Water cooling CPU

[dherbman]

Might just mention that any water cooler will void your h/w warranties. Of course, so does OCing your rig. But, as long as you're at it, you should cool the GPU as well as the RAM and cpu. Does such a beast exist?

I'm working on a project for an unamed maker of unamed processors which will sell for under $150 and NOT void warranties of the CPU at least. Wish I could show it, but am under nda.

[JFettig]

Watercooling in no way voids warrenty as far as I have known. I watercool my cpu, chipset and gpu and am working on some blocks for video card ram and possibly system ram, People have cooled power supplies, hard drives, mosfets south bridges and tons of stuff.

Jon

[dherbman]

Jon,

you may be right. Let me elaborate: Damage caused by a liquid cooler (leaking) will void your warranty. same goes for OC'ing.

Originally posted by JFettig Watercooling in no way voids warrenty as far as I have known. I watercool my cpu, chipset and gpu and am working on some blocks for video card ram and possibly system ram, People have cooled power supplies, hard drives, mosfets south bridges and tons of stuff. Jon

[pack rat]

I voided warranty thee days after it arrived, cut the briges on xp1800 and unlocked it. It has been like that for over year and half. Wanted to do phase change (refrigeration) but I cought the CNC bug.Never looked back.

http://www.3dgameman.com/forums/show...threadid=20565

[CNCadmin]

OK I'm going to get ready to WC my new computer so far I'm going with neo's recommendation. I will post my progress.

[Ferenczyg]

Welcome to the club

Fer

[DLMACHINE]

Why not just refrigerate the complete computer?could you throw the tower in a dorm room sized refridgerator?

[JFettig]

you would end up running into problems by doing that, I beleve desktop hard drives dont like to be run cold. cdroms and floppy drives dont either, but yes, people have done that kind of stuff before, and theres systems and people who make systems(Im going to make one soon) that make a phase change system(refrigerator) with an on die evaporator(the cold part right on the cpu).


Jon

[doug6949]

Watercooling is neat stuff. However, if you are just looking for a significant improvement in cooling try using thermal grease between the chip and heatsink. Ducting the fan directly to the outside of the case also helps.

[despat]

Originally Posted by NeoMoses The main question is, "How much room do you have for a radiator?" Can you fit a 7"x7"x4" cube somewhere in your case? It should be on an external wall (front, top, sides, or bottom) in order to allow air to flow through the radiator. Most heatercores are about 2" thick, and with a fan and shroud, it's not uncommon to get a 4" thick radiator assembly. Also, the larger then radiator is, the better performance you'll get (generally). If you can't fit a full 6x6 or 7x7 heatercore in your case, you'll likely need to go with a Black Ice Pro or Micro (expensive but tiny). They're available from many places such as dangerden. You might also check out eBay for good deals on them. Here's my recommendations: Since space is tight, 3/8" tubing is a good idea (good idea, Jon) I would recommend 3/8" tubing stretched over 1/2" fittings. Makes for very good seals this way. Very little worries about leaking at all. Probably go with a single inlet/single outlet CPU waterblock, such as the TC-4 or something. Again, I can help you out here. If you do have to go with a Black Ice radiator, go with a low power output pump such as the 1046 or 1048. You don't want to be dumping too much heat into the system from the pump. So, if you can come up with the pump and radiator, I can give you a block,some good 3/8" tubing, a T-fitting & cap.

NeoMoses, Can you suggest me a small Radiator (one that's fit in the laptop). I've already found a pump and reservoir that'll fit in the battery compartment of the laptop. Just need to probably make my own radiator (or un-coil and recoil one) and then use one of the 3 monster fans in the laptop to cool the water. There's some space in the fan cavity (see the intake pipe path) between the fan and the cpu for the radaiator.

