Silent Water Cooling on the SLI

Doggie Fizzle writes "Overclockers with a serious SLI gaming system don't have to deal with the drone of double the fans to get the extreme performance. A review of a customized Zalman Reserator 1+ water cooling system shows a well overclocked SLI system offering solid temperatures on the CPU, but an impressive drop of 20 degrees C on both video cards during full load operation... And the unique cooling tower of the Reserator 1+ does it all without a single fan to cool these hot components."

Comments

If recent history is any indicator

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is a dupe.

Re:If recent history is any indicator

[captnbmoore]

They put the site on auto pilot for submissions.but forgot to set the start time.

Re:If recent history is any indicator

[Anonymous Coward]

curl http://arstechnica.com/ | /usr/local/bin/magicstrip.pl - | /usr/local/lib/slashbots/moderator.pl $RANDOM - | /usr/local/bin/post.pl -

Re:If recent history is any indicator

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

It's just running in SLI mode with another article for maximum efficiency. Duh.

ooh

[Neophus]

I bet this is making the gamers all wet!

Re:ooh

[flamingiceclone]

yup......the next in making a computer cool is water balls yo....

Even better than water cooling

[Spy Handler]

How come nobody's thought of using FREON as the coolant, like in air conditioning units? There must be a geek bold enough to try.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[winkydink]

Flourinert would be a better pick, but the stuff is very expensive.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Kaboom13]

I have seen refrigerated cases before,there was even a company that specialized in them, but I cant remember the name. The problem I see with using freon is freon refrigeration a. Uses a compressor to force the freon to a liquid state, which is more complicated and expensive then the simple water pump, and b. reaches a temperature low enough to make condensation a serious concern. Water cooling is more then adequate for CPU cooling, even with heavy overclocking. Using a freon system would only have benefits in the "because I could" category, and like I said, it's been done before.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[merreborn]

How come nobody's thought of using FREON as the coolant, like in air conditioning units?

I thought we use freon in AC and fridges because they're compressor-based cooling systems? Not becuase it's got some magical better-than-water specific heat...

Water cooling is completely different from compression cooling. One uses a pump, and keeps the coolant at a constant pressure, one uses a compressor and varies the presure of the coolant. I think freon would be a shitty coolant at room temperature, used in a water cooling-style aparatus.

I mean, yeah, if you're gonna install a compressor in your PC, then freon makes sense...

Re:Even better than water cooling

[denissmith]

Quite possibly because it is suspected of destroying the ozone layer, and its use is banned.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[John Hurliman]

I did. There's a few ways to do it... the first idea of just blowing an air conditioner in to your computer is a bad idea, because even though the air conditioner is a dehumidifier, introducing the cold air in to the warm case will build up condensation everywhere. The next idea is to run a normal water cooling system but chill the water using freon which is what I did. You take a window air conditioner, construct an aquarium around the evaporator coil and use that as the reservoir in the water loop. The final method is to cut the water out of the equation and build a direct die system, where the evaporator "coil" is actually a custom copper block on the cpu where the freon sprays directly on to the die, evaporating the freon. Problem is, along with having to custom machine a cpu block, these systems have to be extremely well tuned. If you are returning liquid to the compressor constantly you'll burn it out in no time. Keep in mind none of this has to do with silencing a computer, you're adding a 3/4hp or so compressor that will make your high-cfm cpu fan sound like the dead of night, and possibly a water pump as well. Not to mention your computer is now tethered to a massive air conditioner unit with either vinyl tubing for water hoses or straight copper piping for a direct die system. Oh and the best part, now that you are getting your system below ambient you have to completely insulate all of the blocks (I had cpu and gpu blocks) which is a LOT harder than it seems. Insulating paint, dielectric grease, rubber shells for the blocks, your computer either turns in to a big mess of insulation (if done properly) or soaking wet. It is rather fun increasing your gpu clock by 150% and your cpu by 60% and still having the system run below freezing though :-). If properly tweaked a 3/4hp window AC unit can push anti-freeze just below 0C.

A good way to implement this is not with freon but with something that can run in a passive system, cutting the compressor out of the loop. A nearby startup is doing just that for custom server room applications, where several racks are tied in to a single passive cooling loop. I've heard of research for laptops to do a similar thing where the heatpipes actually carry a chemical that does phase change cooling (how your refridgerator keeps things cool).

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because we all know freon magikally makes things cold (according to the great Alchemists of fifthteenth Slashdot).

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Molochi]

Freon is harder to get than pot. Other refrigerant gasses are doable.

Compressor systems using various refrigerants (including freon) have been used for quite a while. They work. All those top 20 scores in 3dmark/futuremark are usually kryotech/asetech/custom vapochill(compressor&refrig gas), overclocked systems. Back when Tom's Hardware was showing us what a 1GHz(woot) Athlon (c2000-2001) could do they used a commercialy produced (and purchasable) Kryotek (became Asetek) system like this to achieve their mighty overclock.

The weakness of this kind of system is increased mechanical complexity to the cooling method and a corresponding increase in catastrophic failure. It works, produces fantastic overclocks, but you don't want to use it for anything more than a gaming machine. Watercooling is more forgiving; if a pump fails as you don't loose ALL of your cooling. Even more reliable are heatpipes as they can have no moving parts at all if the radiator/heat exchanger is large enough.

