It's cheap, it's quiet and best of all it's also FAST! :D

heatwave · Post by **heatwave** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:26 pm

After 3 months of trial and error, countless hours of reading forums I have achieved my goal - that is to build a PC that is very quiet and is also very powerful to boot.

As the reference of "quiet" is very subjective person to person, I'll describe it more clearly. At night, this computer runs 24/7 and I have trouble recognizing whether it is actually on or off. The PC is located less than 1m from my bed.

Other modifications include voltage modification of the X800 Pro VIVO to XTPE specifications, 16 pipes enabled. I also attached ramsinks (see sig) on the GDDR3 RAM with Arctic Silver Epoxy.

Further modifications include removing all the fans of the Enermax PSU and replacing it with a single 80mm Panaflo L1A at 5V for day to day use and 12V when gaming or high 3D requirements.

At the time of this writing, my PC is the No. #1 scoring Athlon machine in Futuremark's database for 3DMark 2003.

The only maintenance I have to do is just add (tap) water every few days

It's time to finally kill the rumors watercooling can never be silent

Current rig specs:
* XP2400+ Mobile 35W @ 2700MHz
* 1GB Dual Channel DDR500 Kingmax Hardcore
* X800 XTPE @ 630/620 voltmodded
* 250GB Western Digital HDD - JB model
* ABit NF7-S v2.0 stock
* Pioneer 16X DVD-RW Dual Layer
* Lite-On 48X CD-RW
* 3DMark 2003: 14,070
* 3DMark 2001SE: 23,100
* Aquamark 2003: 58,300
* $35 evaporative cooling!
* Swiftech MCW-6000 CPU waterblock
* Swiftech MCW-50 GPU waterblock
* Silentstar single HDD waterblock
* Enermax 550W PSU - Model EG651P-VE(FMA)
* Best of all = 100% SILENCE!

1911user · Post by **1911user** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 11:14 am

I think you will have corrosion problems with your blocks. I can understand not wanting to add anti-freeze or some anti-corrosive due to evaporation, but you've got anodized aluminum and copper in your loop. It'll probably start happening in a matter of months. I would suggest going to an all copper system (new gpu and hdd block) may be the easiest way to slow any problems while keeping the evaporative cooling. I'd also suggest flushing the loop every 2-3 months with some kind of cleaner to prevent build-up. Running straight tap water has it's problems, but may be worth it to you.

Interesting idea.

heatwave · Post by **heatwave** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 1:41 pm

The idea has been tested for about 2 years with one guy in Australia and he has never seen any buildups - at least with the quality of tap water here in Australia.

Wrt antifreeze or the like - it is dangerous as the water and the toxic antifreeze evaporates at the same time - not particularly a good thing while I am right next to it.

Anodized aluminum AFAIK, does not react with copper as it is not bare aluminum. The anodized coating prevents instant contact with the bare aluminum thus protecting it.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 2:12 pm

heatwave, is that a CSP-750 Mark I? Where did you get it? According to my contacts, the CSP-750 Mark I pumps from D-Tek Customs are not submersible!!!

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 3:23 pm

yeah, in an open system (ie not willing/possible to add other stuff to the water) tap water is definitely better than DI. anodization is either more or less reliable depending on the type though.

If I were to try something like this long-term (like permanent), with a bucket like that I'd probably try tossing in a big chunk of magnesium, wrapped in a bunch of socks or something so crap doesn't end up everywhere after a (long) while.

My last Alfa Aesar catalog shows half-pound 1.25x0.6x10" 99.9% bars for $25 and one-pound 1.3x12" 99.8% rods for a few bucks less, can probably find even cheaper elsewhere, might be worth considering for insurance. You'd still have to flush it every now and then though... better yet would be putting the Mg into an unglazed ceramic container or something but now i'm getting ahead of myself.

the buildups and corrosion are different too, like with big steel water tanks you don't have to worry much if at all about corrosion, because the standing water will deposit calcium on the inside, which physically protects the steel and (should, i think) act like a sacrificial anode itself. running water leaves little/no mineral deposits. at most i'd imagine you'd get rings around the inside of the bucket as the water level goes down past the same point each day.

