Well, I am officially crazy now...

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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Jan 10, 2011
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I ordered a CPU water cooling kit from FrozenCPU today.

A lot of online retailers should take their cue from FrozenCPU. I placed my order at about 2pm Eastern time. Within three hours I had received multiple E-Mails stating that that my order was being reviewed, then being sent to the warehouse, then being shipped. Nice and quick, and I'll be receiving my kit Saturday or Monday.

Anyway, back to the crazy part...

The kit I ordered costs more than any other component of my system. I won't be able to overclock the Sandy Bridge processor any higher with this kit, and I will very likely upgrade before any heat issues would have damaged it anyway. This will be my first time with any liquids anywhere near the interior of the case, and I'll be more likely to kill my system with the kit than without.

Sounds like fun to me!

Yep. Crazy. No doubt about it.

What did I get?
Ek H3O Supreme HF 240 kit
IandH Silver KillCoil
Feser Aqua
Feser Base Corrosion Blocker (don't know if I actually need it yet, but better safe than sorry)
ModRight Liquid Cooling Priming Cable (turns power supply on and off making priming the pump easier)
 
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d0gr0ck

d0gr0ck

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But crazy in a good way. You can get water on some components... just make sure there's no electricity about. Hopefully the kit arrives on Saturday when you've likely got more spare time. I just hate it when the working world interrupts my tinkering time. :p

You shouldn't need the Corrosion blocker as Copper/Brass/Nickle will play nice with each other.

After you run out of that Fesser Aqua any distilled water from the supermarket will work. Unless you're doing laboratory work the difference between the two isn't relevant.

They make switches to turn PSUs on and off? I just use a stripped bread bag twist tie and jam it in the pins. Though I always have fun finding the green line, I'm colorblind and confuse it with the brown one.
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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With this:
IandH Silver KillCoil
Click to expand...
and some distilled water only...

You won't need this:
Feser Aqua
Feser Base Corrosion Blocker
Click to expand...

This will be my first time with any liquids anywhere near the interior of the case, and I'll be more likely to kill my system with the kit than without.
Click to expand...

Keep the water inside the kit and you'll be fine. :)

FrozenCPU is pretty quick on their order turn-around time.

And, why the EK kit vs. the XSPC Rasa?
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Feser Aqua is distilled water ... bi-distilled according to them. I know, I could get it at any local grocery store but *meh*.

As to why the Ek over the XSPC ... I looked at whatever reviews I could find and the Ek just seemed to be more professionally done. Better packaging, much better instructions, advertising the brand name of every component, etc. Plus, it included compression fittings. I know, I know ... but it made me feel better about plunking down my hard-earned dough.

Plus, in one video comparison, the reviewer kept saying that "the water-cooling guys in the U.S. always think they need 1/2" tubing" over and over and over again. I didn't want to be one of those stereotypical U.S. water-cooling guys. lol
 
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ortoklaz

ortoklaz

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If you like EK so much ..you should get 360 kit for only 35$ more
as for 1/2'' tubing..if you base your opinion about LC by watching "video comparison",.." packaging, much better instructions, advertising the brand name of every component"....you are " one of those stereotypical U.S. water-cooling guys. lol"

http://skinneelabs.com/ek-coolstream-360/5/
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Jan 10, 2011
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I choose all of my components that way. Always have, always will.

Funny you should recommend the 360...

I came home from work today and found a large box on my front steps. Brought it inside and down to the basement where my PC is and excitedly opened the box. Everything I ordered was in there, and arrived in good condition (despite the outside box looking like it had gone a couple of rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson). I opened the kit's orange and black box and was inspecting all of the colorful individual boxes when I noticed that there were three boxes that looked fan-sized. I checked them to make sure that's what they were. Then I looked at the outside of the kit's box and the three fan boxes suddenly made sense.