Until fairly recently watercoolng provided the best bang for the buck. Coupled with inline or parallel TECs/Peltiers, pump driven liquid cooling allows sub-ambient heat exchange that could be implemented in the a-la-cart systems prefered by 3l33t overclockers.

The "latest" thing is the heatsiphon. It is a combination of watercooling hardware (waterblock, hoses and radiator) and the physics of a heatpipe. Think: what if I ommit the pump but use ethanol as a coolant. Joe the overclocker can build this in his parent's basement. It is extemely reliable. It might even be able to dissapate the extra heat of a TEC tht would gie you the sub-ambient temps needed for a BeyondRetailTM cpu overclock.

Oh, and if you aren't trying to overclock then all of this is a neurotic compulsion. What you need is a big alluminum/copper heatsink and a quiet 120mm ducted fan that keeps your cpu under 70C.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Anonymous Coward]

are you stoned?

it A: does not contribute to the ozone problem due to the chemical properties of it..

and B: still widely used and still relatively available.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Anonymous Coward]

The intarweb said so so it must be true!

Re:Even better than water cooling

[DJCacophony]

The company is asetek. http://www.asetek.com/

Re:Even better than water cooling

[ioudas]

really im pretty sure i just walked out of walmart with 4 canisters for my ac unit....

Re:Even better than water cooling

[networkBoy]

"I've heard of research for laptops to do a similar thing where the heatpipes actually carry a chemical that does phase change cooling (how your refridgerator keeps things cool)."

hate to break it to you, but the current crop does that already. That's how heatpipes work.
-nB

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Molochi]

It wasn't freon though, Walmart would be facing a HUGE lawsuit if they sold it. Freon (R-11 & R-12) has been banned since the mid 1990's . Does the can say HFC-134a? That's one of those OTHER (reread my post) rerigerants you CAN buy. It isn't Freon.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[bigswoff]

they do make compressor coolers for comps, the best one I have seen hit about -50C. Though at those temperatures you have to seal off the cpu and put a small heater in as well to prevent condensation. Those systems run at about 500+ USD, so they are a bit out of the pricerange of a normal geek. They are also MASSIVE overkill when it comes to most systems. Now a really fun computer mod would be building a computer in a helium filled freezer, my dad, a chemist, has one that runs sub 50 kelvin. In that, condensation is not a problem, as well, there is 0% humidity due to the extreem cold. PS anyone with the balls, and cash to build a machine like that, be sure to post on /.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Durzel]

Companies like Asetek and Extreme Prometeia already have PC systems like this.

The key thing is that in most cases they just cool the CPU (as the logistics of trying to cool a card in a slot on a motherboard with limited access to the core/memory make other cooling near impossible). Most extremists run "A/C cooling" on their CPUs and water cooling on their graphics cards, Northbridge chips, etc.

You could in theory A/C the entire contents of the case, which would presumably work up until the point that you switched it off - at which point, I'm presuming, condensation would appear on everything that was previously generating heat. Condensation = death for computers.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[srvivn21]

Actually Freon is just a trademark (of Dupont) the refers to a number of different chemical compounds commonly used as refrigerants. R12 is the Ozone destroying compound formerly known as Freon. R134a is the "new" Freon, and does not share the ozone depeting characteristics of R12. The downside is that R134a is reported to not cool as well as R12.

R12's manufature is banned. Not its use.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[plover]

Actually, the manufacture of CFCs and HCFCs was only restricted by the Montreal Protocol, and not banned outright. There will always remain a few legal and legitimate uses of them (asthma inhalers, for example,) although they are few and far between. There are also exemptions that were put in place to allow for servicing some really big (and expensive) existing air conditioning units (the U.S. insisted.) These uses include large office tower style air conditioners that have an expected 40 year service life, and the treaty has rules phasing these compounds out for a long time yet. The manufacture of CFC based refrigerants won't be completely banned until sometime in the 2030s!

However, because manufacture was so severely curtailed and new consumption was prohibited, most manufacturers simply stopped producing it completely - there wasn't enough economic incentive to continue production at the restricted levels.

There are still existing stockpiles of CFC 12. It's funny, but the first effect the Montreal Protocol had was to cause HVAC companies across the nation to stockpile thousands of pounds of the stuff, and the net result of that was an order of magnitude price increase in the early 90s, from about $4/pound to about $60/pound. If you need Freon(TM) brand refrigerant, you can certainly still get it. Go Froogle for R-12, and I bet you'll find some.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Anonymous Coward]

I gather Spy Handler already received a sufficient broadside in reply to the careless "Why has nobody thought of using ..." :-P

Indeed, overclocking enthusiasts have been building fridge (phase change) based rigs, for years already. See overclocking.com, xtremesystems.com, muropaketti.com, and other googlable sites for articles and discussions.

Mainframes have been using this tech for a long time, PC cooling manufacturers like Cryotech and Asetek for a few years. (Was Cryotech -- with their famous "first 1 GHz Athlon" -- an IBM spin-off?)

And quite right, Freon is passé, R404 and other safer coolants are in use now.

BTW, cascades (cooling the primary system's coolant with a secondary compressor rig) have been the rave for some time now... But a triple system already gives greatly diminished returns -- not that some people haven't been willing to go there too, regardless.

