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Liquid Cooling for an Enclosed Cabinet

T

Twoboxer

Junior Member
Years ago I installed built-in cabinets to house my two PCs so they could co-exist in the living area of our home. But the increased heat generation and case size required by video cards and internal cooling systems on newer models has gradually forced me to take them out of the enclosed cabinetry. This has caused a "decor" problem, and made my little office area a lot warmer than I'd like.

I'm wondering if I can put the PCs back in an enclosed cabinet and use a liquid cooling system to transfer/exhaust the heat elsewhere. Specifically, I'd run cooling pipes from PCs installed in base cabinets, through an existing vertical channel, and up to the radiators/fans that would be mounted on top of the upper cabinets.

This would require (in round numbers) a 6' horizontal run from the PCs to the wiring chase, a 7' vertical run to the top of the cabinetry, and a short horizontal run to the radiator/fans. This area has 12' ceilings, so there's nearly 4' above the upper cabinetry to the ceiling. Since the adjacent room has even higher ceilings, the warm air flow can easily be directed there and absorbed.

So, some basic feasibility questions:

1) Is this possible? I guess a better question to ask is whether its practical.

2) Are liquid cooling systems commercially available that can operate over these distances?

3) Can they remove enough heat to make it feasible to put two "gaming" PCs in a single enclosed cabinet with "no" air flow?

Any thoughts, suggestions, or links would be appreciated.
 
Yes, it's possible. As for practical, well what are the alternatives?

As for the distance question, all you have overcome (with correct pump selection) is the added restriction of about 12' of tubing. Note that whatever effect gravity has on the liquid going up, it has the same effect on the liquid going down. In other words, gravity has no overall effect. Using 3/4" copper pipe for the rise/drop should greatly reduce flow restriction compared to the 1/2" tubing typically used in Wcing.

Another thing to consider is noise. The quieter the fans you use (on the radiators) the less air they will blow through the radiators, and the less air that flows hrough a radiator the less efficient it is at removing heat. If you want to use quiet, low CFM fans, you're goung to need a lot of radiator face area

You will still need some ventilation on the cabinets, as there are other things that generate heat other that CPUs and video cards.
 
I don't believe larger tubing will make any difference, PC watercooling does not use a great volume of water, if anything over that distance the larger tubing would act as a res. Standard 1/2 or 7/16" would work fine. I did this to a closet, a second pump in series at opposite sides of the loop worked best for me.
As Bill said big rads for quiet and keep in mind you still need some air on the board with watercooling.
 
A pump that should be acceptable for such a long run is the Iwaki RD series. LINK
However, they require a separate 24v powersupply.

Or as WoodButcher said, you can use two smaller pumps at your computer and at the radiators.
 
no its not possible unless your cabnet has some breathing room.

there are things that you still need to aircool so your case would built up in heat consistantly unless it had an air hole.

The airhole would need to be significantly smaller then if your entire system was on air, yet you would still need an airhole.
 
Thanks for the quick comments, folks. From them I gather its physically possible with commercially available parts, and it might work if I can provide enough air flow in the cabinet to deal with the remaining heat.

I've operated one PC in that cabinet with the doors closed - one or another of top of the line Dells of 4 to 8 years ago. There's a circular hole in the cabinet top (ie, the desk top) that allows warm air (and wires) out, and I guess the 1/4" separation between the front doors allowed enough air to be drawn in. Two PCs was a no-go unless I left the doors open. So there's some hope.

But the more I think about this the more problems I see, eg. the PCs really wouldn't be very movable . . . like a patient trying to get out of bed while hooked up to dialysis.

I think I'm going to take a look at ways to actively cool that cabinet instead, perhaps coming up from the basement below. If you have any thoughts about that, please don't hesitate to pass them along.

Thanks again for the helpful comments.
 
Originally posted by: Twoboxer
I think I'm going to take a look at ways to actively cool that cabinet instead, perhaps coming up from the basement below. If you have any thoughts about that, please don't hesitate to pass them along.
Click to expand...

Depends on what is under the cabinet, open basement? 4- 1/4" or 1/2" hole saw, A heavy duty extension and a good drill, 4" smooth metal ducting, not the flex-vent crap. Add to that a high cfm fan and your good to go. 2 things though, floor joists,,, avoid them😉 ok, that's pretty obvious, dumb joke, the second is important, a good 1/2" drill can break bones when it grabs, be careful if you use this option.
 
Hehe - not so easy in my case. About 4" of "mud" , a substance more like concrete that serves as a base for the tile floor that, yes, does extend under the cabinetry.

The cabinetry is L-shaped, and the cabinet in question is in the corner, so it borders on two walls. One is an outside wall, but that would mean loss of control over the ambient air temperature.

The other wall adjoins a Laundry Room. I'd have to go through back of cabinet at least into the wall to clear the "mud". But that would limit the intake and exhaust sizes. More likely I'd go through the wall and box out some space there for the intake/exhaust to bend down through the floor to the basement.

If these alternatives were easy, I never would have considered liquid cooling lol.
 
What about the toe kick? does your cabinet have this? An appropriate sized rectangular duct cover installed there looks like any other heat duct and cutting into the floor of the cabinet would give all the fresh air you need.

Another thought and much easier would be a replacement door, matching the cabinets and vented.
 
lol . . . Yes, there is a toe-kick (well, not really a toe kick but molding below the cabinet interior base) and that's an option I had not thought of.

When we built the place we tried very hard to avoid putting air handling ports in any of the cabinetry. In one place our hand was forced, and we had them rout out four .25" x 12" long parallel "holes" in the toe kick rather than install any duct cover. Those openings are virtually invisible, and the same approach may work here as well. With an exhaust fan out the back of the cabinet into the laundry room, of course. Hell, only my wife goes in there 🙂

Thanks for the good idea!
 
Your welcome! Thank you, I've used a register in the kick in many homes but I like the slot idea too which gave me another thought. Only carpet-creepers and ankle-biters see the top of the toe kick at all. A 120 mm fan has an area of just under 20 sq inches, cut the top of the kick short an inch leaving 1 or 2" solid every 12" for support.
 
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