My Swiftech H20-8600-A with 2 rads arrives this week

The alternative to direct air cooling

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dukeman
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My Swiftech H20-8600-A with 2 rads arrives this week

Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:57 am

HEEEEE HAAAAWWWW

I finally ordered my kit. I am getting a H20-8600-A kit, MCW50 GPU block, and another MCR80-F2 for better cooling. I am going to have to mod my case a little to make everything fit but it should be a fun weekend. I am getting sick of the case fans in my system. they are already quiet but i need silence. I will be posting some pics and a evaluation of the system as i do it.

I hope this helps, it cost me about $275 for all the stuff. add that to what i have spent so far for silence and i could of bought one of those Falcon killer gaming rigs.

chylld
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Post by chylld » Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:23 am

congrats :) take lots of pics!

and just as a hint: you might want to look into reducing the font size of your sig, it's awfully long.. longer than the message itself :) no big bother, just something u might wanna check out.

is ur kit the one that comes with the new mcw6000 waterblock?

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 16, 2004 6:51 am

the block i got was MCW6000. this way i figure when i upgrade to AMD 64 i will just have to get a new retainer instead of a whole block.

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:39 am

Finally got everything installed. It was a pain in the butt. Next time I read a review about how it only took 2 hours to install a wc setup I will know they are full of crap. It took about 6 hours to do it. I have pics that I will be putting on my site tonight.

First off I must say that the quick connects that come with the system work great but are a royal pain to put on. You have to use a lot of force to make the tube go in all the way. I have blisters on each of my thumbs from having to press super hard even with soap on it. If I ever do it over again I will only use worm clamps, it would of taken half the time. I also made my tubing too long, I did not know how much of a bend the tube could take without kinking. When I get my new motherboard and processor I will shorten my tubes.

My temps are running 42c idle and up to 48c full load. These seem really high but I am running two fans at 5v. If I run the fans at 12v my idle is 38c and 45c, not really worth it as I am going for a very quiet computer. I have been able to over clock my processor really good. I am now running 1.725V at 10.5x at 220mhz for a speed of 2310. I could not run over 210mhz fsb with out lock up before wc. My vid card core can now run 400mhz with out a problem. I am very happy with these results.

Now on to my major problem. The pump is so freaking loud I can hear it down the hall with the computer room door shut. Ever review I read said they could not hear the pump over their case fans. The pump is all I can hear!!!!! I did everything by the book, never ran it without coolant in it. I filled my system just as the directions said, hot wired my power supply and turned the supply on. The pump immediately started to move the water that was in the lines. It ran great but was very loud right from the beginning. I did read online that it can take up to 48hrs for the pump to burn in so after tonight it will be 2 days that it has been running. Last night I drained and refilled system thinking there might be an air pocket in the pump, there was no change at all. If it is not better I will be calling swiftech and asking for a new pump. It is defeating the entire purpose for going water-cooled. I did unplug the pump for several seconds to ensure that was making the noise and my system was dead quiet with out it.
Does anyone else have any info on mcp600 or is anyone using this system?

chylld
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Post by chylld » Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:04 pm

which version of the pump do you have? i recall reading that the earlier versions of the mcp600 were plagued with noise & reliability problems. i think the newest version has an 'S' on the end of the model number. (not 100% sure)

give it a few more days to break in, hopefully things will improve.

how do those temps compare to your aircooled setup? regardless, max overclock is a much better measure of success and it seems you've won out there :)

wussboy
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Post by wussboy » Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:08 pm

I have a Swiftech CPU and GPU block and found the Quickconnects to be just that. Took 2 seconds to get them on. I'm curious about what was going on with yours? I put a very thin layer of Vasoline around the plug to make sure I could get them out later.

Also, sorry about the pump. I have a Hydor L30, and if it's not touching anything it's essentially silent. Have you tried holding it in your hand and seeing if that makes it quieter? If it's touching your case, it's transmiting a helluva lot of vibration to it.

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:46 am

that is weird with your quick connects. i had to really push hard to get them to mount. I put alittle bit of liquid soap on the tubes and really had to push them real hard to make them go in. dont get me wrong, they work just as advertised. i have zero leaks on any of my connections so i am happy with that end of it.

