LGA775 and water cooling

[BKF]

I've been doing a lot of reading because I want to get a water-cooling setup for my LGA775 P4 Prescott CPU. However, one thing I came across has me worried. Apparently Intel's design specs for their stock HSF says in addition to cooling the CPU, the fan is also there to cool nearby voltage regulators.

If this is true, then a water-cooling setup will most likely not perform this "dual duty" function, and could potentially lead to motherboard failure. Obviously case fans (intake and exhaust) will help somewhat with this, but how important is this design spec? Are they being overly cautious?

Since LGA775 water blocks are just recently making an appearance, I'm curious how many out there are successfully water-cooling and if you're having any issues that you didn't notice before? Like lower CPU temps, but maybe you're having odd freezes or lockups?

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

[iamtrout]

The voltage regulators that Intel's talking about are the MOSFETs on the mobo. They look like small 0.5cm x 0.5cm black squares laying around the CPU socket. I have around 8, and they definitely get really hot when overclocking (~60C). They are not hard to cool, however. When you watercool just make sure that you have a case fan pointed directly at the socket. A nice quiet 120mm case door fan mounted at the right height would do it.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: iamtrout
The voltage regulators that Intel's talking about are the MOSFETs on the mobo. They look like small 0.5cm x 0.5cm black squares laying around the CPU socket. I have around 8, and they definitely get really hot when overclocking (~60C). They are not hard to cool, however. When you watercool just make sure that you have a case fan pointed directly at the socket. A nice quiet 120mm case door fan mounted at the right height would do it.

There are only two things wrong with this idea. 1. The fan will bathe the entire area in a constant stream of fine dust. 2. It might entail a fair amount of extra expense depending on the case. I was considering a P4 for my next upgrade, so this is good information. Also, isn't it true that mosfet's are designed to run hot, like video RAM?

 

[iamtrout]

I'm sure mosfets are designed to run hot, but the fact that Intel says the stock HSF is important for cooling them means that they probably should be cooled. And frankly, 60C+ is a bit high and scary for me. As for the dust, I do believe that they make filters for case fans that block out dust. Like http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/12filguar.html
It doesn't have to be expensive. I'm sure you can ghetto rig a fan to blow on the mosfets with a little ingenuity and some zip ties. And besides, dust it's that huge of a deal. All intake fans will suck in dust anyway unless they have that filter on.

 

[BKF]

The Intel spec for the LGA775 processor says it requires a side case fan, or ducted fan pointed at the CPU area. Hopefully in a water-cooling situation, with a rear exhaust fan, this will be enough to keep the MOSFETs cool.