Re:Even better than water cooling

[Meski]

Amazing! I'm sure this never even occurred to the original poster

Slashdot EeziPost (TM) MK I

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot EeziPost (TM) MK I

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[X] Still no cure for cancer

Re: Slashdot EeziPost (TM) MK I

[Anonymous Coward]

[X] Copy paste $standard_troll_text

Re: Slashdot EeziPost (TM) MK I

[Man in Spandex]

In Korea, old people do surveys.

Ionic breeze?

[vertinox]

Did anyone else think Sharper Image Ionic breeze when they saw the cooling device in the article?

Re:Ionic breeze?

[Anonymous Coward]

The comments on this one are off to the most random start I have ever seen. I was wondering if I was looking at the same thing as the other posters! But, you are on the money with the Ionic Breeze comment! LOL - Good stuff!

Re:My SLI / Linux experience

[TelJanin]

Or maybe just open the graphical installer, type "quake 3" into the search box, and then click "install".

Doesn't seem that hard to me. But then, I'm not an idiot.

My experience with reserator

[etymxris]

It's enough two keep a dual CPU rig cool, and is indeed quite silent. Of course, the effect will be ruined if your motherboard has a chipset fan, which are inevitably noisy. Most PCIEx boards have their chipset right under the video card, making water block placement problematic. I found a waterblock that fit, but I had to fashion my own fastener to give the video card room to fit in the slot. If anyone is interested, here are some pics of my own setup, back when the choices were blue or blue.

I should also mention that the reserator is highly sensitive to room temperature changes. If the room increases temp by a few degrees celcius, so will your water.

Re:My experience with reserator

[mvdw]

I, too, have a dual CPU rig, with a reserator to cool it. It cools it well, however the system is not silent, as the reserator has a pump which in mine has slightly boisy bearings...

Re:My experience with reserator

[lemaymd]

I like the Abit AN8-SLI for that reason. It has a low-profile heatpipe rather than a fan on the chipset. I run a waterblock off my video card, and the tubes actually touch the top of the heatpipe connector, so you're right, a fan definitely would get in the way. I guess I may as well link to my setup too :-) : http://lemaymd.com/main.php?frag=gadgets-pc&title= Homebuilt%20PC&pfrag=gadgets

Re:My experience with reserator

[tinkertim]

I've actually seen water cooled PC / Case and FISH TANK combinations.

A set of dual 3.0 's apparently provides ideal water temprature for most tropical fish.

The setup is a clear mid tower case, with a small fish tank attached to the side of it. I am sure other's here have seen it.

While I would love to setup a cluster of 20 dual xeons all liquid cooled with one huge heart in the middle beating to cool them (glow tubing, of course!) I'm still parital to the hum and whirr of my fans.

I just can't really bring mysql to put water inside of my case on purpose. I also can not bring myself to touch my eyeball to put in a contact lens .. sort of a similar unfounded phobia.

My nonsense for the hour :) Back to work.

Derrr... MYSELF, not mysql. Ugh
tinkertim

Re:My SLI / Linux experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for pointing out to everyone here that you are a fucking moron.

There is a gui isntaller for quake in linux.

At least you have shown you can copy and paste from other people really efficiently. I hope in the future you choose to sheepisly conform to less idiotic ideas.

Trolltastic.

[reality-bytes]

I've seen this same troll in almost every story today, there's almost an art to getting one troll story to fit all scenarios.

Praise over, please mod parent down. ;)

Re:Trolltastic.

[Tiberius_Fel]

This troll has appeared in every story for quite some time now... It gets consistently modded down almost right away. I don't know who keeps doing that, but they show no signs of stopping. Maybe we should have -2 "Redundant Troll" since we've all seen it so many times. :P

this is all quite retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

It is inline with sticking spoilers on Civics. Even worse, in 2 years, your setup is obsolete and you start again.

The best part is, these same guys who buy these SLI rigs then turn all the details and resolution to low so that they can get the fastest frames possible and "0wn" everyone.

Re:My SLI / Linux experience

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, what does this have to do with the article? Plus, even though I agree that Linux is less friendly for the average user, the examples you are using are highly exagerated (which doesn't help your argument). The last time I installed a game in Linux was UT2004 and it was just as easy as in Windows. Plus, you don't need to chmod +x the file, you can type "sh " usually. Also, the normal complaint that I here from Linux folks (I'm a Linux guy too btw) is that you have to reboot the computer, not the fact that it takes 3 minutes to copy everything.

Silent water? Reminds me of a song ...

[spellraiser]

Letting the days go by
Let the water cool it down
Letting the days go by
Water flowing in my box
Into the CPU
In the silent water
Inside the tower yes,
There is water cooling it.

(With apologies to The Talking Heads)

Re:Silent water? Reminds me of a song ...

[BigDork1001]

I officially hate you for getting that song stuck in my head. It's going to be a long night now.

Re:Silent water? Reminds me of a song ...

[dynamo]

That's the same as it ever was.

Re:Silent water? Reminds me of a song ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And you may ask yourself-Well...Why am I reading this?

Re:Silent water? Reminds me of a song ...

[aliensporebomb]

I want to do a cover of that song with your lyrics. Cool.

And a video could be done with a fifteen foot high wall of
water cooled cases which overflow and then drown the band
but no sounds of fans to ruin anyones day.

how "quiet" are these?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if there isn't a fan, the water pump I presume
still makes enough noise to be audible? Does anyone
have info on how intrusive the pump motor noise is?

Re:ooh (Scóre: 5, Punny)

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but I think this is really cool.

