DIY PC Extreme Water Cooling System! any ideas.

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GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#21181 18-Apr-2008 08:38

Hi there i had it with the problem of heat in my pc and the noise of the fans so i'm now considering building my own water cooling system for the obvious reason, the premade ones cost $$$$ a lot. I'm considering using some gardening water pumps or some fish tank water pumps? i will have to get some copper to design the water blocks custom made for my CPU for over clocking and for my 7950GX2 card to see if i can overclocked them too.

any ideas where i can look for the items first?

I was thinking any garden shop, pet shop and even bunnings wharehouse.
I can get couple of pumps, some 1/2pipe tubing? i have car coolant for radiator and some silent fans...could be a fan project.

has anyone here done anything like these...some tips.

thanks

Lew

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104 posts

Master Geek

#124643 18-Apr-2008 09:38

I've never done it, nor seen it done, but I'd be very interested to see how it comes out!

Be careful, and keep us posted!

If you can, could you take photos at each important step, detailing what you've done and how you've done it?

Thanks!

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#124660 18-Apr-2008 10:04

I'm going today hunting for the parts and will start on the weekend. I will take pictures and videoclip of the progress and steps and will see what happends. Im planning to tested specially for leaks before installing it in my case and probably i will be considering zealigng the edges around the cpu and water block with some water proof silicone in case it fails. I guess i will find the answers as i do it.

I got couple ideas this morning, i'm not sure where to find copper but i was thinking maybe i could use just copper pipes instead of plastic ones, the same ones people use for water sinks in bathrooms or if i use copper pipes i may be able to sold togueter with heat instead of relying in joints that could leak. I'm trapped between starting this weekend the project or doing as much research this weekend and kick off next week as i'm going to my old mans garage next week and he have all the tools and bench to work on. I will keep you posted.

Thanks,

Lew

chiefie

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#124661 18-Apr-2008 10:05

HAven't check this, but have you tried searching on Instructables? or one of those DIY sites?

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PIERCD

58 posts

Master Geek

#124664 18-Apr-2008 10:06

I did this a very long time ago. And can give you a very brief rundown.

Pump - Eheim 1250 from a pet shope along with a few meters of 1/2" tubing
Radiator - Adapted an old heater core I picked up from a wrecker, had a friend braize on some pipes.
Waterblock - Picked up some copper stock from Mico Metals and spent a good 8-10 hours machining this into a waterblock with a drill press and a dremel, lots of solder and some copper fittings which were also soldered on.
Acrylic offcuts for mounting the waterblock on the motherboard.

What I learnt from all this, it is only a little bit cheaper than buying purpose built components once you factor in time/consumables/tools. And the purpose built components perform a whole lot better.

Especially when you are talking about GPU waterblocks, and with a GX2 it would be a whole lot more complicated.

There are some good write ups about fashioning your own components out there, but just be prepared it is a lot of work, and without access to really good tools it gets very very difficult.

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#124670 18-Apr-2008 10:23

Chiefie thanks for your recommendation i will have a look at those DIY sites and see if worth the hasle as Piercd stated it may not perform as good as the already in the market and may just be almost as expensive, he have done it before. Anyway i will research a bit and find out all the prices for the parts and compare to the expensive water cooling systems on the online shops and will see if i can give it a go.

Piercd out of curiosity around how much you spent on building custom water cooling system.

for the GX2 i was thinking to increase space between them and add a water block on each and maybe i can crank the memory speed from 600 to 700 or 750mhz? i probably have to customise the card voltage as well. hehe this sounds fun.

thanks guys,

Lew

PIERCD

58 posts

Master Geek

#124674 18-Apr-2008 10:29

Hmmmm well all up after buying materials it probably cost me about $300, biggest cost being the pump and copper stock.

The system I then replaced it with cost me about $400 but I had already invested in the pump.

I haven't had a watercooled PC for a while but am in the process of building up another one and I admit the prices on some of these items is well over the top, although I picked up a full coverage (GPU and Mem) waterblock for my GTX Ultra from Playtech for $59 yesterday, which was a steal. Although finding a block for a GX2 wouldnt be nearly as easy.

