Watercooling with a refrigerator - possible? Advisable?

NARC · Post by **NARC** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:58 am

Well, I should start out by saying that I have never watercooled anything. In fact, I have not really modded anything either. But reading about the awesome things that people have done here have given me a bit of a bug.

So, I'm basically trying to think of fun things to do that will allow me a nice overclock.

I'm thinking about picking up a P4 3.0 (can't decide Northwood or Prescott yet) and would like it to go to at least 3.6. I think water will get me there more comfortably than air, and I just happen to have a small fridge that I can put next to the PC.

So basically: Would it make sense to have some sort of resevoir (I would estimate 2L or more) in the bottom of the fridge that has cooled water and make that part of a watercooling setup?

3 things jump out at me. 1) If I use a radiator, then I will actually warm the water as it will be below ambient. 2) There will be a certain point in which the water has been heated enough that I will have to use the radiator again for cooling. At which point I am also warming the fridge and getting my beer warm! Not good! 3) Is the added length of the loop a problem?

Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here, so any thoughts would be appreciated!

toiletduckuk · Post by **toiletduckuk** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:37 am

(can't decide Northwood or Prescott yet)

for the love of god, unless you are definite you're going through with watercooling get a Northwood. Prescotts are *so* hot running they're difficult to silence.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:47 pm

Don't use a fridge, it won't work very well. A fridge is designed to bring the temperature down to only a few degrees without having to fight against anything producing heat inside it. In your case it would probably run all the time and still not do very well. Might even overload it after a while.

Here's an idea. Put your radiator in a resevoir which is connected to the mains water supply. Even if you kept the flow low you would waste massive amounts of water and probably get environmentalists chaining themselves to your front door, but at least all that cold water out of the underground pipes will make you a 1337 overclocker

apocalypse80 · Post by **apocalypse80** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 5:43 am

I agree with Mojo-Chan , refrigerators can't handle a continuous heat load , so it will only work for a very short time ( = not worth it ).
Even so , if you turn the pc off long enough , the water will get very cold and condensation will form ( = you'll need insulation ).

So , I don't think it's either possible or advisable.
For the specifics
1) Yes , a rad would heat up the water , as long as it is colder than ambient.
2) Yes again
3) Depends. If you add 20ft of tubing to go all the way to the kitchen and back , then yes.

I think straight watercooling should be enough to get 3.6Ghz.
If you want to try alternative watercooling (waterchillers , TECs etc) look at procooling.com and xtremesystems.org .
But beware , those are nowhere near silent ( but would probably get you 4Ghz+ ).

P.S. Get a Northwood. The cpu isn't the only thing that overheats in a Prescott system.

NARC · Post by **NARC** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:31 am

OMG I just lost all my comments. Grrr, forgot to turn off mouse gestures in Avant....

Anyway, what I had said before was thanks for the ideas. Many things I had not yet thought of.

I'll get the Northwood, should be a lot of headroom in that nowadays anyway. I'm thinking of trying to get a 1000Ghz FSB with some PC4400 which puts me at 3.75Ghz. Hopefully a straight WC set-up gets me there (with relative quiet) but if not I'll back off. Not a big deal if I don't make it.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Sat Jun 26, 2004 9:09 am

I knew someone a while back who used the freezer system inside his small fridge that had a freezer bit, basically he was going for max temps and max overclock and he ran a mix of 1/2 water and 1/2 antifreeze, it was also in a 24/7 rig. He was able to run his cpu at 0 deg C (with lots of insulation) but after a week he got back to me and told me that it gradually got colder and colder uptill about -12 where the pipes started to freeze up, as a result the flowrate droped to nil and his processor overheated and fried.... ironic i thought...

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:10 pm

Seal wrote:I knew someone a while back who used the freezer system inside his small fridge that had a freezer bit, basically he was going for max temps and max overclock and he ran a mix of 1/2 water and 1/2 antifreeze, it was also in a 24/7 rig. He was able to run his cpu at 0 deg C (with lots of insulation) but after a week he got back to me and told me that it gradually got colder and colder uptill about -12 where the pipes started to freeze up, as a result the flowrate droped to nil and his processor overheated and fried.... ironic i thought...

That's some freezer. 99.999% of the time it doesn't work as most can handle the continous heat.

NARC, I suggest you do some googling. This has been discussed literally all over the world. Overclockers and pcper are a great place to start.

DrCR

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Seal · Post by **Seal** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:43 am

procooling is pretty much THE best watercooling resource there is there will be many people who use a watercooler on there i guess.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 10:20 am

Seal wrote:procooling is pretty much THE best watercooling resource there is there will be many people who use a watercooler on there i guess.

Right on. I don't know how I forgot them. They may not be too concerned about quietness as a whole, but I'm right with you Seal. I dare say they're one of the best watercooling resources out there.

Edit: It was discussed here at the pcper.com 's watercooling forum:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=326500

DrCR

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