SPCR

Cool revivew maximus it definately tells me more about the reserator of which i am curious about. (i dont know why)

19.5 deg c is very low ambient for uk, with that ambient my wc setup does pretty well! What are your temps with more normal ambients like 21-22 deg c?

Also how many hours was the system left on before you took the temp readings, the reason why i ask is that if its just when its been switched on, the water would have had a chance to cool down previously like overnight or something. My setup is on a 24/7 full load computer so i have to account for water temperatures heating up although is not as much of an issue as i dont have a huge reservoir unlike the reserator. What exactly is the capacity of the reserator?

Maxamus wrote:The thing I found strange about this unit is that it has its own mains plug and doesn’t come on with the PC automatically, it has a switch where you can turn it off and on. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Hopefully I’ll never turn the PC on and forget to turn the Reserator on (otherwise ill fry my CPU and probably the board).

I've done a mod on my power supply to solve this problem.. if you're interested, go to a hardware store and buy a 12V relay. open up the power supply and find somewhere to steal 12V from, usually there is an easy spot on the PCB, if not you'll have to tap into one of the (yellow) wires. wire the 12V and ground between the 'trigger' on the relay, and wire mains straight thru (parallel from wherever it comes in to the psu) to the relay output. You can attach a socket to the relay output, if you are very lucky maybe your power supply already has a socket on the back and you can use that (they sometimes have them on because monitors used to often plug into the psu, but the socket is usually straight thru not switched).

now you can plug any device into the relay output, and it will switch on and off with the computer. i have a power board plugged into the back of mine, because at one stage i wanted to switch on and off speakers, monitor, printer, ext modem or whatever with the computer, because these devices all had LEDs on them which would shine or blink and annoy me when trying to get to sleep at night..

well, i just read that you have your machine on 24/7 so maybe you couldn't be bothered doing this job *shrugs*

Another easy approach, which Zalman mentions in the manual, is to plug the computer and the Reserator into the same swithed power strip. You just leave the Reserator's switch on and turn it on and off with the power strip when you turn the computer on and off. Still an extra step, but one that won't be forgotten.

Before I started folding, e.g. runing 24/7, I always clicked off my power strip anyway. So many things today don't actually shut off completely. You need to cut the power to them if you really want them off and not spinning your meter.

Or, since the reserator makes essentially no noise, and consumes only tiny amounts of power (about the same as your PC does when it's off)....just never turn its pump off.

My computer is a 24/7 computer usually but whenever its off, i always leave the pump on even if its going to be a long period if time. I do this firstly because it dosent bother me and secondly as the majority of watercooling pumps are designed to go into fishtanks, theyre not built for the constant turning on/off as it decreases its lifespan - although i dont think itll be too significant as i never hear of pumps dying... its upto you i suppose

I get around 40C idle on my P4 3.2ghz. I was wondering if anyone could estimate what I would get with this water cooling package. Also I didn't quite understand from the previous posts, is corrosion going to be a problem with this package?

I was looking at some internal pics of the Reserator, and it looks like the inlet is a compression barb. Could you put about 1' of hose in the barb to get better temperatures by moving the hot water at the top. The concept is that as it cools it sinks towards the pump.

DraGoNsLaYeR: corrosion will not be a problem with this package, however there is no guarantee that it will not happen.

It is northwood, but I get about 38-40C with the intel heatsink, would this be not helpful at all then?