Water cooling.

[Darthgary]

I want to get come good water cooling, I was thinking swiftech or Dangerden. If I installed the water cooling system would I have to monitor it or do maintence every so often?

[Urban_Squrill]

You would have to at least look at everything make sure stuff did not get bump some time and hoses are tight and stuff. Maybe change the water.

[Darthgary]

So the water goes bad??

What if I put bleach in the water or something? lol

[Telexen]

When you have all the components for it, it's best to connect it up OUTSIDE of a system and let it run a few days (at least 24 hours) straight. Use distilled water and a 5% or 10% mix of anti-freeze or any other similar substance (anti-freeze could give you a color you don't want, for instance my water is pink right now)

Most people change their water and flush out the system every 6 months or so.

[Darthgary]

I wonder how I would get the hoses running from the outside of the PC to the inside, I dont have many resources at all like drills or saws.

[beppodmime]

Well, first thing you're going to need if you want to install any of the better water cooling kits into most cases is some good power tools.

And what he's saying, is to fit everything, cut all hoses to length, but set the system up outside of the case first off to make it easier to fill/bleed and to test for leaks.

As for whether or not it'd need maintainance, most likely yes. Most cooling kits or systems will have a copper water block and an aluminum radiator, and corrosion is almost always going to happen when you have two dissimiliar metals in the same closed loop. Whether you choose to run a resevior, or just use a tee fitting or some such to fill the system is entirely up to you, but I'd stay away from any kits with a pump submerged in a resevior. That'll add the heat from the pump to the system, and it's just not as efficient. Anything Dangerden or swiftech sells ought to work just fine, but you're probably going to have to make a cut here or there to get the stuff in your case.

If you're looking for something that you can just plug in without modification, maybe the Koolance Exos would be more up your alley. It's a bit pricey (around 200-230 without the waterblock, add another 40-60 for a good quality block), but the radiator, pump and such are in an external box, and the hoses pass through a PCI slot cover supplied with the unit. They are not as efficient as some of the kits from Dangerden or Swiftech, but they're not slouches.

[Darthgary]

Sounds like a pain in the arse but my system runs 50C idle and I have to do something about it soon, water cooling seems to be a great thing since they dont go obsolete, I wonder if there is cases that I can buy that have water cooling allready mounted so I dont have to mod my case.

Thank you very much for your help beppodmime.

[thekingofpain]

Swiftech has the Q-Power barebones that come complete ready to go, just add your parts and good powersupply you already have---range in price between 400-500$

[beppodmime]

Originally posted by Darthgary
Sounds like a pain in the arse but my system runs 50C idle and I have to do something about it soon, water cooling seems to be a great thing since they dont go obsolete, I wonder if there is cases that I can buy that have water cooling allready mounted so I dont have to mod my case.

Thank you very much for your help beppodmime.

Not a problem, Gary. Water cooling did seem like a good purchase for me, mostly because you can just upgrade individual components, like the waterblocks, when you buy a system with a different socket, like if you change from AMD to a P4, or later with the Athlon 64's. And you can add peltiers to some of the better kits for even more cooling, if you decide that is the route for you. There are all in one cases, like the Swiftech one that thekingofpain pointed out, or you can get the one Koolance makes. They'll all run around the same price, although I don't particularly like the one that Koolance has. The Exos is really easy to set up and maintain, as everything is external, and Corsair makes an external unit as well, although HardOCP didn't like it much at all.

If you end up having to get any tools to get yourself going, you're probably going to need a Dremel, a good variable speed drill with some hole-saw bits of varying sizes, some metal files, and a steady hand. Water cooling really isn't as big a pain as it sounds. If you have a decent amount of skill with your hands it shouldn't take you long at all to set up, even if you have to cut up your case to do it.

[Nobody077]

I am personaly useing a Dangerden D3 block on my XP1600+. I peiced all my parts together myself. I use a 6 pass Hayden tranny cooler( $29 at Autozone) mounted to the top of my cheapy case with the hoses running through the top of the case and a hole cut in the top of case for a big 110mm fan(slow and quiet pulling in air), I loose the use of my top 5 1/4 bay but this doesent bother me, the pump Im useing is a ViaAqua 1300 ($20 from online fishpond shop). The pump is a inline model so I run it in a closed loop style system. I change my water about every 6 months or when I get air in the lines(not shure from where I havent ever found iny leaks). My system runs about 3*c above room temp Oced at 1.5ghz. The system cost me just under $100 after all the parts, and all case mods were done with a dremmel.

The only problem with watercooling now is many MB's arent comming with the 4 drilled holes around the socket to mount large HS or waterblocks, I am currently running into this problem looking for a new MB for my 2500+ barton project.