I have tiny air bubbles in my lines. i shined a flashlight into the tubes and could see very tiny bubbles flowing in the tubes. I am going to drain and refill the system this weekend and also make the tubes shorter. my pump is still really loud. also my case is vibrating like hell. i have hard mounted the pump with rubber washers and the foam pad for isolation but i dont think it is making a difference. when i redo my system i am going to surround the pump with foam to see if that stops the vibration. deep down i have a feeling i am going to rma the pump.

i love the cooling and oc that i am now getting but the noise is way above what i was getting with air cooling.

also how do i post pics

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:55 am


chylld
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Post by chylld » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:03 am

hooray for pics :)

an awful lot of tubing there hehe.. hope you don't plan on changing your motherboard anytime soon!

if i were to connect up those components, i'd do the radiators in series as opposed to parallel, speaking from a neatness point of view. but for what it is, it's pretty awesome.

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:28 am

the motherboard tray pops off in the back. it takes 2 minutes to take the motherboard out. A guy suggested that i redo my tubing. he suggested i go-
pump
y spliter to each radiator input
1 output to gpu
1 output to cpu
back to y spliter
thru f&b
pump inlet

i might do this just to clean up the tube mess. your ideal sounds good to. i left the tubes extra long so i can have some play room to adjust everything.

chylld
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Post by chylld » Wed Jun 23, 2004 2:13 pm

that's a much neater tube routing method however i'm not sure about running the gpu and cpu in parallel. according to cathar it's best to run things in series, after you take into account flow rate, pressure drop, performance and whatnot. i haven't experimented with this myself but cathar is pretty much the god of watercooling and his word is very highly regarded :)

based on this, i would run:

pump -> y adapter -> rads -> y adapter -> cpu -> gpu -> fbk -> pump.

the rads -> y adapter -> cpu connection might prove to be tricky, but i think it wouldn't be too much trouble if you connect it so that the y adapter's input from the top rad is connected using much shorter tubing than the input from the bottom rad. this will cause the output to be angled significantly upwards which should help get the tubing from the y adapter to the cpu.

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:20 pm

i might try that. the only thing that would change is where the gpu is in the circuit.

right now i have

pump
gpu
rads in parrell
cpu
f&b
pump

i solved the problem with my pump noise. it was all vibration. i put 1 inch thick foam under it and on the sides. it is now really quiet, not silent, but really quiet. before i had it bolted right to the case. big mistake. now i can hear the case fans at 5v over the pump. i dont think i can hear the pump unless i am right on it. thanks everyone for the tips on that.

dukeman
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Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:32 am

Post by dukeman » Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:27 am

i am wondering if it might be just as efficent to run my system in series. i would run it as follows

pump
gpu
rad1
rad2
cpu
F&B
pump

i think it would really make a difference with the amount of tubes in my system. it would clean it up alot. would there be any temp difference if i ran it in series? right now my idle and load temps are the same on 5v and 12v. i am satisfied with my temps but would like to see them drop alittle if i could. i understand i am cooling my overclocked gpu and overclocked cpu. under air i could get nowhere near where i am now with overclocking.

chylld
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Post by chylld » Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:42 pm

that sounds pretty neat, but the pump -> gpu tubing might be a bit of a kinky affair (sorry for the pun hehe).

series apparently affords better performance all round, this is what i've been led to believe by some of the world's best watercoolers.

dukeman
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Post by dukeman » Fri Jun 25, 2004 7:19 pm

i have redid all my plumbing in a series loop. it is much better to the eye now. i have to wait several days for the artic silver 5 to cure before i get stable temps. i am posting some before and after pics. let me know what you think.

After-
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/pmani ... 010017.JPG
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/pmani ... 010016.JPG
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/pmani ... 010015.JPG

before-
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/pmani ... 010006.JPG

chylld
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Post by chylld » Fri Jun 25, 2004 7:26 pm

that's a tremendous improvement. well done :)

Seal
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Post by Seal » Sat Jun 26, 2004 8:50 am

Wow just came across this post in my.. what now seems to be bi-annual visit to spcr. Great effort im glad to hear it all worked out well. When i read the first few posts about the hydor being noisy i immediately knew what the problem was, w/cing pumps themselves are very quiet, its only the vibration that ou get off them that causes the noise!

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