Another possibility is to just have one large copper water block that will also have some tubes and fins that'll cool the water. Since the waterblock will be long it can have two phases. Cold water will enter in the first phase which will be a cavity (above to the cpu) and instead of exiting to the outlet pipe as usual, the heated water will enter some pipes (1/4") with fins (before exiting to the pump). Since the pipes can be placed in the line of path of the air coming form the 3rd Fan (see the pics below), I'll have a self-contained radiator in the laptop.

Anyway, here's my project in detail.........................

I've modded the XPS to accept an AQUARIOUS II Water cooling system and I finally settled on using the Koolance CPU-180 Waterblock. It has pipes sticking out on the same plan as the block itself and probably of the best waterblocks for the CPU.

Here are the pic.


Belows is the Water block in it's place.



Just incase some of you may be wondering what's the big copper piece, it's a custom heat sink that I created to cool the Nvidia 7800. It take heat away from the Core and the top (only) RAM chips to the left (where I've AS5ed the rectangular part of the heatsink over the left CPU heatsink assembly fins. Air from the fan (in the pic) also blow over that rectangular part (further cooling the GPU).









Below, you can see that I removed the battery (not much need for it, since this will be always sitting on my desktop anyway) from it's bay and lead the inlet and outlet tubes from the waterblock. Notice the AQUARIUS tubing has springs inside to avoid kinks (an absolute necessity esp if you're trying to water a laptop)!






Below is a closeup of the hole in the battery compartment that I channeled the outlet tubing. I found a nice little hole with a rectangular cover that can be removed (i'm not sure it this is for the Bluetooth or not, but it sure helped me).



Below, I've tried to take a closeup of the hole that I found to slot the inlet tube. Sorry about the confusing background; I took this in the kitchen so you might see some kitchen utensils through the larger holes in the bay. These holes are not covered by the palm rest (and are not available for the tubes)




Below is the outlet tube path from the block. I found a gap around the fans holding and down out the bottom. WIthout the spring in the tube, I'd have a kink in it.



Another pic of the waterblock. The outlet tube can't be seen as I ran it through a cavity (that directs air from the 3rd fan out towards the back). I also had to make a hole in the cavity of the 3rd fan, The fan cavity is really big so the tube does not obstruct the fan is you pass it along the sides. The hole is positioned next to the hole in the battery compartment (refer to the first picture in this post to see the hole).




Below is the whole setup (temporary as you can see). I'm going to mod the stand (that the XPS is sitting on) so that there is a small boxed area on the stands front-right side. The box will harbor the radiator (which will stick out the side for air) and pump. The stand is only 3.5 inches high so part of the pump (which must remain standing up) will stick up into the space of the battery comparment.



TThe beautiful :dance2: thing about this mod is that my system is basically the same (with it's original fan-runned cooling solution still intact), however now with the option to water cooler. If I ever get tired of water cooling, all I need to do is disconnect the cooling kit leave the two tubes dangling. Unlike a desktop cooling mod (where you must open up and replace the waterblock with a heatsink), my waterblock is here to stay and can be turned on or off at leisure.

Without cooler running (i.e. waterblock is installed but pump turned off) and with default fangui settings (gaming profile), the Max idle temps I get are 68 for CPU and 54 for GPU.



I've completed the Water-Air cooling station that hides away and enhances the cooling process. Here are the steps:

First I got a Dell Monitor stand for $10.00 on Ebay.

The image below shows that stand with the top cover removed and a square hold sawed out (use one of those round saws or a dremel cause this stuff if hard plastic). I also used a bit of intuition to create two passages leading from the center to the side (and covered them with the white plastic sheets which I glued. There will eventually be passages for air to be blown in from underneath and out directly into the right and left corner intake vents on the bottom of the XPS.



Below I've fitted a foodsaver in that square hole. If you've not guessed by now, it'll hold the Aquarius II Radiator (with an ThermalTake X-Blower fan blowing air on the the radiator) and the Pump/Reservoir.




