Building ze system

[ApolloSZ]

*Dons frankenstein jacket and goggles*

Noooow, ve hff vays of makink you talk.... *Cough*

Ahem.

I'm planning to build myself a new gaming rig, nice, higher specs - Big HDD (maybe even solid state), Win 7 Pro 64bit, around 4 minimum GB of ram, high end graphics card.

The building, I'm fine with, hardware, insert tab a to slot B etc. Drivers, setup installing too (or I'll come running here )

I want to look at building it with water cooling how ever, and this being new to me, I was wondering if you fellow wonderful amazing (Have I sucked up enough yet?) techs, could offer advice, tips, reccomendations (not prices prefereable, unless your in NZ, exchange rates and all)

Mucho gracias in advance,
ApolloSZ

[Eric the Grey]

Personally, I've never used water cooling. Part of me screams "Water + expensive electrical components = bad!" and I can't seem to get beyond that.

Tom's Hardware has a guide. I've not read it, but I tend to trust the site for reliable information.

Google turns up a ton of guides out there though.

Good luck. let us know how it turns out.



Eric the Grey
{wishes he had the money to do his soon-to-be-much-needed computer upgrade...}

[dalesys]

Check out Maxsimian, i mean, Maximum PC. They have frequent build-it-youself articles which are also online.

[Dreamstalker]

The forums on Overclockers.com also have some great articles/help.

[lordlundar]

I'm in the same line as Eric, but that's a personal preference. At least until the alternate liquids come down in price (there's some really nice ones that work better than water and won't short out components). That said, all I can suggest is common sense.

1. For the love of <insert deity> plan it all out in advance, including radiator and reservoir. You'd be surprised at just how many people decide to wing it and wind up with a horrible mess of tubes inside their rig.

2. Do a 'wet run' before installing. This means to connect everything together and run some water through the lines and fire it up and let it run for about 20 minutes, checking for leaks. Remember that there shouldn't be any, or really bad things will happen. Drain the lines using a low powered compressor and then install.

3. Once installed do a second wet run without firing up the computer. Any number of pieces might have been damaged while installing and this ensures you fix the issue before blowing up your machine.

4. Don't skimp. Lower priced and lower quality equipment offer no better performance than stock fans and in a couple of cases, perform worse. Getting the right equipment for your needs is paramount if you're going to get a good setup.

5. Ensure all pieces are uniform. one connection at a 1/4" and one at a 1/2" is just going to create a bottleneck and flow issue. Just like with air cooling, it's the movement of the fluid which cools the system. If it isn't moving, then it isn't cooling. Besides, a bottleneck can cause pressure issues resulting a rather messy situation.

6. Lock down the connection. Unless the equipment says not to, I see no reason not to put a zip tie on every connection to serve as a clamp, assuming they don't come with any. Even if they 'guarantee' it won't fail, it's your (rather expensive) rig on the line, and you'll probably never get compensation from the manufacturer if it fails, so why take the chance?

Pieces you'll need:

- 5m of tubing (odds are you won't need that much, but you never know.
- Pump (like I said, the water needs to move to work)
- Reservoir (a small box to hold extra water, sometimes connected to the pump.
- Radiator (functions much like a car radiator, it's job with one or more fans is to cool the water flowing through the system.
- CPU plate
- Expansion card plates (usually Video cards, but some sound cards and the Killer NIC i think uses heat sinks as well, and the more pieces you can hook up the more worthwhile it is

There are also plates for hard drives, but unless you're using SSD units or high speed hard drives, I say don't bother. Most conventional hard drives just don't generate the heat that requires the plates.

[ApolloSZ]

Thanks for the tips LordLundar.

I'll definitely be testing the cooling rig before actually putting it in. And thanks for the tips on what to cool, that was another one I was not sure about. I was sure about the video card and CPU, but not what else (if any). Other advice has been to pick and choose the cooling gear, as opposed to a kit, although alternately I've been told a kit (I'm looking at a Larkooler kit from an NZ company) is a good way to start for a noob (of watercooling)

Just re-noticed your bit about the connections. Some people advise having the flow split, and one being dedicated to CPU/northbridge and the other VGA/Mosfet then rejoining them, so they aren't getting progressively warmer coolant. i.e. after the radiator start with 1/2", split to two 1/4" then rejoin back to a 1/2" before hitting the pump. That shouldn't cause a bottleneck should it?

