Post pics of your cooling setups. Air, Water and Extreme setups welcome!

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Originally Posted by x88x

... -_^ They made a kit loop with both aluminum and copper components??? ...I think the worst part is that I'm not really that surprised..it is TT after all. :P

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Let's not point fingers. The new cooler kit I got from the vaunted towers of Corsair is the same way.

Koolance also does mixed loops

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Originally Posted by Kayin

There is no "perfect loop." Merely one better than the last time.

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to true... if the MCR420 had been out at the time i started water cooling i would have a nice 4x4 setup instead of the current 3x3.

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i still need to clean up the wiring

Here is an old pic that I dug up from Project: LEXA

In there I have a Intel Q6600 cooled by a Swiftech Apogee GTX and an Nvidia 8800GTX cooled by a Swiftech MCW-60 waterblock running through 1/2" tubing and 1x 240mm radiator (floor) and a 120mm radiator (back).

This mod would be around about 3 years old with the hardware border lining 4 years. Well the mod did outlive the hardware, LEXA is currently dead, well the mobo or PSU is anyway, got hit with a power surge I think. The good news is that insurance will pay out $1000 for the dead PC an I can salvage what I can and start again later this year.

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Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

LEXA is currently dead

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:eek:

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Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

The good news is that insurance will pay out $1000 for the dead PC an I can salvage what I can and start again later this year.

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WOO HOO!!!

LEXA 2!!! (or is it 3?)

:banana:

That sucks about the dead hardware, but awesome news about the insurance! You could build a very nice system for $1000. :twisted:

how does one go about getting computer insurance? :?

I'm guessing it was renter's insurance or from the UPS/surge protector company?

Nope, home and contents insurance, that covers accidents and breakage. I could just pierce one of the hoses in my WC loop and say it shorted and fried. Dad insured my PC for $3000 (monitors and all) and after depreciation I should get just under $1000.

For $1200 AUD I can build a new i7 rig minus the GPU, I will use my 8800GTX for starters before upgrading.

I was going to do another LEXA mod, I really do love the chassis but this time I think I am going to go for something a little bit larger and more elegant.

I smell WORKLOG!

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Originally Posted by blueonblack

I smell WORKLOG!

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All in good time :D.

I am going away to New Zealand on the 13th July for 18 days and as soon as I get back I'm straight back into semester 2 at Uni. I think I am going to have to wait until November before anything really gets started. However I may purchase the case after I get back from holiday and start tinkering ;).

that my custom bracket for the apogee xt. cooling a amd phenom 2 720 be clocked at 3.5!!!1:lick:

here are the link in case you cant see the pics.

Cooler Master V6 GT in a HAF X

Specs:

• AMD Phenom II X4 965BE 140w (Was able to hit 4.0GHz with the V6 GT)
• Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
• Cooler Master V6 GT
• 4GB Geil Evo One @ 2000MHz 7, 7, 7, 28
• EVGA 8800 GTS 512MB
• Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800w
• Plextor PX-B320SA Blu-ray combo drive
• OCZ Agility 2 SSD 50GB
• 1x Segate 500gb, 2x WD Green 500GB
• NZXT Sentry 2
• Cooler Master HAF X with 4 230mm fans and 1 140mm fan.

looks great! but why is your 8-pin mobo connector unplugged?

Filling with load attached. You run fans and such so the PSU doesn't burn out.

I have a little external PSU from a 3.5" enclosure that I like to use.

I modified a standard sized generic PSU to run without the mobo, it's great for testing fans and filling a WC loop.

I too have a small 200w PSU I modded with a toggle switch on the green and black wires to power my pump for filling, bleeding, and leak testing. Best 30 minutes I ever spent.

Here is 2 photos I hope will show a few people what not to do.... 10mm Tygon on 3/8" Danger Den Fatboys. Always measure the ID of your tubing. Some how I wound up with 10mm Tygon instead of the proper 3/8". I notified Danger Den and they shipped me new 3/8" Tygon overnight and even threw in a full set of 1/2" Fatboy fitings FOR FREE in case I wanted to use the 10mm. That tells you what a stand up company Danger Den is. They corrected their mistake in the fastest way possible and gave me extra hardware for free! I recommend them to everyone.

This is also a good example as to why you should always leak test the WC system for more than a few minutes. My leaks did not develop until about hour 16 into the leak test. It took that long for the pump to dump enough heat into the loop and allow the tubing to soften and expand. I thought I had fixed the leaks so I leak tested it again, and sure enough around hour 17 the leaks came back.

Oh and for those of you who have a keen eye, Yes I did have the standard white clamps on the tubing. I took them off for these pics. It leaked even with the clamps as snug as they would get.

