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Liquid Cooling More than One Component?
static0verdrive asks: "I am new to liquid-cooling, and I have designed a system for use in a micro-ATX OpenBSD server, with the following layout: Fillport > Reservoir/Pump > Y Split (one to CPU and the other to chip-set) > Y Reconnect > Radiator/Fan > Back to the fillport. I don't like the idea of having the hot coolant coming from the CPU going directly to the chip-set, hence the Y split. Could this split cause any problems? Would there be a difference in pressure (considering the CPU is most likely a lot hotter) that could cause an issue? How would you handle liquid-cooling more than one component? What if I wanted to cool 3 components, such as in the case where I add a video card to this setup later on?"
So insert valves and flow meters and adjust until you get the ratio you want. (Extra credit if you have the computer monitor and automatically adjust its own cooling.)
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
http://stringed.org/images/DSCF0006.JPG
out to cpu, split one into geforce 6800 ultra OC, meet up with the split 1/4 " pipes to go back into the reservoir. works beautifully... in a non-airconditioned room in muggy SE Pennsylvania playing the Prey demo... only got to 42 Celcius. Add AC and it maxes out at 39 Celcius.
It's a Koolance rig.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
Why not just use a smaller diameter tube for the components that don't need as much cooling? KISS
Reason 1:
Your lower water flow in each cold-plate due to splitting the flow with a Y lowers the velocity thru each cold-plate and thus lowers the heat transfer between the water and the cold-plate.
Reason 2:
You do not have the equipment needed to measure the flow thru the 2 branches of the Y so you risk having 1 component be hotter than needed and not know it. Some will suggest using valves to choke flow to the higher-flowing cold-plate, but this way you are wasting pump head.
Sadly, water cooling has come from being done right (like by IBM and the water cooled version of the VAX 9000, which was changed to air cooling before being shipped) to the use of feeble pumps and undersized radiators. In many cases, water cooling in PCs has become the equivalent of a "Type R" sticker on a Honda sedan.
There is nothing magical about water cooling. An air cooled setup can have the same performance, given good heat sink surface area, good fin efficiency of the heatsink, and 600 feet/minute airflow. A water cooling setup CAN let you to increase the effective heatsink area for ejecting heat into the room air without a fin efficiency penalty. But to do this you need enough flow and enough radiator area, and to keep costs down most kits are marginal on both.