Do I really need to worry about monitoring water temps?

eyetrip

eyetrip

eyetrip

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It's something I have been meaning to set up for ages, but every time I come on to OCUK to look for monitoring kit, they are always out of stock.

I have been going a year or more now without monitoring water temps, and was again looking to buy some stuff, and OCUK is, AGAIN, out of stock on the monitoring stuff I would get.

Should I even be bothered about it?

I mean, my GPU's don't go above around 60. CPU not worth mentioning temps due to Intel making it useless putting them under water (though I still have it under water).

Is it worth me going somewhere else to get the stuff for monitoring temps? Or shall I just leave it.

Edit:
My WC setup is 1 x420mm black ice on top, 1 x 140mm black ice at back, and 1 x 280mm koolance on bottom. Though I may replace that Koolance one - the problems I have developed with their QDC's has really put me off them. And that is with a D5 pump pushing everything around
 
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I've got a much cheaper way of testing your water temp, put your hand over the air blowing out from the first rad after your 3 gpus, and then add a few degrees on :)

If your interested in monitoring your water temps then i would just buy the stuff you need from somewhere else if they dont have any in stock here.

If i were running 3x290x and a 4790k i would proberbly want in idea of the water temps, cause youll probebly find you need to turn up the fan speeds in demanding games.

It sounds like its running fine though because you would find your GPU temps rising as your water temp rises in demanding games, if your keeping steady GPU temps then i would make a guess that your water temp is pretty stable.

But seriously if you have a good flowrate in your loop, then the temp will be a few degrees hotter than the air coming out of the rad, if that aint real hot then neither is your water.
 
If you have decent flow, all you really need to keep an eye on is the component temps. I use BluD's method of feeling the air temperature to see how warm the loop is if i am concerned about room temp climbing toward water temp, so i know when i should open the door for some ventilation if i am in for an extended benching session. I have water sensors but i never really check them since they are all the way round the other side my PC.
 
One way to determine your water temps is to look at your cpu socket temp while idle and add 3/4c to that temperature.Same thing to see water temp after prolonged periods of load,see what the idle socket temp is afterwards and add a few degrees.

This is how i was roughly judging my water temp before i added a proper sensor into my loop,and the sensor is giving me almost identical temperatures to the method i was using :)
 
If the is no flow rate issue in your system, then your CPU will most likely hit thermal trip before water temps can get dangerous. If the is a flow rate issue then the water will be getting hotter in some places than others and can reach danger temps, however a flow rate issue would also most likely cause CPU temp problems.

I've been an avid water cooler since the early 2000s and have only ever seen a handful of people have catastrophic problems with water temp.
 
The water temps are a good source to make fan curves if you have a controller that support it. Just keep them spinning slow/not at all until you hit whatever you yourself think is too high, and then ramp up speed from there. My fans start to spin at 31 degrees, and reach full effect around 43-ish, though I never get that high, despite my ****** apt. with an ambient temp of 25 degrees.

Unless you are going higher than 50 degrees (a D5 pump have a max operating temp of 55 or 60 degrees celsius), there is nothing to worry about.
 
Thanks for all the feedback.

Was going to just decide "I've done ok so far, will just leave it". Air is quite warm coming out the top, but nothing toooo bad... but when I saw the below..

ErikN said:
Unless you are going higher than 50 degrees (a D5 pump have a max operating temp of 55 or 60 degrees celsius), there is nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...

I suddenly thought, maybe I should do it after all.

Not sure what I could do if the water was hitting close to 50 degrees though. Can't stick more radiators in. Fan speeds are just running constant at fairly high rate.

Hmmmm

As an aside, I got one of these:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-304-EK

But was looking at moving my pump into one of these:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-139-XS

But the pump attached in the dual bay res looks to have some large knurled section.... which I am sure my pump doesn't have - or is that part of the mounting that will come in the res?
 
