External water cooling box plan, will it work?

Harbz

Harbz

Harbz

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I am thinking of setting up an external water cooling system for my CPU (c2d @ 2.7g now, but quad in a couple of months).

The pump, rad(s) and res will be in the external box (under my bed lol) which is about 2M away from my pc, so all in there would be about 5M of pipe work.

fed up with high noise, and low overclock due to heat.

I know I will need 1/2 inch pipe work to keep the water flow smooth, and decent rads, with a powerful-ish 12v pump. The box will be made from wood.

Will it work, and any suggestions please?

I was thinking of maybe this rad, or maybe 2 of them:

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Liguid/Upgrade/cl-w0098/cl-w0098.asp
 
no no no :eek:

youll kill your flow rate and your pump would suffer terribly with 5 meters of hose

also forget about thermalshat and get a thermochill 120.1 instead or a 120.2 if youve got a few extra pennies
 
tomorrow i'm putting together some watercooling again for leak testing and running it outside the case. in the next couple weeks i'm gonna get some sound deadening material, some basic chipboard, some sound absorbtion foam and making a watercooling box thats hopefully fairly isolated sound wise and doing same for my computer and 360, making a chipboard + sound deadening material + sound absorbtion foam to try and kill all noise as i tend to have it on all the time.
i might make the "soundbox" for computer and watercooling all in one but will be bigger and more of a pain in the behind i'd think.


either way, id make something for not that far away from the computer as hose length will make a difference. but maybe you could put another pump in the loop in series to keep it all going. does it have to be under the bed, if it does, any chance your room can be reorganised to have desk closer to the bed. if not i would think a 2nd pump would probo be needed to keep flowrate up.
 
thanks for the replies. Its going under the bed because then its out of the way and hopefully I won't hear it.

I thought 12v pumps could easily do 5m. Dont want to go 240V as its too much messing about with ensuring the pump is on when pc is turn on etc..
 
It will work just fine.. 5m no problem if 1/2inch ID.

Consider a larger radiator (120.3) as it will enable better temps for less noise, particularly if going quad. The only reason for going for a smaller radiator is space, something you will have loads of in a custom box under the bed. A 120.3 is not much more money than a 120.1.

As you will need 12v for the fans, consider having an old PSU in the box too to run pump(s) and fans.

Consider-
Thermochill 120.3 rad
Low resistance block like the D-Tek Fuzion
Laing Pump(s) - probably one would be enough.
1/2 inch ID, 3/4inch OD tubing all the way.
T-line(s) for filling bleeding (possible one in case and one in box - easier to bleed, fill and empty)
 
nice 1, is that TT rad anygood? Its got built in fans and it uses 'racing car technology' - whatever that is. Looks cool tho.

Anymore more kit suggestions? Going to start buying some of this stuff soon.

I was thinking of using a molex+extension from my pc's PSU to power the pump + fans. I will have a 1000w psu so power shouldnt be an issue.
 
It won't be a problem at all. I have my Aquaextreme 50z pump, XSPC 250mm passive res and the WC's own 200w AT psu mounted in a external box. On top of that i have my Alphacool NexXxoS Xtreme III Radiator mounted in another box outside my computer cupboard on a windowsill. I have around 14 foot of Masterkleer 7/16" tubing and 2x6 foot lengths of 15mm copper pipe going through the wall to and from the external rad box. My temps are superb, 38 degrees on both cores while running Orthos for 8 hours and my graphics card @650/1960 never exceeds 40 degrees even when gaming.

Go for a better rad than the TT though.
 
To make the pump absolutely silent u need to eliminate all vibrations. Easiest way to do this for me was to suspend it at the coreect angle. Zero vibrations ;)

For power i used a 2nd hand shuttle psu. More than enough to power a pump and some fans. Its hooked up to a master/slave 4-way adaptor so that when my computer powers up the pump and fans power up at the same time.
 
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There's no real reason why you can't have an external setup right next to your computer. If you want it very quiet you can use the right fans on a PA120.3. If you use silent fans (Nexus) then it'll handle 300W of heat. You'd need to be running SLI, quad core, cooling your chipsets and mosfets, and hard drives.... and running everything at maximum possible load before you came close to that.

But if you did you can dispose of even more heat if you put on more powerful (but still very quiet) fans.
 
I think I have got a bit carried away with the rads. Last weekend I purchased 2 heater cores, brand new for a ford sierra, cost about £35 for both, but a few days ago I managed to pickup a good priced thermochill 120.3 rad second hand. Now I've got basically 5 rads (120.3 + 2 heater cores).

Should I sell the heater cores, or just leave them in the loop with ultra quiet fans? I've got 2 pumps so flow rate shouldnt be an issue.

This is for cooling a overclocked quad core intel chip only.

Thanks!
 
Jokester said:
What height difference is there between your floor and the highest point of the loop in your PC?

Jokester
Click to expand...

My CM 110 case sits on the floor, so its the height of the case, 50cms?
 
I would use a DDC Ultra pump and 1/2" tubing because of the length of tubing needed. If you were to use the Car radiators I would use a DD D5 for the extra resistance. I'm guessing they are pretty big radiators?

Bear in mind that a clocked quad core can put out well over 200w off heat, so to keep things quiet you might need extra fans.
 
weescott said:
I would use a DDC Ultra pump and 1/2" tubing because of the length of tubing needed. If you were to use the Car radiators I would use a DD D5 for the extra resistance. I'm guessing they are pretty big radiators?

Bear in mind that a clocked quad core can put out well over 200w off heat, so to keep things quiet you might need extra fans.
Click to expand...

Couldnt get hold of any DDC Ultra pumps, so I brought 2 (1 second hand) Ehiem 1048, these will run in parallel from the same res. I am using 1/2 tubing all round.

The car heater cores are slightly larger than a 120.2 rad, so all in I will 120.3 + 120.2 + 120.2 all running with 5V or 7V fans. Should work ok I think?
 
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