Blast-Forward.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And the unique cooling tower of the Reserator 1+ does it all without a single fan to cool these hot components.""

Yay! Now I can overclock my VCR.

Not very informative

[PyroGx1133]

They used a A64 3000+ with 2x 6600 GT. That's the lowest you can go with SLI, but I doubt the reserator will be useless for 2x 7800 GTX (which is something I am considering). Maybe if we go dual reserator...

Re:Not very informative

[PyroGx1133]

My first spelling error! I mean useful, not useless.

Re:Not very informative

[FlibbleDwarf]

I am running two overclocked XFX GeForce 7800GTXs and an Athlon 4400+ with the reserator. The cooling is fine for this, and after several hours of heavy load on a warm day the CPU hits 46C, the primary GPU tops out at about 50C and the secondary GPU is always 4-5C cooler. The problem I have is that the RAM still needs a fan blowing over it, otherwise the display locks up about 20 seconds in to a game. I have one fan at the end blowing over both GPU's RAM and it is quieter than the original fans for the GPUs. Of course, fitting this fan in an unusual place was quite tricky.

On a normal day I get no more than 38C on anything.

The most interesting thing is remembering to turn on the watercooling (darn good job they have overheat protection these days), and also to turn it off (it really is that quiet you don't notice it is on).

Re:Not very informative

[plover]

May I ask why you would ever shut off your reserator? My son shuts off his PC every night (the hard drives are noisy) but never the Reserator. At night he can't even hear the pump that's just 12 feet from his bed. The only time he ever shuts it down is to carry the thing to a LAN party (which is still a two-person job until he buys some of Zalman's new quick-disconnects.)

The pump draws about 5W. At my local electric rate that's under $4.00 per year. Cheap insurance when compared to what might happen if he forgot to turn it on. Thermal overload shutdowns are still too hot for the chips, and are no guarantee of damage prevention. Plus, you may (or may not) have thermal monitoring of your northbridge or your graphics chipsets -- they may get hotter than the CPU's threshhold.

If there's some other reason where you absolutely need to power down the Reserator when the PC is off, just buy a 120VAC relay to switch the pump on and off, and control it with 12VDC from the PC's power supply -- it then turns the pump on and off with your system's power. They're available on all the do-it-yourself watercooling sites.

AdDot

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertisements for Nerds. Stuff that doesn't fucking matter.

Re:I still have to ask why.

[cheier]

e-penis++

It's not silent it's fanless

[adlkfjaslkdfjlaksdjf]

It's not silent, it's fanless you moron. There's quite a huge difference there. When will stupid people stop posting crap?

ooh-It *Depends(TM)*

[Anonymous Coward]

"I bet this is making the gamers all wet!"

The senior gamers are already water cooled.

Wow, the trolls REALLY are out tonight

[$RANDOMLUSER]

They're having so much fun, I almost hate to post on-topic.

I looked the first generation of this unit over pretty carefully when it first came out. I'm really glad they changed the color of the tower from that awful blue, the black would match my tower really well. The problem is, this thing doesn't cool that much better than a good fan-equipped CPU heat sink. Essentially, it's a fish tank pump, some tubing, and a big aluminum tank with sme percolation. The check-valves and flow indicators are nifty, and the thing is quiet, but it's not really overclockers gear, more like something for a total silence freak.

Hope this helps, you can go back to your regularly scheduled trolling now.

Now if they could do the same with laptops

[cabazorro]

My laptop fan is driving me crazy.
I have a tray with the little pipe cooled system and below a usb
power fan tray.
It doesn't work crap.
Anyone knows of some serious liquid-cooled laptop tray???

Re:Now if they could do the same with laptops

[Mechcozmo]

Serious liquid-cooling? Ooooh... a pan of oil would work nicely, just pump it through some dry ice to keep it cold. [/sarcasm]

How do u get rid of humid air

[Rac3r5]

Anyone know what a quick way to get rid of humid air would be?

Basically, I live in Canada, and our nights get quite cold. I was thinking of having a pipe from the outside suck in the cold air to my comp.. and then another pipe sucks out the cold hot air from the comp .. sounds pretty ghetto.. I know... but this could work if I could have cold dry air on my system. lol.

or does anyone have any ideas??

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[eluusive]

Cold air in the winter time is not going to be very humid. I suggest you get a hygrometer and test it. You'll probably find the air inside is more humid than outside air.

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[rdoger6424]

Depends. Where do you live? From what I've experienced up north it might just work around Calgary or possibly Edmonton, but winter only. I'd think that the only advantage would be novelty

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[FamineMonk]

I live in MN and I always had the same thought about doing something such as this. Hummm my computer fits quite nicely in to my window just cut a few holes in the side of the case (not to big its gets windy) maybe find some fine mesh or screen to try to keep other such things out. I have a few old computers that I would't care about loseing and I know one of them can monitor CPU temps. I might try to set this up this winter if I do I'll be sure to take pictures and post up the results I get.