Again, I can not say enough about how wonderful a company Danger Den is. Their customer service is the best in the business and they really made an impression on me by quickly fixing the problem. So if you are looking for WC gear stop by http://dangerden.com and consider purchasing something from them.

Notice how the tubing does not look "stretched" over the barb. It look and felt like it made a complete seal but sadly it did not.

Anoter shot of the 10mm Tygon being too big for 3/8" Fatboys.

If you dip the ends of the tubing in warm or hot water it will help make a tighter seal around the barb. This will also allow you to use even smaller tubing to get a perfect seal.

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Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

If you dip the ends of the tubing in warm or hot water it will help make a tighter seal around the barb. This will also allow you to use even smaller tubing to get a perfect seal.

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For clarification, this only works if the tubing ID is smaller than the fitting OD. In this case it was the other way around, so it would actually make the problem worse.

x88x is correct. In this instance, the tubing was too large for the barbs. When I re-install the loop this week I will be using some 3/8" tubing on 1/2" barbs, and will heat the tube ends in water.

is it possible to get 3/8 over 1/2 fatboys? b/c i have 2 order new tubing, with a thicker wall so it wont collapse...

Yes it is possible. You just have to heat the tubings ends in hot water to soften them up. Once on and cooled back down the connection will be so tight that if you have a lot of twist in the tube it can unscrew the fittings.

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Originally Posted by Oneslowz28

I too have a small 200w PSU I modded with a toggle switch on the green and black wires to power my pump for filling, bleeding, and leak testing. Best 30 minutes I ever spent.

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Funny, mine has a toggle switch on the back. :D Best 30 seconds I ever spent.

so, what do you all plug in during leak testing? (to the psu) i would appreciate the advice as im completing my 1st loop monday and dont really know what do do besides the obvious... is there a guide? just a quick rundown would do... Thanks for the support guys

Yes just the PSU. Here is what I do.

• Unplug all power connections to HDD, Mobo, Optical drives and video cards.
• Jump black and green wire on 24 pin to turn PSU On
• Fill loop as much as possible with pump off
• Plug pump in to PSU
• Continue to fill loop until full / bled of all air
• Place paper towels under the edge of all water blocks, low points in tubing, under pump, under Radiator and under reservoir.
• Let run for 16-24 hours, keeping check every hour or so for leaks. (if using colored coolant it will stain the paper towel.)
• If leak free after testing is finished power up your system.

Some people leak test with all the components out side the case. This is a bad thing to do IMO as during installation, things can get bumped, twisted, and stretched, which could cause a leak.

Because I use a test PSU rather then doing the old jumper trick with my dedicated one I just plug my pump into my test PSU while having everything else installed in the case. Flick the switch on the back of the PSU and it turns on, do it again and it turns off. Once the loop is full I leave it running for 24 hours and monitor for leaks. When I am satisfied I plug the pump back into my dedicated PSU and fire up the system.

The larkooler kit I just finished reviewing.

my cooling, one of the 3.

This is the boreas chiller, and there will be also a modded Coolit Freezone Elite and a Freezone v1 in this case, some Hybrid cooling lol.

Heheh, nice. Best use I've seen of a Level 10 yet. ;) (Sorry to the fans of the Level 10, but I've just always thought they look ridiculous.)

The Level 10 had a cool look to it I though but is highly impractical as a PC case IMO. Nice cooling solution Chiller.

there is a 2x120 radiator on top, a 1x120 in front, and cpu and gpu blocks.

I'm gonna throw this here cuz you seem masters of the craft. Does anyone have, or can recommend a good idiot's guide to cooling? I'm looking at these, and I'm seeing a bunch of pretty tubes, and in the case of the jawa sandcrawler, two really big cylinders, but I honestly have no idea what they actually are. I know you can cool a tower from airflow and somehow water, and of course the submerged in mineral oil (which is incredibly wicked IMO!). But if anyone can recommend an illustrated guide, that'd be awesome. :)

Spawn had a great guide up here but it has sadly succumbed to photobucket decay.

First stop, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...r-pc,1573.html
Then here for more reading http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/f...ead.php?t=5400
More here
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums...p?f=21&t=12616

Read some more on corrosion here
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums...p?f=21&t=14948

Myths, untruths, and mistakes
http://www.overclockers.com/watercooling-myths-exposed/

How to choose a radiator
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums...ic.php?t=40317

BTW Sidewinder computers for parts is recommended

sidewinder seems to be more expensive than performance-pcs.com... I could be completely wrong though.

I have several Danger Den parts that work great. Phobya rad and XSPC CPU block and res.

I tend to prefer sidewinder as well.

We have our own set of watercooling articles (though they're not for the faint of heart-lots of science) lurking somewhere around here (I know, I wrote them!)