Looking for Water Cooling Advice

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Guinea

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I may be interested in overclocking a little bit, but as it stands my main purpose for switching to water cooling is to reduce heat (so I can lower my AC during the day without fear of burning out anything in the computer) and to reduce noise generated from my PC. I am completely new to water cooling, but I have built my PC by hand every time, so I am familiar with that aspect.

I have an HAF 932 chassis, with a standard Sandy Bridge processor, a Sapphire HD 6970 GPU, a 500gb HDD and a 256gb SSD. The system runs fairly hot, probably because I am using the single GPU to ouput a triple monitor display. I don't want to spend too much money, so I opted for a simpler, starter kit to get my started with switching over to water cooling.

Here is what I bought:
XSPC Raystorm 750 RX360 CPU Water Cooling Kit (New Rev. 4 Pump Included) w/ free Dead-water
XSPC Raystorm High Performance Acetal GPU Cooling Block
Koolance High Performance Liquid Coolant - Clear- 700c

My questions are this:
Did I buy all of the necessary pieces or am I missing something in my setup? Do I need any additonal pieces to be ready for installation when it arrives? Also, when I do perform the installation, a lot of the online guides do not say anything about the fan configuration. My chassis has a ton of large loud fans. Do these stay WITH the liquid cooling, or do I remove them and use the smaller quiet fans that come with the kit? These are things I have been able to find answers to with my research, so I am just looking for some advice.

Thank you.
 
Solution
rubix_1011
There is a section in the watercooling sticky on how to setup and fill your loop. Other than that, I agree with faalin on the coolant not being needed as well as the fittings for the GPU block.

Just curious, what temps were you seeing that caused you to go this route?
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faalin

faalin

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you say standard Sandy Bridge processor, so I take it its a non K version?


on to the water cooling
Im guessing you bought the kit and a waterblock for the gpu. if that is all then your missing a few parts. The kit comes with around 6 ft of tubing which is good for the kit not adding anything else to it. If you didn't pick up any extra fitting for the GPU you will be short 2, not allowing you to hook up the videocard. While buying the coolant is nice you don't need it. distilled water and a silver kill coil is all you need. also get hose clamps if you have barb fittings, nothing worse then a loose hose leaking everywhere for a 10cent hose clamp.


Once you get everything set up unplug all power to your computer parts. jump the 24 pin to start the powersupply and plug in your pump so it can A) make sure you don't have any leaks B) get all air out of the system
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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There is a section in the watercooling sticky on how to setup and fill your loop. Other than that, I agree with faalin on the coolant not being needed as well as the fittings for the GPU block.

Just curious, what temps were you seeing that caused you to go this route?
 
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G

Guinea

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Thank you for the information. What connectors and loop do I need to go? Basically get ones that are identical to the ones that came in the set I am assuming? As far as my processor, I think it is an i5 2600K but I don't remember. I am at work, so I don't have my specs off hand.

The temps were pretty high. Even the room I was in was around 10-15 degrees higher than the rest of the house, so I am trying to cut down on that and limit the need to blast my AC to keep it cool in there. I figure even a bare bones starter kit would be better than my initial fan only setup.
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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Heat dissipation is still the same, regardless of how you cool your computer. The same number of watts in heat have to be removed and dissipated into the ambient air regardless of cooler. If your CPU is putting out 130w with an air cooler, it will output 130w with watercooling as well...just a different method of getting those watts into the air.


FYI - I think XSPC kit fittings and tubing are 7/16"ID size, not 1/2"ID. You might wish to double-check the kit to ensure you have the correct size, although you can still use 7/16 tubing with 1/2 fittings, it's just a snug fit.
 
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G

Guinea

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Well the noise will still be lower and the chances for one of my components frying would be less as well. Just seemed like a good start to improving the overall quality of my system.

I actually bought all my stuff at frozencpu.com as well, so I will go back to them to get the rest of the pieces. Thank you guys for the help.
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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Depends on what you mean by 'frying'. Modern computer hardware is built to withstand a substantial amount of heat...and even then, it's also designed to shutdown upon reaching a thermal threshold prior to causing irreparable damage. If you can list your current load temps of CPU and GPU, this might lend some info on any temperature issues you're currently seeing prior to the watercooling install. Simply adding a water loop doesn't mean that you also may not encounter other cooling issues as good case airflow is still very important to the remaining components, especially since you are removing a CPU cooler/fan and an GPU cooler/fan that helps with air movement in a normal case.

I just want you to be aware of all facets here, as you are really only addressing CPU and GPU temps (that we aren't sure of) and possibly neglecting the remainder of required system cooling.
 
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Guinea

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Also someone mentioned to not use barbed wire and go with hose clamps? Should I end up replacing all of them with hose clamps then? I know I am probably having difficulty explaining my purpose, but you can't really deny that there are benefits to using water cooling and I was just looking to get introduced to it. That way I could have potential for improvements down the road.

So essentially, some more tubing and hose clamps is all I need. 7/16" tubing like 3 more feet? and 1/2" hose clamps. Probably like 10 of them?
 
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faalin

faalin

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there are 3 things you need to order.

1) 2 new fitting, to match what is in the kit they are barb fittings
2) 2 hose clamps, look at the kit and the pictures they show them, kit comes with enough for the kit its self
3) more tubing, not sure what comes in the kit, I run tygon 3603 tubing and normally get 10ft everytime I build a loop. its better to have to much then not enough and have to wait for more to show up.
 
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