High-load watercooling?

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:37 am

I haven't been here in a long time, but the noise from my system has gotten out of hand.

I'd like to investigate water cooling my entire rig, but that will be a lot of devices. Here is a list:

CPU
GPU
NB
RAID Controller (lots of heat, it has the mounting point

)
(and the big one) 12 hard drives

Yes 16 water blocks, with more likely.

So my first question would be: how many devices can you have on a single cooling loop? I'd like to route the radiator outside, so a single loop would make things much simpler.

TIA

laguz1 · Post by **laguz1** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:53 pm

well, not necessarily 16 blocks...you can put more than one HD per block, or HD cage...but that's still gonna be a ton of blocks...

Weeelll, you could have some massive system w/ tons of pumps and tubing, but wtf do you need 12 hard drives??

NB probably won't need liquid cooling, and same w/ that RAID controller (i've heard of anyone watercooling that)

For a single loop, usually the typical number of items are 4-6, from the simplest - cpu, rad, pump, reservoir/T-line...to a very complicated one - cpu, gpu, gpu 2, reservoir/T-line, pump, rad). Very rarely do people liquid cool their hard drives or northbridge chipsets.

As for some recommended parts:

CPU block: D-Tek FuZion
GPU block: Swiftech MCW60
pump: Swiftech MCP655
tubing: Tygon or ClearFlex
radiator: (well, considering what you need to cool...) Thermochill PA120.3

I would try to find a way to consolidate those raptors into just 2 if possible - like just get 2 raptor 150s, but if you can't...hmm, thats tricky. Shame you got the Seagates, since Western Digital and Samsung both run cooler and quieter, but what do you need 6x750 gb for??

If you could, post price budget

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:35 pm

The Raptor arrays are for high-STR video processing applications. I need both arrays as one is source and one is destination. The 750GB drives are in a 3TB RAID-5 array for storage. I'll be adding additional 750s in the future, my RAID card supports 16 drives. This card could certainly use some better cooling; it isn't anything to laugh at (promise, highpoint, etc).

WD drives are notoriously unreliable, and Samsung doesn't make anything in this capacity.

Thanks for the tips on components, I'll take a look.

laguz1 · Post by **laguz1** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:27 am

oh, well then...

for the RAID controller...i'm not sure if vendors have water blocks for that? but you said it has "the mounting point"...what do you mean by that?

Well then, you probably could cool those hard drives, but i doubt you can fit them in your case. This site has several HD coolers, but all of them except one only cool 1 HD:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... f626bb01f1

If you opt to cool all your HD's and the standard CPU, GPU, etc.. loop, you'll most likely need 2 pumps, cause you have significant resistance in that setup.

ToasterIQ2000 · Post by **ToasterIQ2000** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:17 am

I've run several systems with blocks on everything. One pump for 5 blocks with a large external radiator is viable.

Giving each of 16 drives it's own off the shelf hard drive waterbllock would create a tangle of tubing and much flow resistance. For 16 drives a custom built raid cooler would be worth the work. Two watercooled plates with hd mounting holes on each side of the stack comes to mind... one water inlet / outlet pair per plate instead of 16 pairs... thumbscrew hd mounting for raid maintetance...

I don't know what sort of case I'd fit such a cooler in. Whatever I'd build would definitely look homebrew.

For the total wattage of the system you describe ( video editing = dual Quadros or FireGLs ? ) I do not know of any single off the shelf pc watecooling radiator that would be adequate. Ballpark guess: three 3 by 120 fan radiators in separate loops or a single loop with multiple pumps could do it.

I like to run fanless with larger radiators. I think ebay automotive for a car radiator, ugly tanks or pull off the tanks and do something custom acrylic ... definitely homebrew.

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:57 am

Thanks for the replies. Presently a 700W PS is enough (550W wasn't), so it isn't too much wattage

I like the idea of mounting plates on either side of a "stack" of hard drives. Drives are designed to remove heat through the sides, so that should be adequate.

Assuming I give each drive 1.25" vertical space, and include room for 16 drives, the aluminum plates need to be 20" tall and 6" wide. Ideally, I'd make them out of 1/4" aluminum plate, so the width of the whole (without water blocks) would be 4.5".

Assuming worst-case scenario (16 Raptors, all active) I need to dissipate ~200 watts worth of heat. Assuming that it is evenly split on both sides, that's 100W each.

I would like to fit the whole shebang in a standard-ish case, so it would be great if the total width (including waterblocks and noise insulation) was less than 9" wide.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:44 am

Have you thought about moving your most of your drives to a separate NAS box physically removed to where you can't hear it? Gigabit networking is cheap these days, you can channel-bond multiple interfaces to up your throughput. Might be simpler than trying to watercool all of that stuff.

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:33 pm

I had a seperate NAS box before, and frankly it was more of a pain than this is looking to be. The cheap ones (buffalo, linksys, etc) aren't that big or fast and the expensive ones make this look like a picnic. Even the fastest ones don't give the speeds I'm now used to (all the arrays can do 120-200MB/s+). And really there isn't any place where I would want the noise to be; I live in an apartment, so it would have to be near some place I occupy.

bobkoure · Post by **bobkoure** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:12 pm

You might think about making each drive-cooling sideplate out of a plate of copper, up to, say, a quarter-inch thick. Mark where you need to put drive-mounting holes, then solder a "serpentine" of thin-wall copper tubing, staying away from the reserved-for-holes area. Should be easier than constructing a water-tight "box" on each side, or drilling galleries through a thicker plate. If you have flow problems (and you probably will, unless you build a pair of "boxes") just use a pair of 'Y' connectors and split your flow between the two plates.
Many radiator shops can do the bending and soldering. HVAC shops have the tubing.

Rather than automotive radiators, maybe look at really big automotive heater cores? Check out the Heatercore Database.
They go up to about 11x6 (bigger for commercial trucks).

Also - for moving air quietly through automotive stuff, look at stacking axial fans - or running some kind of impeller - like maybe this 24VDC centrifugal fan - dunno if it'll start at 12V...

Also check out the ProCooling water cooling forum. There's a lot of water cooling know-how there.

Bob

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:11 am

Thanks for the replies. I've been sidetracked by another project, so this has been moved to the back-burner for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on it in a few weeks.