Passive system with household radiator
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Passive system with household radiator
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.
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.
It's the huge surface area of the household radiator that's key, it swamps the effect of the steel's thermal resistance.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.
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.
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.