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[Rac3r5]

that would be pretty cool.. let me know if you have any success :)

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid of water in any gaseous medium is simple. All of the incoming air must be run through a cold trap. This will condense the moisture out of the air and leave it pooled in a reservoir. The dried air will then pass through the system. The problem you face is supplying your computer with a chilled cold trap. You could buy a used one on ebay and then steal all of the ice from your refrigerator each time you wanted to use your computer. That option aside, there really is nothing available which will fit your needs. However, all of this is irrelevant. In order for the water to really damage your system, you will have to have components in your system which are cold enough to cause the water to phase change from a gas to a liquid (eg. they will have to be as cold as the evening's dew point). As this will never happen, the gaseous water will never condense in your computer and thus never corrode your system. This is why computers can be run in environments like the south eastern coast of the US without problems. Trust me that the humidity there is far worse than anything you will face in a colder climate.

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[stunt_penguin]

I've been considering something like this as well- I'm irish so the only time that outside temperatures are higher than inside temperatures are on warm days from June-August. Also, with a system like you propose, the actual fan could be placed outside and that would in itself eliminate noise.

My biggest worry would be fine drops of water or fog in the air rather than humidity- you don't need to worry about cooler-than-indoors air shedding moisture on warm computer parts. As for fine drops of water, a U-bend in the air intake would get rid of any serious ones I think. It's something I'd try if i had a number of machines- one fan outside feeding cool air to a long pipe like a small air conditioning duct, & then into the back of each machine via a shorter pipe. Maybe that's excessive but then so is installing a Zalman reserator :o)

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[modi123]

and then another pipe sucks out the cold hot air from the comp

Wow, you Canuks have it all! Maple syrup, Mounties, and cold hot air! If I were you I would save this rarified "cold hot air" for scientific use. Additionally I think the Icee-Hot company would give you a large donation for a continual supply of their new product.

Just a thought!

Re:How do u get rid of humid air

[Rac3r5]

hahah good eye :)

There are.

[PAPPP]

While a freon-style coolant based system running with no compressor (as implied in the parent) wouldnt be very effective, there are some compressor based systems. Most notably is the asetek vapochill which is a compressor-driven phase change cooler hooked up to a CPU pad. The same company makes widgets that are essencally case-sized airconditioners. These are NOT low-noise solutions like water cooling though, as compressors (think of a refridgerator or airconditioner) are loud.
As for using another liquid in a compressorless system, there really isnt anything practical that would work better. Of sane materials, water is best, the only liquid (at room temperature) more thermally conductive than water is Mercury, and that would be very heavy, and pose a substantal health risk. Koolance provides a good explination of this situation from the perspective of computer cooling. The coolest ones are that inert 3M material they show that is ALLMOST as thermally conductive as water, and completely inert (safe if it gets on your system, and even for submersion cooling, unfortunately the stuff costs about $500/gallon).

Re:There are.

[NormalVisual]

The coolest ones are that inert 3M material they show that is ALLMOST as thermally conductive as water, and completely inert (safe if it gets on your system, and even for submersion cooling, unfortunately the stuff costs about $500/gallon).

Water can be made pretty damn close to inert if you have a de-ionization filter somewhere in the loop. The dual-loop chillers for the laser systems I used to work with ran water directly over a 130VDC arc lamp drawing 60 amps (and was directly in contact with both electrodes at all times) but because it was DI it wouldn't conduct electricity to any real degree. Having said that, it's still possible that the crap that might be on your motherboard would dissolve in your nice, clean water and make it conductive if you spilled some on the CPU.

Re:There are.

[networkBoy]

then there is 3M engineering fluid 1107 (i think is the number).
liquid stable from -110c - +250c. do a water style cooling system with that and pre cool with a compressor based system (located where the noise + heat is a non-issue).
That's what I do with one of my systems (not a pc).
-nB

Re:There are.

[networkBoy]

sorry, temp stabile range is: (-135C to 61C)
beyond that the phase transision sucks away tons more heat and we use peltiers for a bit of a boost.
-nB

Re:There are.

[Nexx]

IIRC, DI Water is a very strong solvent and is rather corrosive though, and I don't trust the crap inside these consumer-grade cooling kits to not leech out enough ions to make it conductive.

Re:There are.

[Intrigued]

How about a propylene glycol based coolant?
There are a number of products that appear to have less than 2 microSiemens/cm conductivity and sell for closer to the price of antifreeze - also non toxic, good viscosity and come close to water for thermal transference. (~80%) Pricing seems to vary from $10/gallon to $120/gal.

Re:There are.

[plover]

Do you remember the guy who tried immersion cooling his PC in fluorinert a few years back? His plan was to filled a cooler with the stuff, submerge his motherboard, and then add dry ice to keep it all about -60. After adding about $800 worth of the stuff he discovered that it gelled somewhere above the freezing point of carbon dioxide, making it useless for the extreme cooling he had been hoping for.

Re:There are.

[NormalVisual]

That's why you have a filter in-line - you could make the entire system from stainless steel, but crap is still going to find its way into the water. It's really not a problem with a decent DI filter on the system, and the laser systems I mentioned before were not really that much better than what what you might find yourself with from Newegg.

Ultimate Case Mod!

[sarge apone]

Blacklight + Irradiated Sea Monkeys = mobile LEDs in tubes

Re:Ultimate Case Mod!

[Anonymous Coward]

Blacklight + Irradiated Sea Monkeys = mobile LEDs in tubes

Yeah, but the beat from the Sea Monkey All-Nite 70s Theme Disco, Bar and Grill defeats
the object of it being a silent mod. Who could sleep with tripped-out irradiated Sea Monkeys
partying in your PC case?