Biggest recommendations I can make is do your homework on the sealing of your waterblocks, it really isnt as easy as it sounds and while it may be watertight for the first couple of weeks, after a few heating and cooling sessions things can change quite significantly.

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3nvy

104 posts

Master Geek

#125557 22-Apr-2008 13:49

Hey mate,

Any chance we could get a progress report?

Cheers!

Kommisar

54 posts

Master Geek
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#125574 22-Apr-2008 14:54

Remember when it comes to water cooling it's all about the pump, Make sure you get the best pump your money can get.

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#125594 22-Apr-2008 16:27

Hi guys I started the project by buying tubing and some copper to make blocks for the 7950GX2 last friday but i apologise for not updating these topic as i had to stop this project for at least a week due to my Dad's sudently having heart attack last weekend I have been covering him in some of his responsibilities, very difficult time at the moment but i'm hoping i can get back to my project soon as his back at home.

another thing is i bump onto a site that was explaining different cooling alternatives available and i was facinated by the DIY this guy online made of Phase Change cooling alternative, leave water cooling on the dust. no wander one those beauties are costly.

thanks guys,

Lew

GamerOC

439 posts

Ultimate Geek

#128521 5-May-2008 09:20

Hi guys, finally back to the cooling problem. for various reasons including not having enough time due to extra responsibilities since my dads situation i have descided i will not go the water cooling way until maybe in the future. for now i'm going to settle for an easy choice, i'm buying a 7950gx2 spacers kit, pure copper gpu ram heatsinks and two fatal1ty zalman gamers heatpipe coolers for 7950gx2. I know this are air coolers so it wont give me the same performance of water or phase change but according to some who have done this they achieved 33C on idle and 37C on full load that is wooping awsome. it is worth trying and it is cheaper that water. I also pearced two 120mm holes on the bottom of the case and place some filters for dust, due to the air exoust fans at the top this holes will work as fans letting cool air in without using power.

Lew

Silentfire

23 posts

Geek

#128609 5-May-2008 17:45

Ive heard that a Oil cooler out of a car is a very good PC DIY watercooler radiator

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Unxious

34 posts

Geek

#129505 8-May-2008 21:15

I have done the water cooling rigs, chilled water rigs and phase change rigs. In my opinion and experience overclocking the GPU showed minimal improvement compared to the CPU. The GPU was a lot easier to kill with the increased voltage and speeds. People noted that they tended to run for a while (ie a month) and then die. Whereas a CPU can take some serious punishment. Frozen to -200 and baked at 100.

As a mention, the switched on gardener is also a source for pumps and plastic 1/2" fittings. The plastic box has cheap 1/2" pipe, although I recommend Tygon (tm) tubing for flexibility at a generous temperature range. The plastic stuff goes rock hard at sub zero coolant.

In my trials I used a car radiator with no fans, a smaller car heating system radiator + 120mm fan. They all worked fine. I do recommend submersing the pump on a piece of foam to get rid of the noise. I had also run a completly fanless system by modifying a PSU to be watercooled aswell. That system had NB+GPU+PSU+CPU watercooled.

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#129545 8-May-2008 22:43

This is pretty cool, all parts from Home Depot.
http://www.vonslatt.com/proj-cc.shtml

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#129866 10-May-2008 14:40

Physically, water cooling can only cool to room temperature because the radiator element is in atmosphere - much like a fan really, water cooling's only physical benefit is more heat conduction in the liquid medium. Using refridgerant (probably called "phase change" by some) you can use proper heat exchangers and cool to well below atmospheric temperature, and with better heat exchange properties. This entails more work like high pressure piping but may still be worth considering if you have an old refridgerator you can gut for parts.

Sounds like a fun project good luck!

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eXDee

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#129867 10-May-2008 14:59

barf: This entails more work like high pressure piping but may still be worth considering if you have an old refridgerator you can gut for parts.

Hmmm, would be interesting gutting a bar/camping fridge and using that, but the motor is pretty big and loud on most. Would be pretty cool though to modify it to cool your PC.

I do know of someone however who just stuck their entire server in bar fridge in the garage.

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