Building first water cooling loop

[EssDee]

Hi all,

 

So im currently in the process of upggrading/building a new PC so ill post the base PC below

 

 

You can see the 5 x 120 mm are for the rads below + 1 exhaust fan - the two 140 are for my prexisting case which is the Corsair 700D

 

 

This is where the question comes from -

 

• How many metres is recommened for the tubing for a first time water cooler aka me?
• How many fittings is needed for an entire loop?
• Are all these parts needed for this loop?
• I want a resevoir bay so I can see the loop and easily access it etc - can anyone recommened one that has a pump with it?
• and just any other general knowledge that could help me

Thank you all for you time

 

P.S - I am from the U.K so that might effect shipping from suggested parts.

[Cyracus]

mobo, rad, rad, res. 8 fittings

Plan a drain port at the lowest point in the loop, makes maintenance easier

That res is designed to have a d5 pump hook up to it. You can buy a d5 separately or a combo res&pump from custom watercooling vendors. (ekwb.com/shop and performance-pcs.com are top listings from a quick google)

3m should be enough to make sure you don't run short
 

[EssDee]

41 minutes ago, Cyracus said:

mobo, rad, rad, res. 8 fittings

Plan a drain port at the lowest point in the loop, makes maintenance easier

That res is designed to have a d5 pump hook up to it. You can buy a d5 separately or a combo res&pump from custom watercooling vendors. (ekwb.com/shop and performance-pcs.com are top listings from a quick google)

3m should be enough to make sure you don't run short
 

So how would i go about planning a drain point, would that just be the lowest part of either the 240 or 360 rad?

do you have any low vibration/noise pumps or tips to reduce the noise your recommended pump creates?

 

Also how can i monitor the temperature of the water in the loop?

[Cyracus]

drain port: some manner of splitter (t/y) a ball valve and fittings to connect. low point of the whole loop.
Speed adjustment, there's pwm control or manual speed control versions.
There's temperature probes for water temp https://modmymods.com/fittings/g1-4-temperature-sensors.html

[EssDee]

Do you need to also flush out the system before filling it up?

 

[EssDee]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

I can't believe they sell a bridging plug that's basically a piece of wire glued to a female 24-pin connector. You can do it with a paperclip.

 

Word of advice though, get some more tubing, if it's your first time you'll probably waste a bit of it cutting or trying to secure the fittings. I've got 3m for my first project and ended up using 2, a cut here a cut there and it went like water, I did the tubes long on purpose though as I did it for a friend that has a large Stryker SE case and all of the AIO tubes are too short if you want a front mounted rad, 1m for each was more than enough and I added 2x more coolant so the CPU ended up heating up at a slower rate.

 

1 hour ago, Cyracus said:

drain port: some manner of splitter (t/y) a ball valve and fittings to connect. low point of the whole loop.
Speed adjustment, there's pwm control or manual speed control versions.
There's temperature probes for water temp https://modmymods.com/fittings/g1-4-temperature-sensors.html

I wonder if any of you would be able to discord and walk me through/ discuss the loop and my worries?

[Cyracus]

Might be worth watching a few of Jayz videos, that man likes his watercooling

 

[Lipe123]

Your res listing does say (incl pump D5), I'd check with them exactly what comes with it just to be safe.

 

2  fittings per component is the easiest way to make sure you have them all.

Something to keep in mind is you only have straight fittings listed, there are 90 and 45 degree ones also that can make things a LOT easier depending on how you do the loop.

Also rotary fittings that when you tighten them to the component they can still rotate after to make your life easier.

 

The easiest way to figure all that out is to do a hand drawn mock up of what you want your loop to be and then from that you can tell if you would end up with bends that are too short and put strain on the connections or collapse the pipe.

Tubing is cheap, get more, if you add a GPU block later or decide to change things you'll have it handy.

 

EK is of course very good quality but can be VERY expensive, 

There are complete kits like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liquid-Cool-Vortex-Advanced-Cooling/dp/B0773PCR1G/ that could save you some money but you might end up with parts you dont need since you are doing that nice monoblock.

 

You don't have any fluid listed, you can buy premixed fancy fluids but make sure you look at reviews, some of them have issues where the dye separates out and clogs micro fins.

Or just get distilled water from a local market and get some additives to stop algae. Personally I mix 1/2 distilled and 1/2 motor vehicle coolant  It comes in all kinds of colours depending on the vehicle brand and doesn't seperate ever.

 

Some other things to keep in mind, when you power the pump with the ATX paperclip or fancy adaptor your Psu will send power to your drives and the 8pin connector to the motherboard. Personally I never do that and just use a external 12v supply with a molex connector that I got ages ago for a drive cloning unit.

