Complete noob builds watercooling setup out of random tat!

Dangerous_Dave · 14 Jun 2017 at 12:10

Hoping for a bit of guidance on a random water cooling setup I'm trying to build. I bought a pair of 295X2's for a project, but they both have water blocks on them, and I've never built a custom loop before. I raided my supplies of random things and I managed to find these from a PC I bought a while back and broke down:

http://imgur.com/a/O68wD

I think this is a pump/reservoir combo and of course at 360mm rad. So I think I would also need some tubing (but what size?) and some connectors (but what size?). Are these components likely to be good enough for the application I have in mind? Do I need anything else?

Thanks in advance.

Dangerous_Dave · 14 Jun 2017 at 13:11

Res looks quite small. Do I need an additional bigger one?

Dangerous_Dave · 22 Jun 2017 at 20:06

How difficult is it going to be to fill the loop with the small res? Isn't the pump just going to slurp the res dry in a nanosecond when I start to cycle it?

Dangerous_Dave · 23 Jun 2017 at 00:31

Well, I got it fitted. I only used at 120mm EK rad in the end for simplicity, and only one 295x2 - with somewhat curious results. I fired up to the Claymore mining program and both GPUs were (initially) running at about 29Mh/s. But after a while, the first GPU was running 75C while the second was still down at 63C, at which point the first GPU wound down to 25MH/s Does this mean the block is not fitted properly?

Dangerous_Dave · 26 Jun 2017 at 09:34

I only ended up tying in one 295X2 in my test loop. I thought I'd get away with a 120mm rad since that's what the 295X2 comes with stock - but it seems like that wasn't enough (perhaps because there is no helping air cooler for the VRMs and RAM like there is on the stock cooler). I ended up switching to the 360mm rad and that dropped me down to 55C on GPU1 and 50C on GPU2 under a mining load - about 25C cooler than using the 120mm. I did change out the paste but it made no difference with the temps.

I'm still perplexed as to why one GPU is running hotter than the other, but I've seen this behaviour on other 295X2s.