Below is the stand now upside-down. Notice the hole I cut for the 80mm fan to blow air the passages (to the right and left).



Next, I screwed a 80mm ThermalTake Smart fan that has a temperature probe (which controls the speed of the fan). I'll probably tape the probe to the GPU copper heatsink (see my earlier posts) that I created.



Below is the side view of the stand where you can see that I had to cut a hole for the other fan.



Almost done now. I purchased a 12V AC adapter and attached the 2 fans (the Radiator and the 80mm fan) and the pump to that power source.

Remember (from my previous posts) that I'm not worried about having the water pump start with my system, cause the XPS does not depend entirely on the waterblock for its cooling (i.e the water cooling is an optional enhancement that further cools the system along with Dell's stock fans (3 of them).



Next, I attached the two fans to ThermalTake Total Watts Viewer panel. The X-blower (radiator fan) speed will be manually controlled by one of the knobs on the panel. The other knob will (optionally) allow me to control the other fan (that will blow air into the vents and can be Probe-controlled also). Notice I've put the top cover back on after cutting two holes corresponding to the areas under the laptop where the vents exist.




A closeup of the X-blower fan which pulls air from both the front and back and throws it into the radiator fins. Btw, the X-blower is a quiter fan then the original 80mm fan that came with the ThermalTake Aquarius II radiator.



Wiring was the most time consuming part of this project. I had to find a little housing for all the wires and cut holes in it so that the female sockets can stick out of them. I also connected the Molex 4 pin plug to the adapter (sorry can't see this part cause it's inside the white box (housing) that's now screwed on the bottom.

This mod makes it easy for me to connect the disconnect the power leads of the fans and the pump. I've also put a mesh over the 80mm fan to keep the dust out.



Below I'm just about to settle the XPS on it's cooling station (or a pretty permanent nest until I find a smaller cooling kit that'll fit entirely inside the battery compartment. Notice that the vents are aligned with the holes and that the pump stick out about an inch into the battery compartment of the XPS. The battery is expandable cause it's pretty useless to me now.:$



Below is the my silent rig now cooled entirely by the externally "pushed-in" air (to the vents) and I guess also air that's seeping in from the battery compartment and water over the cpu.

If it weren't for the two tubes sticking out (as you see in the pic) to meet the backup reservoir, no one would have noticed the mod.







SOME TEST RESULTS:

With all 3 fans on full speed plus cooler fans(i.e. radiator fan and 80mm fan underneath on slowest, quietest speed) and my idle temps are 48 for the CPU (don't forget that's a 3.4 Ghz P4 prescott - the hotter running cpu) and GPU at 52 degrees.


The question is, can I benchmark or play games with all 3 stock fans off? My guess is that with my external fans on slowest speed, there won't be enough pressure to push air into the laptop at load conditions. I'm going to try loading this rig slightly with 3DMark06 with the 2 external fans turn on slow speed and leaving the 3 stock fans off.

Here's an interesting comparison between 2 different test settings using 3DMark06.


CONSTANTS:
39 processes and 40 services running,


TEST SETTING A: With all 3 stock fans set on SLOW on all 4 levels in FANGUI (Games profile) and the pump on, the CPU and GPU max at 73 and 65 respectively, when I run 3DMark 06.

At SETTING A the idle temp is 50 for CPU and 54 for GPU. (obtiained after 1/2 running)

TEST SETTING B: With all 3 stock fans set on OFF on all 4 levels in FANGUI (Games profile) and ofcourse turned off using the BIOS CONTROL UTILITY and ONLY the pump running with both cooler fans on slowest speed, the CPU and GPU max at 73 and 54 respectively, when I run 3DMark 06.

At SETTING B the idle temp is 54 for CPU and 55 for GPU. (obtiained after 1/2 running) .



At SETTING B, it was nice to not have to hear those fans (running high). The Aquarius II pump and fan (for radiator) together make up for one of the quietest water cooling solutions (though not for hardcore ocing which is not really the objective of my mod).

