[Worklog] About my Watercooling-System

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Guest

Guest
Hello everybody!
First of all I would like you not to consider my poor English. I’m an native German but anyway I would like to tell you my story ;)

So, about two years I dream about spending my PC a water cooling. And now this will happen. In this thread I would like to document this.

Why a Water-Cooling?:
I suppose several factors have certainly played a role. First, of course, with water-cooling you get much lower temperatures as with Air-Cooling. This allows you to overclock your system to get the most power out of it.

Another reason is the beautiful look of a good water cooling. Anyone had seen some pictures of a nice build water-cooling would agree me.

The third and final reason for water cooling I would like to address is the lower volume. Because my PC is running about 24 hours a day the the permanent background noise gets on everyone’s nerves


The actual state:

In the following paragraph I will briefly introduce you to my current system:
I got an Intel Q9550-QuadCore as CPU, cooled by an Xigmathek Thors Hammer. The Grafikscard is an Geforce 9800GTX from XFX, cooled by an Xigmathek Bifrost. The 8gig of RAM are spitted into 2gig-Dominator-Modules from Corsair. This all is placed on an Asus P5Q-Pro Motherboard. At least the power cames from a BeQuiet E5 500Watt. The Harddrives are a 32GB-SSD from SuperTalent supported by 250GB and 1000GB-Drives from Seagate and Western Digital.
The Case this all fits into is the Xigmathek Midgard.


What will all be done?

Because I mainly use my CPU this will be cooled first by the water. Later maybe the GPU and Mainboard also.
Into the top i will build in a trippleradiator.

Furthermore the hole system should get an blue-black-Look

Here, roughly my To-Do-List
- Planning and preparing the installation
- Complete disassembly of the computer
- Installation of the components including water
- Check if everything is right
- Start the computer with a new cooling
- Comparison before and after


I will write more of the single steps right when I’m there. So i could shoot a lot of photos

Finally, I would still like to say thanks to Aquatuning and Phobya for there sponsorship!




PS: Here some pictures. Once, we're going, there will be more to see!

 
G

Guest

Guest
Preparation:

Before you click on the Checkout-button at the online shop, some things should happened and I did not only mean to add some things to the cart.

First, you should look at the assets and drawbacks of water cooling .
The benefits are indeed fairly well known: Better temperature, appearance, volume .

the disadvantages also should get some attention:
One of the biggest drawbacks of Water-cooling is certainly the far greater effort
than conventional air cooling.
But I asked myself: Is the higher effort really a disadvantage?
I totally think not! It's almost an advantage because I have fun tinkering at my Computer.
Another disadvantage for many is also the higher cost .
On the other hand, however, one must also say that a water-cooling is something you could take with you from Computer to Computer mostly, with only 1-2 small exchanges.

Not forget to mention the danger the installation, may bring.
Water + electricity is not even known to be the best combination.
What should help, i heard, attention in a careful installation.
So the best preparation would be to inform you the best you could.
Read everything and watch everything what deals with water-Cooling.

The first big Question i got to answer was: What do I need?


After some time I know that the answer is really simple. Each Water-Cooling is build up with the same basic components: pump, reservoir, radiator and of course the heat sinks. That’s it!


Accordingly, I chose the following components:

pump
Here I do not need me to decide as I got one from a friend. :)
Here is a link: Aquastream XT Standard

Waterreservoir:
Under the term, there are no real differences in performance I think you could here safely decide for Optical aspects .
That is why I chose the following: Phobya Balancer 250 .
I liked that he is so great and you can see the beautiful water.

Radiator:
It was the first time really tricky, because I would like to install a triple-radiator!

It is established that the Midgard Xigmathek as a Midi Tower offers relatively little space.

There are 3 Typical places for radiators :
In the front:

Just space for an SingleRadiator... but who wants to be.. a have a Single-Radiator?

On the ground:

There, I have my power supply, and on the other side of the hard drive cage. So here is either a single radiator or nothing ... or the pump.

On the ceiling:
The length: No problem. Width: No Problem. Even at the front at least about 15cm.

The only problem was because the height. Approximately 30mm to the mainboard. Now most 120mm fans are 25mm high and 4mm high radiator I suppose nobody has ever seen.
Was the dream of a burst water so quickly?

After some searching I found the Magicool Slim 360 Triple Radiator [/ url].
Should fit into the canoe, with its 30mm height. But it's gona be tight!



After this was done only the "small stuff" was missing.


Tubes:
Because there is not just one but hundreds of different type of tubes, the coice was not that easy. For me it Was important that the
tube will be supported in future.
It seemed to me the 13/10-Schlauch best. Why? As I found out, 10/8 and 13/10
are the most commonly used tube-types. In addition to the 13/10 has more flow because it is wider, however this would not make any big differences.
Mainly it is the appearance here, which helped me to decide.


Fittings:
Again, a huge wall of questions and perplexity. So I spend a lot of time for intensive
research and reading, reading, reading. After I then thought I knew everything
I came across a great Video (Because its a German-Video i think a Link here would be senseless)
The video was about the main differences in between different fittings. It helped a lot.
So a Tipp i would like you to give: Search for great video-tutorials. Even if you think you know
everything. Repetition is the best way to learn and there could be something new, which might be interesting.


So far .. enough preparation. Tomorrow I'll probably take my case apart.
Then I will stop writing so much text and let the images talk.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Today got a package of Aquatuning.

Becouse I thought it will arrive at Monday I was a bit surprised and not ready as far as I can start immediately with the installation.

The "luck" was that I now realise that I forgot to buy adapters for the pump.