How many components can one reliably cool?

[mrblotto]

Hello all,
I'm new to the w/c area and am wondering how many components can be reliably cooled with a w/c solution. I have (in no particular order)

2 vid cards
northbridge
southbridge (I think thats what it is....lol)
cpu
2 vol regs

I already have everything hooked up, but I believe I'm stressing the system a bit. I'm getting temps on the vid cards of around 38 and 43 idle and 54 and 61 under stress (playing STALKER maxed out after about 45 mins).

I'm not sure if those temps are way too high, too high, a tad much, or middle of the road.
I do have a couple splitters in the line:

1 path takes care of the 2 vid cards, SB and NB. Thinking this may be a bit much and may need to reroute or something

2nd path takes care of CPU and 2 V regs

It all goes back to a external radiator/resevoir (the one that aigomorla dislikes so much). If only I would've read his words of wisdom a few months ago........sigh

Again, I am new to this w/c game so be gentle....lol!

 

[WoodButcher]

You don't mention you cpu or board temps or list your parts. Parts ain't just parts and Agiomorla recommends staying away from many things as do most of the more knowledgeable waterpuppies. Be specific and ye shall be answered!

 

[Alistar7]

Welcome to {AT}Mr Blotto (looks good on you ).

Include a bit more info on your system and hopefully you will get some solid answers.

 

[mrblotto]

Thanx all. Yeah, I neglected to include some information. Now that I'm back at work I'll have some free time......lol.

Here are the system specs (runs off to Newegg to copy/paste.....)

Asus P5N32-SLI Premium
2G Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 (not O/C)
2 Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA150
2 160GB SATA HD (Don't know brand.....donated)
COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-850-EMBA ATX12V / EPS12V 850W Power Supply
2 EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

I went ahead and got the following stuff for w/c:
KOOLANCE EX2-750BK Liquid Cooling System

2 x VID-282 (GeForce 8800GTX/Ultra)
1 x Dual VID Connect Nozzle, 3 Slot Spacing
1 x GPU-180-L06 (Vid/MB) for 'southbridge' or whatever its called.....lol
KOOLANCE CHC-A05 Motherboard Northbridge Cooling Block

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

KOOLANCE CPU-305-H06 CPU Cooling Block
2 x VR-AS40 (ASUS MB VReg)

I have routed the flow using a couple splitters. Components above the dotted line on one route (vids, SB and NB), below the dotted line on another route (CPU and VRegs)

I've put temp probes on both vid cards and one of the V Regs, but I just kinda stuffed 'em in there any old way, so I'll bet I'm not getting accurate temp reports. I'm not quite sure where on the components to put the probes.

After playing STALKER for an extended time last night, I started to get some tearing and funky colors, but the vid temps only reported
43 and 54C, but like I said above, I dont think they're accurate......perhaps something like nTune would help?

I'm thinking of just going back to air for the SB,NB,CPU and VRegs, and just using the w/c for the vid cards.
There you have it, sportsfans.....thank you for any assistance/suggestions you can give!

 

[PCTC2]

Yeah, welcome to AT Forums.

Not to be one to shoot you down, but Koolance products are crap. Right now, your system is putting out around 450-500 watts of heat. With you splitting the loop, you decrease your flow rate and thus performance. My new w/c system would barely be able to keep up with the amount of strain on your components due to the heat load. There's no way your Koolance can handle that kind of load.
Those funky colors are artifacts. It means your video cards are probably overheating and causing errors. Right now, you'd probably be better off going with air on your video cards.

Custom Build Watercooling loops are a lot better. Aigomorla will probably post here soon anyways.

 

[covert24]

Yea Aigo explains in his watercooling guide that koolance, thermaltake, and a couple other companies don't know anything about anything and that you should steer clear of them. personally i would return that setup and go with a custom built one and then we can all help you out to get the best performance out of your system. I would also have to agree with PCTC2 on air cooling your video cards for now. Those GTX's are putting ot a boat load of heat and that current system is just spreading the hot water around to all of your other components.

