Passive system with household radiator

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Sendorm
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:21 pm

Passive system with household radiator

Post by Sendorm » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:44 am

I had a bigwater, water cooling system for a long time. I've ducted the radiator, changed the fan, added gpu and chipset blocks etc. But my main aim was to go all passive with the cooling solution. I had the idea of using a house hold radiator and finally had the time and ambition to do it.

System specs:
DFI lanparty ultra-d
Amd venice 3000+@315*8
Palit 7600gs sonic 450/1000@525/1500 (yeah this card is a great overclocker) (gets 6200 3d mark 2005 points, higher than most of the 7600gt out there. With a price tag of 120$ it is quite the performer)
2*1gb kingston ram
2* 160gb samsung harddisks (sorry no raid here)
Case is a everpower something something.
Tagan 330watts (I must say this power supply is completely silent, at least in my room's ambient sound level)

The house hold radiator:
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3364 ... 001kf3.jpg

old vs new radiator:
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4960/picturezs0.jpg

The household-radiator weighs 11.3kgs and is made of iron or some sort of steel i guess. It's not stainless so anti-corrosion additive is a must. It holds about 2 liters of water. I've been told that all household radiator contatin the same connector size which is 1/2''. I had to by barbs for 1/2 to 8mm for the bigwater tubing.
It is actually quite easy to fill and bleed the system as the household radiator holds a bleeder of its own.

Bleeder:
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6945 ... 010kh3.jpg

The system:
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/1219 ... 003zk1.jpg
The system with harddrives taken out:
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/6352 ... 004vc2.jpg

Both the gpu and the chipset is cooled by zalman blocks. I had to make custom adapters for the tubing, as the bigwater uses a lousy 1/4'' tubing while zalmans are 3/8''. The harddrives are wrapped in tshirts.

The harddrive cage:
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/8053 ... 005jw5.jpg
After some unwrapping:
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/9574 ... 007ue2.jpg

The fan works at 5 volts and is not making any audible sound. Harddisks are hard mounted to the metal frame but the tshirts+foam at the bottom doesnt let any vibrations out. They sat happily at around 40C and 36C.

My rooms ambient temperature is about 21C right now. And the system happily idles at 27C. Full system load increases the water temp to about 30C. Because of the cpu blocks and the interfaces efficieny, the cpu temp hovers around 36C, 6 degrees above water temp, when under heavy load and instanly jumps back to water temp when changing from load to idle. The temps are about 8-10C lower than the previous bigwater radiator.

Verdict: The household-radiator seems to work better than a passive reserator system and of course bettern than the previous active radiator.

DryFire
Posts: 1076
Joined: Sun May 25, 2003 8:29 am
Location: USA

Post by DryFire » Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:29 pm

Seeing as the thermal conductivity of iron is 72 W/mC while Al's is 220 W/mC and 386 W/mC for Cu, perhaps you'd be better off with a passive transmission cooler (Al).

But I suppose it's massive size makes up for a lot. :shock:

BillTodd
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:10 am
Location: Colchester (nuked in 1984)
Contact:

Post by BillTodd » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:28 pm

DryFire wrote:Seeing as the thermal conductivity of iron is 72 W/mC while Al's is 220 W/mC and 386 W/mC for Cu, perhaps you'd be better off with a passive transmission cooler (Al).

But I suppose it's massive size makes up for a lot. :shock:
It's the huge surface area of the household radiator that's key, it swamps the effect of the steel's thermal resistance.

Sendorm
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:21 pm

Post by Sendorm » Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:26 am

There is also one great aspect of steel, the price. I got the whole radiator setup (the radiator itself, barbs) for 30$. Aluminium household radiators were also avaliable with 3 times the price. But 10C above ambient at all times is more than I need. So aluminium was not necessary.

kentc
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:50 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Post by kentc » Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:45 pm

excuse my incompetence, but i'm a wc virgin:
does your rig require a pump and if so, where is it mounted and is it silent?
if you have no pump, are there any special considerations to get the water flowing from the heating?

Sendorm
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:21 pm

Post by Sendorm » Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:07 pm

I am still using the original bigwater pump, which is rated at 31.7 gph (120 lph).

The pump is placed outside the computer case and wrapped in tshirts under the desk. No noise whatsoever, although it does rattle (after 2 years of usage) and would have made noise if it was hard mounted to the case.

One more thing about the thermal resistance of steel, I guess the numbers only reflect the resistance within steel itself. I dont think it would have made any difference if I had an aluminium radiator (or copper in that sense), maybe 1C or so. Doesnt make up for the price.

My only concern at the moment is galvanic corrosion, as my system is holding steel (radiator), copper (cpu block) and aluminium (gpu and chipset block) at the moment. I am using nearly %33 percent anti-freeze (has anti corrosive additive) and pure water for that.

BillTodd
Posts: 132
Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:10 am
Location: Colchester (nuked in 1984)
Contact:

Post by BillTodd » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:32 pm

I dont think it would have made any difference if I had an aluminium radiator (or copper in that sense), maybe 1C or so.
If you know the thickness of the steel and its surface area,you can easily work it out.

At a guess, I would think it would make far less than 1'C difference perhaps 0.1'C.

Brian
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2006 3:41 pm
Location: Buffalo, NY

Post by Brian » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:50 am

Have you thought about moving the radiator outside, or to the attic, for summer? That would be really cool.

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