Where to place my drain valve

Ron30 · September 30, 2020

Hey all.

Here's my current loop. When the RTX 3080's are available, I'll be vertically mounting it, adding the GPU to the loop, and adding another 360mm Rad in the front. I found this build, which matches the layout of what my loop will look like (more or less).

So I've got 3 questions with this.
1. As I'll be moving my intake to the top of the Res, I'm wondering if I can move my drain port to the bottom intake port on the pump (the one currently leading to my top mounted Rad). For a better look at the layout of my Pump/Res combo, see here. Apart from flow direction, the intake port is also slightly higher than my out-port.

2. The build that I was looking to mimic doesn't have the drain port as the lowest point in their loop. Their front Rad would be the lowest point, and their GPU would be the second lowest. Their drain port is higher but also in between both of the lower points of the loop. I realise that a higher drain port can technically be used, but will require rotating the PC when draining, to move it to the lowest point, but I don't understand how that would be possible in their configuration. I'm guessing they would lay it flat on it's open side, overhanging their table/bench so that the drain port is exposed, with a bucket or something, on the ground beside the table? Can anyone explain how a drain port in that location would work and whether it's worth replicating that layout?

3. Based on a few different builds I've seen on YouTube, I've also noticed some people have the drain elsewhere in their loop. What they did, however, was run a length of soft tubing from the drain that is long enough to hang lower than any other part of the loop. I would've assumed the drain valve itself needed to be at the lowest point, but does excess tubing work?
Example can be seen here. The lowest part of the loop would be the front radiator, which goes down into the psu/hdd shroud, but the drain valve is further up, attached to the pump/res combo, and extended by soft tubing. Using this method, I was considering having the ports of my front rad at the top of the case, using a Y adaptor on the back port (further from the window side), running a soft tube down into the psu/hdd shroud, and attaching the drain valve to the end of that, allowing it to hang freely but hidden by the shroud. Or I could even keep the drain port where it is now, and just attach a length of soft tubing when I need to drain it. Would this work?

Stargaze obama · October 5, 2020

On 9/30/2020 at 12:16 PM, Ron30 said:

Hey all.

He were's my current loop. When the RTX 3080's are available, I'll be vertically mounting it, adding the GPU to the loop, and adding another 360mm Rad in the front. I found this build, which matches the layout of what my loop will look like (more or less).

So I've got 3 questions with this.
1. As I'll be moving my intake to the top of the Res, I'm wondering if I can move my drain port to the bottom intake port on the pump (the one currently leading to my top mounted Rad). For a better look at the layout of my Pump/Res combo, see here. Apart from flow direction, the intake port is also slightly higher than my out-port.

2. The build that I was looking to mimic doesn't have the drain port as the lowest point in their loop. Their front Rad would be the lowest point, and their GPU would be the second lowest. Their drain port is higher but also in between both of the lower points of the loop. I realise that a higher drain port can technically be used, but will require rotating the PC when draining, to move it to the lowest point, but I don't understand how that would be possible in their configuration. I'm guessing they would lay it flat on it's open side, overhanging their table/bench so that the drain port is exposed, with a bucket or something, on the ground beside the table? Can anyone explain how a drain port in that location would work and whether it's worth replicating that layout?

3. Based on a few different builds I've seen on YouTube, I've also noticed some people have the drain elsewhere in their loop. What they did, however, was run a length of soft tubing from the drain that is long enough to hang lower than any other part of the loop. I would've assumed the drain valve itself needed to be at the lowest point, but does excess tubing work?
Example can be seen here. The lowest part of the loop would be the front radiator, which goes down into the psu/hdd shroud, but the drain valve is further up, attached to the pump/res combo, and extended by soft tubing. Using this method, I was considering having the ports of my front rad at the top of the case, using a Y adaptor on the back port (further from the window side), running a soft tube down into the psu/hdd shroud, and attaching the drain valve to the end of that, allowing it to hang freely but hidden by the shroud. Or I could even keep the drain port where it is now, and just attach a length of soft tubing when I need to drain it. Would this work?

You want your valve to be easily accessible, my old loop had about 30cm of tube and a valve on the end so I could have a good length to drain with, where your drain valve is now is perfectly fine and it should be okay to move the valve to your bottom intake, but I would always go for the lowest point, my current loop actually has a length of tubing completely hidden that goes from my rad to my cpu, however it goes around the back of the motherboard, in-between I have a valve towards the lower point of the loop, it's a custom case I built myself, but as long as it's at a low point in the loop where most of the fluid will drain you will be fine

Ron30 · October 10, 2020

Thanks. I intend to mount the pump/res on the front rad, not to the hdd shroud, so the shroud will be removable without needing to worry about affecting the rest of the system. The soft tubing will run into the shroud and the valve will be connnected to the end of that, sort of just sitting in there, untethered, free hanging from the length of tube. Should be fairly accessible, when I need it to be. I can't leave it where it is now, because it won't be the lowest point and it'd be near impossible to position the case in a position where it would be the lowest point.
I only drain once a year, twice if I have to.