm pump. Copper block and radiator sufficent to dispose the heat to ambient (assumes a 10C differential in temp). Has anyone ever tried to run mineral oil through a pump intended for water does the increased viscosity shorten the life, or will it handle it alright? Seems like most of the mineral oil set ups I've seen discribed use immersion which seems like considerable overkill. Mineral oil seems like a fine solution until processor power goes considerably higher. The heat transfer class I took was an aweful long time ago so please point out any errors in my back of the envelope calcs.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.