Water Cooling? Great, but expensive

[Thilo2]

I had a Geforce4 once but that one just broke down exactly 2 years after buying it, there was so much dust in there the fan wouldn't rotate anymore and i didn't notice. And blowing through the ribs of the processor cooler i regularly managed to have dust clouds shoot out at least 5 meters.
The fan for the processor broke twice, luckily the amd thunderbirds seem to be able to withstand extreme temperatures. I live downtown, so there really is alot of dust.
That's when I decided to switch to water cooling. I just couldn't be arsed anymore to do all this cleaning stuff every 3 months and fearing the next component will die the death of heat because i fail to notice a fan is broken.

I am having water cooling for over half a year now.
I cool my cpu, and AMD64 3200, mainboard chip and GT6600 card on an Asus A8N-SLI board with water. This means, i effectively got rid of three noisy fans and replaced them with two big and quiet ones for the radiator. Combined with a good power supply, it is simply amazing how quiet the system is compared to the earlier setup, if I don't look at the LEDs I frequently fail to notice the system is running at all. No cleaning anymore of the fans and coolers, which is a huge relief for me (better than switching from ball mouse to optical mouse) and I have a handwarmer now in wintertimes (got to play some 3d heavy stuff though ;) by just touching the radiator.
The downside is that it can turn out expensive and you can spend much money on it. If you buy the right things, it is very unlikely water leaks out, the biggest danger comes from a broken pump. Considering that I had many failing fans in my environment before and already broken hardware as a result I'm willing to take that risk, so yes, I would do it again if I had the choice.

Re:Water Cooling? Great, but expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time try getting a vacuum cleaner and using it once in a while. The girls will thank you, too.

Zalman reserator product great but has a flaw

[jjr23]

Kinda like the iPod Nano and its scratchable screen, the Zalman reserator is a great product with an annoying flaw. The reserator does give near silent cooling....for a while... After a few months, you might start to hear a quiet rattling.... then it gets louder. After 3 or 4 months, the reserator can making a full-on loud rattling that can get unbearable. The problem is with the pump that comes with it. It has a soft bearing that extended high heat and constant use can wear down and cause the pump's impeller to rattle. Zalman knows about this and offers free replacements for the pump (I'm on my third after 9 months). The real solution is to spend another $20 on getting a better pump though. Note that this is only a problem if you have a really hot system, such as a dual cpu + gpu + northbridge cooled system. Here is the forum thread on the subject. http://www.zalmanforums.com/showthread.php?t=48&pp =10 Ok. With full knowledge of this problem though, I have to say that I love the product. My computer used to sound like a jet engine with all the fans, and now is REALLY REALLY quiet (with a good pump). Sure, I found myself in an aquarium looking for a part to fix my computer, but I think that it is worth it (and it only cost me an extra 20 bucks).

Re:Zalman reserator product great but has a flaw

[Molochi]

I've noticed that almost ALL of the "retail" watercooling solutions use crap pumps. You'd think that for what they're charging they'd spring for an Eheim or sumthin. They don't tho'... I guess they're working on Thermaltake's buisness model; "Fancy crap for n00bs."

Re:Zalman reserator product great but has a flaw

[mfago]

You'd think that for what they're charging they'd spring for an Eheim or sumthin

Actually, the Zalman does use an Eheim -- just a crappy one (or one not meant for such hot water).

Re:Zalman reserator product great but has a flaw

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a bigger one to, increase water flow (I does), don't know if it help, get get some kick out of it.

Coolant is toxic, avoid if you have pets/kids

[bigtrike]

The ethylene glycol coolant included with this is very toxic. It tastes sweet and is highly toxic to small children and pets. It is toxic in both liquid and vapor forms. I would either avoid this product or safely dispose the included coolant and replace it instead with propylene glycol which is only toxic in very large quantities. It also does not taste sweet, so your animals/children are far less likely to ingest it in the case of a leak.

Re:Coolant is toxic, avoid if you have pets/kids

[Slashcrap]

The ethylene glycol coolant included with this is very toxic.

Unless I'm mistaken, ethylene glycol is just plain old anti-freeze isn't it?

Since you're clearly "thinking of the children", doesn't it need to be banned from cars/garages as well? Why is it more dangerous when used in a computer? Did you know that ingesting petrol is also dangerous to children and animals? And yet there are still no safety devices on petrol pumps to stop children walking up and putting the nozzle in their mouths. Since you're clearly a concerned American, I suggest you launch a class action lawsuit against these evil child killers. The worldwide publicity this will generate will surely serve to reinforce America's reputation as the land of common sense.

How about teaching your child that ingesting fluid that leaks from a machine is not such a good idea? Is that really so hard? And if they're too young to learn this, here's another idea you can use - try watching what they are doing.

Re:Coolant is toxic, avoid if you have pets/kids

[ProZachar]

Antifreeze bottled up in your garage usually isn't cycling through a pump for better parts of (or all of) the day. Most modern gasoline pumps can't be operated by children; at least one button required to start the pump is far too high for someone under 5 years old to push.

You *might* be able to teach a two year old that water from the reserator is a no-no. I doubt it, but you might. Good luck with trying to teach that to a dog or cat.

I don't know myself, but I suspect that propylene glycol is very similar to ethylene glycol in all relevant respects (price, cooling ability, etc.) except toxicity. So why would you belittle someone for advocating a solution that gets most (if not all) of the benefits of the original one but carries much less risk? That's called "making a good decision" and it's an important part of that thing called "the real world".