The drain port can be a very simple I use one of these on my lowest rad connection 

 

All you need then is some blanks and a male to male adapter to attach it, from that you can do a straight fitting with a little piece of hose you can tuck away with a valve on the end.

 

Another handy thing to have is a cheapo flow indicator just for peace of mind unless your rad shows a stream of water easily. Or you can order a nicer one with LCD display from china or if there are local shops in the UK that's an option too. I have no idea just looked on amazon uk.

 

As with everything 90% planning 10% actual building  good luck and have fun.

[EssDee]

38 minutes ago, Lipe123 said:

Your res listing does say (incl pump D5), I'd check with them exactly what comes with it just to be safe.

 

2  fittings per component is the easiest way to make sure you have them all.

Something to keep in mind is you only have straight fittings listed, there are 90 and 45 degree ones also that can make things a LOT easier depending on how you do the loop.

Also rotary fittings that when you tighten them to the component they can still rotate after to make your life easier.

 

The easiest way to figure all that out is to do a hand drawn mock up of what you want your loop to be and then from that you can tell if you would end up with bends that are too short and put strain on the connections or collapse the pipe.

Tubing is cheap, get more, if you add a GPU block later or decide to change things you'll have it handy.

 

EK is of course very good quality but can be VERY expensive, 

There are complete kits like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liquid-Cool-Vortex-Advanced-Cooling/dp/B0773PCR1G/ that could save you some money but you might end up with parts you dont need since you are doing that nice monoblock.

 

You don't have any fluid listed, you can buy premixed fancy fluids but make sure you look at reviews, some of them have issues where the dye separates out and clogs micro fins.

Or just get distilled water from a local market and get some additives to stop algae. Personally I mix 1/2 distilled and 1/2 motor vehicle coolant  It comes in all kinds of colours depending on the vehicle brand and doesn't seperate ever.

 

Some other things to keep in mind, when you power the pump with the ATX paperclip or fancy adaptor your Psu will send power to your drives and the 8pin connector to the motherboard. Personally I never do that and just use a external 12v supply with a molex connector that I got ages ago for a drive cloning unit.

The drain port can be a very simple I use one of these on my lowest rad connection 

 

All you need then is some blanks and a male to male adapter to attach it, from that you can do a straight fitting with a little piece of hose you can tuck away with a valve on the end.

 

Another handy thing to have is a cheapo flow indicator just for peace of mind unless your rad shows a stream of water easily. Or you can order a nicer one with LCD display from china or if there are local shops in the UK that's an option too. I have no idea just looked on amazon uk.

 

As with everything 90% planning 10% actual building  good luck and have fun.

Is there a possible way to map this out with some form of software so i can check it out and have peace of mind?

[Lipe123]

I haven't seen any that works well, some like corsair will give you options but then only for corsair products.

Best is to watch a bunch of tutorials online.

[Tristerin]

I purchased 3 meters for a run in a large E-ATX case with about 3 foot left over (3 radiators, CPU, GPU in the loop) - I also recommend 3 meters as the length is enough to make a mistake on a run and not worry at all about having enough.

[unholy_walrus]

I would suggest getting some other fans for your rads. The NF-S12A is a fantastic fan, but it doesn't do great on rad use. I wouldn't use it even on low fpi and/or slim rads. The performance really isn't great in my experience. The NF-P12 / NF-P12 redux would be a significant upgrade already, and you can't go wrong with the NF-F12 (though I prefer the NF-P12's sound profile at 500-1000rpm). Then there's the new NF-A12 fans that are supposed to be great, but shockingly expensive. The NF-P12 redux is my new go-to for radiator use at 1000 rpm or less for a reasonable price.

 

If you don't want Noctua, the EK Vardar, Corsair ML120, CoolerMaster Silencio FP120 are all good choices. The FP120 might just be the most underrated radiator fan in existence. If you want to go super cheap, the Arctic P12 is the obvious choice. For 7€ you'll get a fan that pretty much competes with 2-3x more expensive fans.

 

[Lipe123]

Further to what walrus said...

You want to look for fans with large curved blades, usually they will have something about static pressure in the description.

 

Regular high airflow fans are designed with no restrictions in mind, for radiators you have a pretty fine mesh right after the fan.

Static pressure fans are designed slightly differently to force air through.

[Ravendarat]

Ok maybe I missed something but I see nothing that tells me you are liquid cooling your GPU. If you arent and are just using this to cool the CPU and mobo there is no practical/performance reason to have 600mm of rads in this system. If you are doing it for cosmetics than fine, or if you plan on eventually doing the GPU than thats ok too but if this is simply gonna be processor and mobo than you really are overspending on this loop. 

[Mafsond]

11 fittings imo. Your 4way splitter cube needs 2 minimum. 3 if you want tube after valve.