Somebody (actually, two sombodies) at FrozenCPU needs to have their eyes checked. They shipped me a 360 kit instead of the 240 kit I ordered. I know who they are too, as one guy hand-wrote his name under "Packed By" and the other guy stamped his name under "Verified By" on the manifest.

Thanks guys! lol
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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I got the golden ticket from NewEgg saying they have or will soon be getting the fixed version of my board in stock, so I'll be waiting for that before doing the loop. It'll probably be late next week, assuming they actually have them now. I wasn't really expecting my kit to arrive until Monday.
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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While I was waiting for my new board to arrive (it came Monday but I still haven't installed it yet), I was trying to decide what I was going to do with my water cooling system.

I had planned on having the whole thing installed inside my Cooler Master HAF 912 case, removing the top two fans and installing the radiator there. Because FrozenCPU shipped me the wrong kit with the larger radiator, that won't work. The other easy and cheap option would be to mount the radiator directly to the back or top of the case on the outside.

I was all ready to do that when I saw something that piqued my interest on FrozenCPU's site: this bad mamma-jamma. It neatly solves any space issues I might have had and looks cool to boot. My setup will look like the third picture on that page, with the pump and reservoir surrounding the radiator, and all that will connect it to my case are the tubes for the CPU block and a cable extension for power.

Has anyone seen something like this in use? Any problems I might be overlooking?
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Jan 10, 2011
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I could do the RadBox thing, but that's pedestrian, normal ... and I've never been known to settle for "normal" in anything. :p If I'm going to do the liquid-cooling thing, I'm going to do it the "easier but probably more expensive" way. Having the separate assembly will make things easier in the future, and all I have to do is throw a little extra money at it initially. That's an acceptable trade-off to me.

The open-air radiator mount will be placed beside my HAF 912 -- the system name will be changing from "Evolve" to "Double-Wide" when I get the stuff. I'll probably place the order late next week -- gotta wait for the extra fundage.

...like I said in my first post -- crazy! lol
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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Jan 12, 2007
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Not really that crazy...there are guys that volt mod their pumps and make their own CNC milled waterblocks. Many people run dual or triple loops, some run massive radiators or even build elaborate water-routing pipes underground or into the bottom of their fishing pond for super-cooled water in their loops. These, of course, require external pumps and sometimes specialized heat exchangers.
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Jan 10, 2011
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Whee!

I am now officially one of those nutty people who actually has water flowing in and around their system!

Setup consists of:
1x EK-KIT H3O Supreme HF 360
1x Feser Aqua Bi-distilled Water (loop took almost the entire liter)
1x Feser Base Corrosion Blocker (may not need it but I put it in anyway)
1x IandH Silver KillCoil
1x Phobya Triple 3x120 Radiator Stand "Bench Edition"
1x FrozenCPU Deluxe Multi Power Port (divides one 4-pin Molex input into 12v, 7v, and 5v 3-pin outputs - four of each)
1x FrozenCPU 4-pin Molex extension - 36"
4x FrozenCPU 3-pin extension - 12" (three fans plus pump)

IMG_2682.jpg

IMG_2683.jpg

IMG_2684.jpg


Gotta love them new load temps! Took 25ºC right off the top!
 
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rubix_1011

rubix_1011

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You might consider just running plain distilled...not a real fan of additives...especially from Feser. I know some people like them, but they really aren't going to do anything for your temps or corrosion (almost all watercooling components are brass or copper anyway...).

But, glad you are happy...temps being down 25C is a huge deal. I assume that's load temps? After how long @load?

Nice work...now you'll see why you'll want to keep adding to your loop and making it better...its a sickness. :)
 
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Leaps-from-Shadows

Leaps-from-Shadows

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Yeah, that was Prime95 load temps after about two hours -- was about 75ºC, now about 50ºC.

And I only put a tiny bit (~25ml) of that corrosion blocker in (I followed the instructions -- one 50ml bottle treats two liters of water). I did it because the standard UV blue concentrate EK includes with the kit has corrosion blocker in it too. I figure the kit makers know best...
 
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