Project Beta:
If nothing else this goes to show that watercooled computers don't need to be colour coordinated, or even well thought through, to be successful. The name is a weak pun on my other computer being named Omega. It's been used for running fairly old games (morrowind, nwn2) to spare myself the expense of buying new ones and the distress caused by computers being unable to play games well.
Components:
ECS GF8100VM-M5. Has a nice trick where the northbridge heatsink runs hot enough to burn.
AMD 7750BE. Stock speeds, I blame the ram. And the motherboard.
1gb Kingston cl6 800mhz ddr2. Single channel.
BFG 8800GT stolen from my normal pc. Unwisely running at 700/900/1750 mhz, probably not stable.
Samsung F1. Throws up a lot of smart errors according to ubuntu.
PC P&C 860W. Slightly overspecified.
Water cooling:
Maze 4 gpu block designed for an 8800GTS, with stripped threads. Forced it to fit my card by cutting off bits of the acetal and epoxying some barbs in position. With a swiftech 8800GT heatsink, which at £15 is the most expensive piece of watercooling kit in here.
Swiftech cpu block. Don't know which, but it apparently doesn't fit am2+.
92x2 radiator, craftily placed over the psu exhaust
10W DDC. The right version to turn into 18W, except I botched the (trivial) soldering job so it's staying 10W. It has someone's acrylic top attached.
T line running to a 90 degree barb just before the pump inlet (makes bleeding ridiculously hard).
The hard drive doesn't fit in the case's 3.5" bays. It is a very cheap case. This arrangement seems to be working.
The radiator is mounted externally, covering the psu exhaust. This is deliberate, it provides sufficient cooling for the processor and graphics card without blowing hot air into the psu. It's mounted using cable ties, which is more secure than I expected it to be. The Zalman fan is generally unplugged, but can be connected to the cpu header if desired.
CPU block apparently doesn't fit am2+ boards. This surprised me as there's loads of holes in the mounting plate. Still, two bolts leaning at a significant angle, with silicone washers either side of the board and rather low mounting pressure has proven sufficient. The motherboard hasn't died yet, so I guess all is well. It's mounted using liquid pro as tim, not very skillfully applied.
The graphics card heatsink is right up against the case. Thanks for that ECS. Probably shouldn't be running the card overclocked, that heatsink does get rather hot. Those 90 degree elbows are not really removable; the compression fittings are fixed into the block with JB weld and I didn't want to apply any torque to the join. This way I can hold onto the elbow when taking tubing off.
The pump does fit in the 3.5" bays. Water in and out are both on the visible face of the acrylic top, a T line runs into the centre inlet. DDC's perform considerably better if you have the return line going into the top centre, and T lines work much better if they aren't horizontal with a 90 degree barb just before the pump. So the pump is essentially set up wrong. Such is life, it works regardless.
Good points:
Doesn't leak
Does play games
Remarkably quiet when the cpu fan is unplugged
Bad points:
Will probably kill itself if I run ibt and furmark
Ugly as sin
Lazily watercooled
If nothing else this goes to show that watercooled computers don't need to be colour coordinated, or even well thought through, to be successful. The name is a weak pun on my other computer being named Omega. It's been used for running fairly old games (morrowind, nwn2) to spare myself the expense of buying new ones and the distress caused by computers being unable to play games well.
Components:
ECS GF8100VM-M5. Has a nice trick where the northbridge heatsink runs hot enough to burn.
AMD 7750BE. Stock speeds, I blame the ram. And the motherboard.
1gb Kingston cl6 800mhz ddr2. Single channel.
BFG 8800GT stolen from my normal pc. Unwisely running at 700/900/1750 mhz, probably not stable.
Samsung F1. Throws up a lot of smart errors according to ubuntu.
PC P&C 860W. Slightly overspecified.
Water cooling:
Maze 4 gpu block designed for an 8800GTS, with stripped threads. Forced it to fit my card by cutting off bits of the acetal and epoxying some barbs in position. With a swiftech 8800GT heatsink, which at £15 is the most expensive piece of watercooling kit in here.
Swiftech cpu block. Don't know which, but it apparently doesn't fit am2+.
92x2 radiator, craftily placed over the psu exhaust
10W DDC. The right version to turn into 18W, except I botched the (trivial) soldering job so it's staying 10W. It has someone's acrylic top attached.
T line running to a 90 degree barb just before the pump inlet (makes bleeding ridiculously hard).
The hard drive doesn't fit in the case's 3.5" bays. It is a very cheap case. This arrangement seems to be working.
The radiator is mounted externally, covering the psu exhaust. This is deliberate, it provides sufficient cooling for the processor and graphics card without blowing hot air into the psu. It's mounted using cable ties, which is more secure than I expected it to be. The Zalman fan is generally unplugged, but can be connected to the cpu header if desired.
CPU block apparently doesn't fit am2+ boards. This surprised me as there's loads of holes in the mounting plate. Still, two bolts leaning at a significant angle, with silicone washers either side of the board and rather low mounting pressure has proven sufficient. The motherboard hasn't died yet, so I guess all is well. It's mounted using liquid pro as tim, not very skillfully applied.
The graphics card heatsink is right up against the case. Thanks for that ECS. Probably shouldn't be running the card overclocked, that heatsink does get rather hot. Those 90 degree elbows are not really removable; the compression fittings are fixed into the block with JB weld and I didn't want to apply any torque to the join. This way I can hold onto the elbow when taking tubing off.
The pump does fit in the 3.5" bays. Water in and out are both on the visible face of the acrylic top, a T line runs into the centre inlet. DDC's perform considerably better if you have the return line going into the top centre, and T lines work much better if they aren't horizontal with a 90 degree barb just before the pump. So the pump is essentially set up wrong. Such is life, it works regardless.
Good points:
Doesn't leak
Does play games
Remarkably quiet when the cpu fan is unplugged
Bad points:
Will probably kill itself if I run ibt and furmark
Ugly as sin
Lazily watercooled
