water cooling

[FEAR]

hi guys

Im thinking about adding a water cooling setup, firstly is it best to buy a ready kit or to build your own by customization?

Im looking to have some nice clear thick tubes with added uv colouring., cooling for the cpu and mobo, with the option to add cooling for graphics cooling later.



Im looking to spend around £180.

Danger Den kits have caught my eye,

any recommendations are great or tips!

[pdf27]

Generally assembling your own is better, because many kits use dodgy blocks/pumps.
There are some excellent block reviews/comparisons with proper performance data at procooling.com, that's highly recommended.
Don't expect everything to work right away out of the box - it might, but WC generally needs more tweaking than air. It will outperform air, but takes more effort.

[latency]

Danger Den will be right up your street, only problem is, clearflex (which is what dnger den w/c generally uses) cuts out UV light something kronic, I have UV colour in my water, but you can barly see it, even with 3 UV tubes.

If you want fat, clear tubes though, DD is spot on.

The big thing you need to think about though is where you're going to put the pump and radiator, cos this will afect which ones you want to buy. I have space in my case for a nice Ehiem pond pump, so I get fantastic flow rates, but I don't have space for a big ol' radiator, so I have a single 80mm one instead of a big 2x80 or even 3x80.

However, even with a cooling set up designed for silence and looks, rahter than performance, I still get idle temps of 35 and load temps of 41.

[FEAR]

I want to go for a setup like this,

i think it looks very nice indeed


http://mysite.verizon.net/res1p0bi/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/red2.JPG

I like the blood red water, very cool, will be red or blue, havent decided yet

I have a Lian Li case, I was thinking I could put the radiator internal, where the back case fan is at the moment, good place?

[latency]

Putting the rad on an exhaust fan can murder your temperatures, it depends on the airflow you have and the ambient temp of your case, but remember, cold air going through your rad instead of warm air from the motherboard will have quite an impact on your temps...

[A.O.D (QW97)]

Hi FEAR
As Latency says, Danger Den is THE way, especially with "180 budget and the dye in that pic must be a hell of a ratio mix to get it that colour. I have 2 bottles of dye in my clearflex based system and again as Latency says, it's hard to get to a really good glow, I have 2 UV tubes myself.

[FEAR]

how easy is it to setup? Ive read some guides on installing the cpu, gpu and mobo blocks, and seems straight forward. However with adding the water and making sure it flows correct, getting rid of air etc, is that hard?

Thanks Guys

[Rchiileea]

the green is the best uv die tbh. only a little is needed and the effect is the best out of the lot. 4 drops out of the bottle in mine

[latency]

Tricks to setting it up:

Don't bodge!!!
Plan the length of the pipes and where they're going to go, avoid bending them unless your going to make a sweeping curve or using a 90* connector.
Make sure all hoses have zip ties or clamps on them.

It's also a good idea to give the pipes a squeeze here and there once it running, to make sure they won't pop off a the slightest increase in pressure.

In terms of air and bleeding, if you use a bleed pipe or a res, you want it a the highest point in the system, if you get get it that high, the system will pump the air out itself, you just have to top up the water as the air gets displaced.

If you can't get the bleed pipe or res high up, things get tricky, and you have to systematicly get the air out by switching the pump on and off, then ading some water, then flashing the pump again to get that into the system, then add some more... blah blag... it takes ages and isn't a good way to do it.

A bay res makes things a doddle, it's probably the easiest solution.
A high bleed pipe (like in my system (http://idleentity.co.uk/moding/pc/side.jpg)) is also easy, as the system will pump the air out on its own aswell, but you need to top it up more often untill there's enough water to seal the end of the pipe.

Bear in mind, my system takes at least a ay or so to pump the air clear. So supervise it for the first hour or so to check for leaks, then you can leave it to run and it'll be fine.
Obviously this is where having a pump on a seperate plug is useful, because the computer itself can be switched off.