ANALYSIS and CONCLUSIONS:

I'm don't mean to open up another discussion on the "push cold air in" verses "pull hot air out" topic, but with all 3 Dell fans turned OFF plus 39 processes and 40 services running, my CPU temps are stable at 54 and most of the time a degree or two below the GPU temp. I think the "push cold air in" is working for me, because I've provide sufficient surface area (via other mods within the laptop) to remove the heat from within the laptop before it reaches the fins.

It's a know fact that the CPU in the XPS generally get about 5-10 degrees hotter then the GPU (which also gets hotter due to heat dispersed by the CPU. By watercooling the CPU I've isolated the CPUs heat from the GPU. I forgot to mention that I managed to mod (put holes in the cover to run tubes into and out of) the aluminum cover that originally covers on the cpu heatsink assembly. (So when I remove the keyboard the Waterblock is enclosed by that cover). The original intent of the cover was to create a passage for the air coming from the 3rd fan so that it's directed over the fins (that I replaced with the waterblock) just above the CPU's as it exits from the vent in the back of the XPS. The air passage is still intact, except now the air servers to cool the water coming into the waterblock (as the tube runs through the passage) as well as the waterblock itself.

The point is that when I've got all 3 Dell fans off, there is almost no air felt blowing out from the back (of course). But the questions is where is the air that I'm blowing into the laptop gong? I do, however, feel more cooler air being blow out from the two top vents on the right and left sides of the keyboard (esp, when I remove the little plastic covers that easily slide out). Apparently, the air that's being push into the the laptop (via the external fans) is now entering into the cavity of the laptop and directly cooling the heatsink and any metal that's in direct contact with the CPU and GPU.

I bet that a large part of the heat emitted by the CPU and GPU is now being take up by the cooler air that is going into the laptop even before it reaches the three fins (there is one GPU fin on the left and 2 CPU fins (one on each side)). Note, I've already increased the surface area for air cooing by including a finned custom copper GPU Heatsink (see my previous post for pics).

Here's (what I think is) the key to the cooler GPU temps (on TEST SETTING B) and a reason to explain why my CPU temps is a degree lower then my GPU temp: With dell's fans off (TEST SETTING B), the air that I'm blowing into the laptop plus any air going in from the holes in the battery compartment can more easily find it's way into the laptop (rather then get caught by the Dell fans and exits while cooling the fins only). The Dell fans are counter-productive (at least in my case), as I am more interested in getting cooler air into the laptop then expelling hot air outside. Also, my guess is that running the Dell fans leads to more current and ultimately more heat.


Boy, I must have done something right! :scratch: I'm now able to run an Dell XPS Gen1 3.4 Ghz Laptop with a 16 pipeline modded 9800 ATI will ALL 3 STOCK FANS COMPLETELY OFF. The two fans of the Cooling stand are blowing enough cool air to keep both the water and air inside the laptop cool enought to keep the CPUS Stable at 53 and GPU stable at 55! And both my external fans are running on the slowest (quietest modes). :headbang:

[corey@12mile]

How about the biggest question of all... Will your setup overclock? It's not quite as simple as cranking up the FSB or Multiplier... You have to get it stable... Get a thermo attachment for your multimeter and tape it as far into your stock cooler as you can... then start over clocking, in real small steps.

Make sure you have the latest BIOS on the motherboard. What motherboard do you have anyhow? What CPU do you have... details details... descent RAM? cranking up the CPU isn't as great as cranking up the RAM.

I would crank it up with the stock cooler first and run something like Prime95 to really get the CPU working, and monitor the temperature... I have an old 2500+ Barton that has been running 24/7 as a 3200+ for over 2 years now and it barely hits 40 degrees centigrade in the summer time. I run a Thermaltake cooler on it, my 64bit machines all have big honkin Vantec coolers and everything stays nice and cool without liquid.

cd.