I monitor temps with a couple of these one in each rad going to my recon fan controller which then adjust the fans based on temps and fan curve

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-199-XS&groupid=962&catid=2138&subcat=2154

IMO i would never want my 670s getting near 60c I know the 290s run hotter but when watercooled they should still be below that in the area of 20-30c delta which depending on your house temps id normally expect to see in the 50c area i would estimate your water temps are getting into the 40c region which while safe is higher than I personally would like.
What fans and settings do you have on the rads?
 
Was wondering if could attach some of those to a Recon. Think will go that route.

The 60C was generally when overvolted and OCed. Currently, not overvolting, so temps may be a bit lower.

All rads have Phanteks 140mm fans on, the 280 has in push/pull. Not sure exactly what speeds - they are all attached to the enthoo primo splitter, and the Gigabyte g1 has never adjusted speeds, so I think all are running fairly high. It's certainly not silent, and I can feel a fair amount of air pushed out the top.

Do want to get it all controlled a bit better. Just never got round to it.
 
a recon with those and this software
http://www.phoebetria.com/
plugged in to a usb header is how i do it

You didnt list which black ice rads you have so i dont know if they have multiple ports on them or not but my alphas have a single drain port at the opposite end to the input ports and ive just tapped onto those
 
I have the through flow sensors, one on each exit from the rads and then a surface measurement on the backplate of one of my 670's and one on the VRM's of my RIVE. Only did the surface mounts as I had the sensors already and had two spare t/c inputs on my FC5 so passive monitoring only.

It's useful when you are setting up and monitoring overclocks/temps over time but once it's dialled into where you want it on your clocks/voltages/flow rate/fan speed then I just glance at it now and again to check it's where it should be.

If I was doing it all again I would definitely have the monitoring as it takes no time to do really and it gives you info on your loop that you wouldn't have and it's reassuring to know your actual temps.
 
stuie said:
a recon with those and this software
http://www.phoebetria.com/
plugged in to a usb header is how i do it

You didnt list which black ice rads you have so i dont know if they have multiple ports on them or not but my alphas have a single drain port at the opposite end to the input ports and ive just tapped onto those
Click to expand...

Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 140

Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 420

Koolance HX-CU1402V 30 FPI Copper Radiator - 280mm

Honestly, wish I had never gotten the Black ice rads as their girth made life difficult.

Wish I had never gotten the Koolance rad, because the threads on their things are bit different to everyone else, and their QDC's have made me dislike them.

Was just going to get a t-piece to connect the sensor bit onto. Again something OCUK has almost nothing of.

Honestly, the more I look through OCUK water cooling section, the more I wonder if they are serious about it all.

Just poor stock on just about everything, and missing loads of useful little bits like some competitors have.
 
I had to go elsewhere when I built mine as too much was out of stock, it was a decent size order in the end and I got it all from one place and all in stock.

I don't mind having to wait for the odd thing as water cooling is a bit specialist but most things should always be in stock.

I'm mostly Koolance but did also get their fittings so didn't have an issue :)
 
Also remember that the fluid temp is, in a normal loop, a bit below GPU/CPU temps. If you are worried about your pump, you need to monitor the fluid temp specifically, and nothing else.
I personally use a couple of the Phobya inline sensors attached to my aquaero 6.
 
Just wanted to say thanks for all the input.

Decided to go with Bitfenix recon and couple of the XSPC stop type sensors.

Also picked up the screw ring and D5 dual bay res for my exisiting pump, plus some nice primochill tubing to replace the XSPC tubing am using.

Will be redoing my loop this weekend. Put it off long enough and with it being a long weekend, seems like a good time for it.

Was previously always insistent upon having water flow direct from a block to a rad, but seeing as it apparently makes little difference, will just go for as simple as I can get it.

Hopefully some of the quick disconnects will clean up ok. Otherwise, am sure I can find a way to use as few as possible, and still allow them to be at least relatively useable.
 
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