Re:Coolant is toxic, avoid if you have pets/kids

[billcopc]

The problem is that you have pipes dangling in the open, exactly where a child/animal would be tempted to pull/chew on them. You simple can't watch them 24/7, it takes merely a second of distraction for a child to get itself into trouble.

Still, it would be a fun way to tell the dumb kids from the gifted ones. DIY eugenics, anyone ?

Re:I still have to ask why.

[misleb]

It isn't necessarily about overclocking. It is about doing it quietly. ;-)

Nah, just thirsty

[doublem]

Anyone else finish the review and need a few glasses of water?

Reserator

[bahwi]

Despite the name, this is actually a good, easy to use water cooling solution. I set it up without any prior experience in about an hour, and have been using it every since. I don't OC, not often, but I do OC my ATI card quite a bit. My computer has no fans now(got a fanless PSU) and I've had no problems so far, for almost a year now(had to add a 1/4 cup of water once, but that's expected).

Re:I still have to ask why.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that it doesnt run the latest games at their highest detail levels and resolution. Try playing Everquest 2 or Call of Duty 2 on a 24" widescreen LCD with AA and AF. It doesn't work as great as you might think, even with dual Nvidia 7800s.

Meh....its overrated

[BalaClavaChord]

Traded in my 'Zalman Reserator 1+' for a 'PSU of Arctic Chill +4' last week to an elven mage.

Never looked back....

What's with the random ad links

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this will be modded down, but why, in recent weeks, does Slashdot seem to highlight hardware reviews that are only on Web sites where every few words is some "sponsored link" to some irrelevant ad?

Of course, someone else will post the same thing as me, add "Wind0w5 1s t3h SuXXOrZ!!!1!!", and they'll be modded up as "5: Informative". Karma is a bitch.

Allright: on topic. If you're going to spend $200 for a "CPU temperature control solution," as some corporate wannabe posting here will inevitably call it, why not just spend it on a faster CPU that you don't have to overclock to achieve what they they think are satisfactory speeds?

Legionaires Disease

[stoicio]

If you leave the water in the cooling system too long how long before someone gets a good dose of legionaires disease from thier coolant (water) accidentally spilling on thier desk?

Re:Legionaires Disease

[Lord Crc]

If you leave the water in the cooling system too long how long before someone gets a good dose of legionaires disease from thier coolant (water) accidentally spilling on thier desk?

The top of the reserator is sealed by a rubber seal. If you simply fasten the top sufficiently, theres's no leaks. Besides, the unit comes with an anti-corrosion and anti-bacterial fluid that's to be added to the water. Think that'll stop most of it.

Re:Legionaires Disease

[plover]

We have an original Reserator, and the instructions only say "add water." We added filtered water, and then an amount of bacteriacide/algaecide designed for humidifiers as protection against stuff growing in the hoses and blocks. We did this mostly to keep the internals from being coated by slime that could reduce the cooling capacity of the system.

However, the currently-slimy interior of the tank leads me to believe the water may still harbor some unhealthy life forms. I'm thinking an actual ethylene glycol anti-freze would prove more toxic to the bad things. The hose, gasket and block materials are all ordinary compounds that are unaffected by ethylene glycol in a typical car engine, so it should be safe to try without buying the Zalman bottle.

Leaks haven't been a big problem. There is a small pressure relief hole in the top center of the cap plug, which does leak if you tip the device on its side. (This fix is to not tip it on its side.) And we did have to send the flow indicator in for replacement -- while the tube ends are solid metal threaded hose connetors, the flow indicator body is just an acrylic pipe that cracked invisibly under the label when tightened, and had an incredibly slow leak that only manifested itself when the hoses were moved.

Does this require power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the unit require a power source? Didn't see any power cables for a pump in the pictures. Or is the flow of liquid controlled simply by the heat of the CPU?

Anyone know if you can cool two computers that are side by side with a single reservator?

Maybe...

[catdevnull]

Maybe I could mod this thing for my PowerBook G4 before I hard boil my nadz...again.

Unique? Rather old news...

[Hurricane78]

You can buy this cooling towers since 2002 (if i remember it correctly):

http://www.webshop-innovatek.de/assets/s2dmain.htm l?http://www.webshop-innovatek.de/0000009427113970 4/000000942713b3501/50142494350d4401b/501424943d0a 34647.html

Btw: My cooling system is from there, and they offer the greatest* support i ever had: Hed over to their forum, to have a chat with the designers and developers of all their stuff. Literally cool guys. ;)
(* The only support that comes close to it is the telephone support of terratec. those guys love their job and stuff too. I even had some laughs from their funny and good quality product manuals :)

Major Flaw In Review ... ?

[rhino_badlands]

Ok well i think there is a major flaw in this review, what happens when you run the return into the CPU first then the Video Cards ? I think you would see a huge drop in CPU Temp and only a slight one in the Cards.

From their pictures it looks like they are running to the cards first so ... i would assume thats the way they set it up.

Re:Major Flaw In Review ... ?

[rhino_badlands]

... In most gaming applications you will see a much more heat produced from the SLI video cards, then the proccessor so it would be wise to set it up this way ... but if you had an overclocked cpu you may want to put the cpu first in the chain.

Possible scamsite: They don't use VISA or COD

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I tried to order anything from webshop-innovatek.de it wasn't possible to specify any visanumber or to select COD-payment.
I specified my address and emailaddress and later I got a email telling me to put money on a bank account. Fishy.

