Possible New Project

**clocker** · 12-03-2003, 05:32 PM

Water cooling has been my ultimate goal since I started working on my own PC and I'm about ready to initialize the first phase.

After suffering along with me on the modification of a Thermaltake Xaser3 case, I'm going to inflict a whole new series of topics upon you.

The Xaser case is fine for what it is, and I've managed to come up with a good aircooled solution for it, but it lacks several features that I've learned that I want in a watercooled case.
Basically, it is simply too full of holes ( stock, not the multitude that I have added

) to be silent. Fan noise escapes from the entire enclosure... not really loud of course, these fans are only operating on 5v, but not my definition of silent either.

Then I saw this...

a Lian-Li case where silence was the main objective. It appears perfect for my needs.
Then I found these...

...passive radiators. No fans=no noise.

So I started thinking and have come up with this plan to try initially...

I think that if I use two of these radiators hooked in series ( one after the other) and a Ehiem pump, there may be enough water in the system that I won't need a reservoir at all. This simplifies the whole arrangement considerably and should it not prove sufficient, a reservoir can always be added later.
As these radiators are intended to be mounted externally, there is no waste heat issue to deal with inside the case.
Furthermore, the pump itself can be mounted external to the case, which leaves only the two connections to the CPU waterblock to potentially cause problems leak-wise.
With the entire CPU heat problem moved out of the case, the remaining heat sources are quite minimal- the HDD and videocard being the two biggest, and they are easily dealt with, so interior fans can be held to the absolute minimum.

Clearly, this is not a setup for ultimate cooling capacity. Standard radiators with high powered fans would be more efficient, but that is not my goal anyway. Silence is. I can visualize how to mount fans to these radiators should the necessity arise anyway, so that possibility is always open. Or maybe even put the radiators in a small refridgerator...
But, that's for later...this is my starting point.

Any comments?

**Virtualbody1234** · 12-03-2003, 05:35 PM

Hey clocker, since it's so slow I thought I would crash your topic to ask you for some help. Look for my new topic.

Please. :">

**lynx** · 12-03-2003, 06:15 PM

Water blocks for the videocard, chipset and HDD?
Seems a shame to do half a job.

But I suppose these can be added later.

**clocker** · 12-03-2003, 06:22 PM

Chipset is feasable, lynx, but my current vid card (Radeon 9000 Pro) doesnt really generate enough heat to justify the added complexity.
I already have a heatpipe cooler installed and am experimenting with a auxiliary fan ( to little effect, so far).
I also have heatpipe cooling on the HDD.

Neither of those components rise more than 2-3C above ambient in normal use.

It's certainly a possibility though, but first I have to establish how well the setup works on the CPU before I add any more thermal load to the system.

**bigdawgfoxx** · 12-03-2003, 06:45 PM

I dont know much about water cooling but it seems nice...isnt all the parts of the water cooling supposed to be inside the case though?

**clocker** · 12-03-2003, 07:06 PM

Not necessarily, dawg.

Typically that is how it would be done, but all you have done in that case is move the heat from your chip to another part of the case. You still have to evacuate it somehow and usually that means fans. And fans mean noise.
The idea here is to move the heat out of the case altogether and not have it pollute the interior.