 

[Marci]

If you want lower temps, you need to move more air thru the rad... that's the basics of it. More air thru rad = more noise. If wanting to maintain silence, all you can do is either use a radiator optimised for silent fans, or use more radiators. Don't pipe things in parallel - keep it all on one loop in series as much as possible. Water will always follow the path that offers the lowest resistance, so a high amount of your liquid flow is heading for the VReg blocks, leaving the other branch with less flow than it needs. Abandon all the splits. Run from one block to the next block to the next block. That'll bring flowrate up in every block and should bring temps down a touch. Ultimately, more radiator surface area or more airflow are your choices.

 

[mrblotto]

Thank you for the information and suggestions. I had no idea that much heat was being put out....zoinks! Unfortunately I cannot return the components........*shakes fists into air in futility*. I've notice that both PCTC2 and covert24 suggest ditching the vid blocks and switching to air instead. Since I only game exclusively on my system (<-------yeesh, bad grammar there), Would there be much of a difference if I just w/c the vid cards alone and revert back to original equipment (i.e "air/fans") for everything else (CPU, Vregs, NB and SB)? Or would that still be 'too hot'? Please realize I mean no ill will or disrespect when I ask that. It would be far easier for me to swap out the NB,SB,Vregs,and CPU blocks and replace them with 2 heatpipe assemblies and a CPU fan......lol. But, if I end up with 2 shiny paperweights,so be it. Live and learn, right? Thanx again!

PS. You guys know a lot more than I do in this area. That is why Alistar7 recommended I post. I see he has almost 9000 posts here. We cant get him to shutup over on our forums either!.......

 

[WoodButcher]

I would try cpu and vids on water, air for the rest, single loop as marci suggests and see what your temps are. If you need to you could add a single rad. I didn't see your case in the list of parts but I'm guessing the Koolance is top mounted, add a 120x1 to the loop on a radbox in back. I'm thinking your loop like this- pump> rad> cpu> 120x1 rad > vid cards> pump

 

[mrblotto]

Yes, the rad/pump unit sits on top of a generic full tower case. Thank you for the suggestion WoodButcher!

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: WoodButcher
I would try cpu and vids on water, air for the rest, single loop as marci suggests and see what your temps are. If you need to you could add a single rad. I didn't see your case in the list of parts but I'm guessing the Koolance is top mounted, add a 120x1 to the loop on a radbox in back. I'm thinking your loop like this- pump> rad> cpu> 120x1 rad > vid cards> pump

Very Dangerous to do this, because the koolance radiator is alu. If you drop in another aftermarket copper radiator, you'll end up mixing metals.

I would honestly put the CPU and your chipset on the koolance loop, using koolance waterblocks. Try and avoid mixing both copper and alu in the same loop. Use one or the other. Koolance uses gold platting on the inside of there blocks, so your not mixing copper and alu.

I would then get nice air coolers on the G80 cards, because two in sli will put out more heat then a quadcore. Infact, it can push almost 2x what an overclocked quadcore can on stock settings. This will hurt your cpu performance considerably unless you have an awesome radiator.


Lastly, lets welcome Marci to this forum. He's a legend over at XS systems, and also the owner of the famous company Thermochill.

 

[WoodButcher]

Yep, your absolutely right agio, I would use this rad made by Koolance

 

[mrblotto]

Yikes! That's a LOT of heat being pumped out (thinks about lowering his heating bill in winter.....). I'll follow all y'alls advice and revert the vid cards to air (I'll have to use the stock ones for a while at least) and keep everything else in situ. Shouldn't take me more than a couple hours this weekend methinks. I should've come here in the first place, damn my silly pride/stupidity/same thing! A big thank you to all, and welcome Marci! Didn't mean to leave you out of the mix......

 

[Marci]

because the koolance radiator is alu. If you drop in another aftermarket copper radiator, you'll end up mixing metals.

Meh... just drop in another aluminium radiator - Corsair Hydrocool's radiator is the 120.1 footprint version of what you already have and would match up with the loop perfectly... should be able to pick one of those up from forum for-sale sections somewhere... Magicool also offer an aluminium rad aong similar lines to Black Ice Pro radiators.