Re:Possible scamsite: They don't use VISA or COD

[Anonymous Coward]

...forgot to mention one thing. I emailed the webmaster and some other address specified on their site and asked if it were required to put money directly on a bank account to buy anything from their webshop, but I didn't get ANY response.

Re:Possible scamsite: They don't use VISA or COD

[matthew.coulson]

Standard procedure for ordering from a lot of European webshops, especially on international orders.

hi-tech solutions?

[spongman]

this guy can build systems involving some of the most advanced technology available, and yet he didn't realize that by opening both ends of the box you can simply push the contents out the other side.

The mind boggles.

Silent computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume the obsession with silent computers for geeks is so they can leave Bittorrent running overnight downloading porn in their dorm room? WHY ELSE would they spend SO MUCH MONEY on something so negligible?

(HTPC and Audio buffs, I'm sorry)

Re:ooh (Scóre: 5, Punny)

[XchristX]

I've been using this "cooler" (Zalman ZM-2HC2 ) of Zalman's to cool and quieten my SCSI hdd. It does a good job of quietening it (the rubber dampers do damp out the noise well). But the cooling's poor. It cools by conduction through the Al frame and radiates it away on the tubes, but the cooling rate's evidently too slow for SCSI hdd's anyway (may work better with IDE-hdd's). While the reserator is a different kind of cooling system, I'm still a bit skeptical about it's effectiveness in high-end systems that are overclocked. I've asked around in hardware forums and many are of the opinion that, in the final analysis, there is no substitute for good old fashioned airflow (you can use strategically mounted low CPM 13db case fans if you want a quiet PC).

What do slashdotters think?

Poor SLI

[Anonymous Coward]

Disappointed to find it wasn't mentioned in the text for this article they only used 6600GT's.

Why bother? A single 7800GTX will outperform these.

We want to know if fanless water cooling will cool 2x7800 GT or GTX's, surely.

Try Hoovering your bedroom once in a while ...

[Joce640k]

There was so much dust in the fan it wouldn't turn

Try Hoovering your bedroom once in a while you slob...

Re:Try Hoovering your bedroom once in a while ...

[Thilo2]

Actually, I do and it doesn't help.
There's enough dust in the air and after a few months of continued usage, it is just as if i had never cleaned the PC.

WHY?!

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of you think that expensive and complicated cooling systems are completely the wrong way to look at this problem?

I mean... shouldn't they be making the processors emit less heat? VIA EPIA should get an award for making efforts in that area.

SLI issue

[aquabat]

Great cooling system, but it looks like one wouldn't be able to do SLI with the Zalman GPU blocks, if the PCIe slots are adjacent to one another, or if one has a card in the middle slot of this board.

but what about your pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the idea of a liquid cooled system, but if it leaks, your pets are going to drink the sweet-tasting, poisonous coolant.

Manifold - Parallel, not serial

[Anonymous Coward]

A slightly more complicated design would include a manifold with throttleable valves. Then you could run the cooling blocks in parallel instead of serially. The valves would let you balance the cooling as needed.

Of course the additional complications comes with a price. More places for a leak. More hardware ($$). More tuning to do.

Re:Manifold - Parallel, not serial

[rhino_badlands]

You may need aditional pumps to power something along those lines.

"Think of the Children"

[scatter_gather]

Oh please. All your sarcasm won't keep someones dog alive. Dogs die every year from drinking normal anti-freeze. How it got out can vary widely. Someone flushes the radiator and is not aware of the problem. Dog drinks it. Radiator springs a leak. Whatever. If you put this stuff in your home and your nifty keen liquid cooled computer springs a leak when you are out and your dog happens to drink it (yes, it does taste good to them), then you may return to a dead dog.
The poster makes a good suggestion. Available in any auto store as an alternative anti-freeze, polyethylelne glycol provides a huge safety margin for creatures that might drink it. The poster was not proposing passing new legislation using the "think of the children" rhetoric, he was only passing along a useful safety tip for those not aware of the hazard of regular anti-freeze. Save your sarcastic rapier for someone who deserves it.

Re:ooh (Scóre: 5, Punny)

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww crap, a PDF (Score:-5, Annoying) and no warning.

Agree about water versus air cooling, though. The one thing never mentioned in the manufacturer ads and seldom on website reviews: even with purified (battery) water, you'll eventually have to clean up the waterblocks and the plumbing. All sorts of goo and odd lifeforms make their home there, even on a closed system. And sometimes the cleaning up is very far from easy to do...

Watercooling may be silent (although efficient water cooling in a smaller than full-tower case usually ends up being somewhat audible anyway) but not care-free.

And yes, with reserators and other no-fan (no case airflow) solutions, hard drive watercooling is a must for reliability, and the gear can be a b*tch in practice.

-50 K?

[Sensible Clod]

I don't think so. 0 K (Zero Kelvin) is absolute zero (zero thermal energy, basically frozen atoms). Temperatures near this are barely attainable with multi-million-dollar setups. And your dad, by himself, has somehow gotten a computer to function at a temperature of 50 K below absolute zero?

Re:-50 K?

[bigswoff]

sub 50k != -50k... it means below 50k...and yes, near 0k cost a TON of money, but a few dozen k up is not that hard to do

Re:-50 K?

[Sensible Clod]

Ah, I see. Interesting.