Glitch · Post by **Glitch** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 2:58 pm

why do people talk about magnesium.. get yourself a lump of zonc, which is cheaper, will do a better job of stopping the other metals corroding.

they only problem i see you having is bacteria and algea

jamesavery22 · Post by **jamesavery22** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:16 pm

Glitch wrote:why do people talk about magnesium.. get yourself a lump of zonc, which is cheaper, will do a better job of stopping the other metals corroding.

they only problem i see you having is bacteria and algea

humidifier bactericide/biocide is always a requirement whenever I read about people doing the "fountains." Someone said you'll actually get some sort of disease if you just do that with pure water. Hence why humidifiers require you to use that stuff...

Becks · Post by **Becks** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:00 pm

what fbs/vcore are you using? did you do anything special to the mobo? (ramsinks on the voltage regulaotrs and stuff to the left of the cpu socket?)

My oced mxp had issues when it got hot out (over 100F outside, no ac inside) with no airflow around the cpu socket.

Does your water temp get much below roomtemp? Not sure I could live with a bong-type cooler, I like a neat-compact case, not sure if i coul dhandle a 5 gallon bucket next to my case

. These coolers are sure effective tho, nice job.

I don't see the same problem as with humidifiers... humidifiers heat the water up, nice warm water will grow bacteria alot better htan the bong-type cooler whose water is close to or below room temp... don't they put chlorine in most tap water now? I would think that would be enough to stop any growth.

RaNDoMMAI · Post by **RaNDoMMAI** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:21 pm

What do the blue sticks do?

~RaNDoM

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:24 pm

The water is piped up the black tubes and then pours out the tops. The blue wavy part helps to increase the amount of air exposure that the water receives on its way down, thus maximizing the amount of evaporative-effect in his setup.

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:47 am

Glitch wrote:why do people talk about magnesium.. get yourself a lump of zonc, which is cheaper, will do a better job of stopping the other metals corroding.

they only problem i see you having is bacteria and algea

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... ctpot.html

that is why... unless he's using only copper. note where mg/zn are compared to aluminum. if there's no aluminum at all in there then yeah, zinc will also work fine, but not any better than magnesium.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:35 am

Personally, I'm thinking about using a nice, big copper 'reserator'. A big scuba tank, compressed air cylinder type deal. Something, oh, 8â€

Gooserider · Post by **Gooserider** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:01 pm

AFAIK, SCUBA tanks are all either steel or aluminum, not copper. I suspect you might have trouble finding anything that size in copper. Note that a plain copper tank also wouldn't be that great for cooling, probably not significantly better than the same size steel or Al tank. The critical thing for passive cooling is surface area, not the material. If I were building something like that I'd consider getting a bunch of finned copper pipes and rigging them up in parallel so as to get really huge surface areas without any noticeable flow restrictions.

Gooserider

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:35 pm

...and if you're building a monolith, aluminum won't compromise the floor the whole thing is sitting on.

copper is pretty dense and iirc only outperforms aluminum by volume, not mass

jamesavery22 · Post by **jamesavery22** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:56 pm

Becks wrote:...
I don't see the same problem as with humidifiers... humidifiers heat the water up, nice warm water will grow bacteria alot better htan the bong-type cooler whose water is close to or below room temp... don't they put chlorine in most tap water now? I would think that would be enough to stop any growth...

There is a small amount of chlorine in all public water. Still doesnt prevent bacteria from growing nor does it kill most organisms.

The presence of potentially pathogenic organisms, particularly in air conditioning and humidifier units, is a cause of concern. Legionella pneumophila, the bacterium implicated in the outbreaks of Legionnaires’ Disease, is only one of a number of organisms which, under the right conditions, causes human infections.

Source:
http://www.ospmicrocheck.com/Applicatio ... tories.htm

Why take the chance? Spend the 5$ and dump it in every month...

bobkoure · Post by **bobkoure** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:23 am

heatwave wrote:Anodized aluminum AFAIK, does not react with copper as it is not bare aluminum. The anodized coating prevents instant contact with the bare aluminum thus protecting it.

Ya think? Have a look at http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=10628

Note that the hole near the center is not supposed to be there - and Swiftech anodizing is very good...