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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.
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.
Only on /. could a watercooling system be called "stylish."
"Hey baby, check out my new Abercrombie watercooler!"
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
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.
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."
People install Microsoft products every day.
Obligatory MS joke...I know...I don't care...mod me down.
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.