 

[mrblotto]

Originally posted by: WoodButcher
Yep, your absolutely right agio, I would use this rad made by Koolance

That's an interesting idea. Let's see.......that looks to be about 5.5"W by 5"H by 2.25" deep. I'm thinking it goes on the outside back of the case in lieu of the air fans, and the 120mm fan gets mounted on the inside (blowing out of course). I'll have to take a peek inside my machine this weekend to see if I can eke out some free space in that area......

 

[Alistar7]

Pretty hot down there in NC eh Mr.Blotto, have a nice cold :beer: on me

Thank you AT for helping out this old friend of mine, much appreciated.

 

[mrblotto]

What he said! (pointing above me), and I'm not quite 40 yet.....lol

 

[Alistar7]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

lol Blotto, look at the number 6 on your keyboard

I have been celebrating my 29th b-day for a few years now

 

[mrblotto]

To pretty much finish this one off,
I have taken off the blocks for both vid cards and put the stock fans back on. Went ahead and leak tested it pretty much all day yesterday successfully. Hooked everything back up, turned it on, and decided to run nTune and take a look-see at the idle temps. They were about 65 and 75 C for the GPU's

I was like 'what the.....?'. So I took the side back off and stuck my finger in each block to make sure the fans were running, which they were. Did the nTune stability test for the GPU's only and after the 10 minute test temps came back to something like 72 and 82.

I noticed in nTune that I could NOT control the GPU fan speed, so after googling around a bit I install RivaTuner 2.02 and set the fan speeds at fixed 96%. That made the temps go down a couple degrees C for each, which was still kinda high for idle temps......

Long story longer....lol
I re-installed a couple of fans I had taken out previously. They are mounted right above the GPU's. ATM the temps are 55 and 70, quite a bit lower IMO. I'll probably pick up a slot cooler and well and put it right between the cards.

Here are some pics just in case you guys/gals need a laugh now and again......It's amazing what a trip to the Home Improvement store can do!

These were taken before I put the fans back in......

Oh, and the water temp has dropped dramatically too. The one temp probe I have installed is on the next to the last block in the loop (Vreg). reporting 30C at idle.......woohoo!

http://www.clan-tlb.com/forums...ry2.php?g2_itemId=3525
http://www.clan-tlb.com/forums...ry2.php?g2_itemId=3516
http://www.clan-tlb.com/forums...ry2.php?g2_itemId=3519
http://www.clan-tlb.com/forums...ry2.php?g2_itemId=3522

 

[WoodButcher]

Originally posted by: mrblotto
Here are some pics just in case you guys/gals need a laugh now and again......It's amazing what a trip to the Home Improvement store can do!

No laughs here dude, My first water was thermaltake. Much worse as far as cooling goes. I really would consider adding a rad for the vid blocks and air on the board. It won't cost too much more and will improve your temps. My commando is on stock air heatpipes, OCed and my board temps are very good. Do you have a fan on those HDs? The raptors run warm and with that many you want good airflow. Cutting out the stamped fan grills in your case will help with that as well as quiet them down. Dremel or use snips and then file or sandpaper smooth.
What are those 2 white cylindrical things in your loop?

 

[mrblotto]

No, I'm afraid I dont have a fan on the HD's. Maybe I should figure out where to place one. I shouldn't really need a rad for the vid blocks cause there are no more water blocks on the vid cards, just the stock air ones. But I do plan on getting a slot cooler for between the two. Good idea on the fan grills. Been itchin to get some dremelin' in! The 2 white cylindrical thingees are the adapters I made. The tubing for both going in and out of the rad is 3/8", but the blocks use 1/4" tubing. I remembered how aigomorla stressed not to mix metals. So the dude in the plumbing dept got me a couple 1/4" fittings, a couple 3/8" fittings, and some schedule 40 pipe, all made out of.......uhhhhh......I dont remember, but its NOT metal....lol.

Just wrapped some teflon tape and screwed the fittings in nice and tight, and had myself two 3/8" to 1/4" converters.