[lordlundar]

Just re-noticed your bit about the connections. Some people advise having the flow split, and one being dedicated to CPU/northbridge and the other VGA/Mosfet then rejoining them, so they aren't getting progressively warmer coolant. i.e. after the radiator start with 1/2", split to two 1/4" then rejoin back to a 1/2" before hitting the pump. That shouldn't cause a bottleneck should it?

No, that wouldn't cause a bottleneck and would be the best way. I suppose I should have clarified better. changing connection sizes in line will cause a bottleneck.

[wolfie]

Just re-noticed your bit about the connections. Some people advise having the flow split, and one being dedicated to CPU/northbridge and the other VGA/Mosfet then rejoining them, so they aren't getting progressively warmer coolant. i.e. after the radiator start with 1/2", split to two 1/4" then rejoin back to a 1/2" before hitting the pump. That shouldn't cause a bottleneck should it?

That WILL cause a bottleneck. Area goes as the square of diameter, so the two 1/4" lines together will have half the area (and thus twice the resistance to flow) as the single 1/2" line. On the other hand, if you did a split into four 1/4" lines (CPU, northbridge, VGA, and MOSFET), then joined it back into a single 1/2" line, that wouldn't be a bottleneck.

[roothorick]

I've always been leery of watercooling. One kinked hose can hose (pun intended) your videocard, and I'm not talking about leaking water. That old idiom about the path of least resistance can be a real bitch. It's cool, sure, but there's more reliable ways of protecting your investment.

When I built my new rig, my most expensive yet, I opted for stock across the board. I was gonna put an aftermarket cooler on the CPU, but after seeing the monster that Phenom IIs come with, stock, I decided that's good enough. I get idle temps of 28-32C -- very comfy.

[Hibble]

Question no one has asked is will you be over-clocking by a big margin. If not then i would stick with air cooling. if you buy the big good quality fans/cpu cooler then you will be hard pressed to notice the noise unless you plan on sleeping in the same room with it on.

If you need to spend extra because you will be doing a big over-clock then don't skimp and buy some proper cooling fluid that is non conductive e.g if it leaks its very unlikely to kill your rig.

[ApolloSZ]

I'll be honest, it is partially the attraction of "Cool, watercooling looks interesting and different"

As for fan noise, I've never been that bothered in the first place, and my current rig has five of the suckers (exhaust, PSU, video card, CPU, added intake one)

I won't be overclocking it at first. I know nothing about that, and would rather not risk any warranties etc until they are expired, and I know more about what I'd be getting into.

Thanks for the info about the Phenom roothorick, I'm looking at one of them (Phenom 6 preferably) as my CPU.

I'm also looking at copying an idea I've heard of, having the OS on one Solid state drive, the page file on another, and a SATA for the storage/apps.

[roothorick]

I'll be honest, it is partially the attraction of "Cool, watercooling looks interesting and different"

That's an awful lot of risk for a "cool look". My suggestion? Build your look around UV (aka "black"lights). Get a motherboard in a UV-reactive color like red. Get uniquely colored SATA cables (they come in all sorts of weird colors). Dress up your power supply cables in brightly-colored shrouds. And don't forget the UV CCFLs and the window. It should produce a computer that looks positively "alien" for not much work.

Word of advice though: if you're gonna watch movies on this thing, make sure you have a way to turn the UV lamps off without physically opening the case and disconnecting them.

[ApolloSZ]

Yeah my current rig (again, heh) I did the perspex window and case lighting, and modded (read: Butchered) a drive bay cover to mount the switches.

[Naaman]

You could probably not spend the money on 'clocking & water-cooling and just buy faster components

Personally I think the components today are so ludicrously over spec (for almost anything) that overclocking won't give you any (human) noticeable difference. SLI\Crossfiring graphics cards will give bags of spare GPU cycles on anything you care to mention, just make sure you get a mobo that separates the two PCIe x16 slots to a greater degree than normal and you're golden

2. Do a 'wet run' before installing. This means to connect everything together and run some water through the lines and fire it up and let it run for about 20 minutes, checking for leaks. Remember that there shouldn't be any, or really bad things will happen. Drain the lines using a low powered compressor and then install.

If you are going to go ahead (the shiny factor is high with water-cooling ) then it's easier to find potential leaks by adding some food dye to the test water - make sure you check on piece of scrap tubing first to make sure it doesn't stain