Please give me a reason that this is a bad idea

[blcharles37]

big box is the case

top and right box are radiators

box to the right of center in the pump/reservoir combo

box down of center is gpu/waterblock

box left of center is cpu/waterblock

[DoctorNick]

Something like this would be the best way to go:

[LAwLz]

I don't see why that would be a bad idea. Seems like a pretty standard setup. 

It might be a better idea to connect the CPU through the GPU or vice versa thought, rather than going through the rad first. Makes it easier to connect everything. 

[LapsedMemory]

26 minutes ago, blcharles37 said:

big box is the case

top and right box are radiators

box to the right of center in the pump/reservoir combo

box down of center is gpu/waterblock

box left of center is cpu/waterblock

You are putting hot water into your reservoir.  That's generally frowned upon.  

 

The output of your CPU should go into the right hand  radiator, then the radiator can feed back to the reservoir.  Or go with doctor Nick's example.

[heimdali]

Water cooling for computers is generally a bad idea to begin with ...  It's kinda expensive, bad when leaking, needs too much maintenance, is not sufficiently reliable and can be difficult to troubleshoot.

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the radiators separated, one for the CPU and the other for the GPU?  Why should they heat each other.

[heimdali]

please ignore, I pressed the wrong button

[TetraSky]

57 minutes ago, blcharles37 said:

big box is the case

top and right box are radiators

box to the right of center in the pump/reservoir combo

box down of center is gpu/waterblock

box left of center is cpu/waterblock

As long as the "cool" water from the rad goes to the reservoir and you're not filling the res with hot water from the CPU, that should be fine.

 ←

↓  ↑
 →

But that would imply your loop going counter clockwise and I hate it. lol
You planning to cool a 13900k + 4090 system or something?

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, heimdali said:

Water cooling for computers is generally a bad idea to begin with

Eh that depends on what you need to cool, main issue being price but if your brain is half functioning you should atleast be able to tell that big brands like ek are overpriced and cheaper quality options exist

 

Theres also maintenence but that seems rather simple if its just changing coolant once in awhile

 

I went the old school route and ghetto looped with car and aquarium parts because very cheap and tons of performance due to the sheer size of car rads (though mine is a smaller evap rad). Though this is a rarely chosen route due to some headaches like completely diying everything since its not just plugging tubes together and also needing a 10-20% antifreeze mix to prevent galvanic corrosion cause car rads are aluminium But damn the price and performance is insane

 

1 hour ago, heimdali said:

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the radiators separated, one for the CPU and the other for the GPU?  Why should they heat each other.

Well you can have 2 rads in a loop so you can do a rad -> cpu but then back into another rad then -> gpu so you still get decent temps with only 1 loop. Oh and you also need a seperate res and pump for the secondary loop

 

Watercooling is best on highend stuff that needs the extra cooling and not lowend stuff thatll do fine with a stock cooler or a decent aircooler so 13900k or 4090

[heimdali]

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Eh that depends on what you need to cool

Well, what exactly does require water cooling with a computer you have at home?

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Theres also maintenence but that seems rather simple if its just changing coolant once in awhile

And you need to check if the coolant has evoparated, if the pump(s) is/are still working, if something has become clogged or started to leak ...

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

I went the old school route and ghetto looped with car and aquarium parts because very cheap and tons of performance due to the sheer size of car rads (though mine is a smaller evap rad). Though this is a rarely chosen route due to some headaches like completely diying everything since its not just plugging tubes together and also needing a 10-20% antifreeze mix to prevent galvanic corrosion cause car rads are aluminium But damn the price and performance is insane

Oh I have done that long before water cooling for computers was a thing.  It was anything but cheap because aquarium pumps and the fittings are expensive.  I used a radiator from the cabin heating of a car since they come in reasonable sizes, and I had to have the block for the CPU made from a block of aluminium because there wasn't anything availble ready made and I don't have tools with which I could drill through a big block of aluminium.  That way, I didn't need antifreeze

 

It was a fun thing and a good learning experience which taught me it fundamentally sucks and that I don't want to do it again.  Just using air cooling with fans is a no-brainer, especially since it's easy to get good, quiet fans nowadays.

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Well you can have 2 rads in a loop so you can do a rad -> cpu but then back into another rad then -> gpu so you still get decent temps with only 1 loop. Oh and you also need a seperate res and pump for the secondary loop

If you frown upon running the coolant into the reservoir before going through the radiator(s), you do have to have a separate loop for each component you want to cool.  Why would you want the components heat each other.

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

 

Watercooling is best on highend stuff that needs the extra cooling and not lowend stuff thatll do fine with a stock cooler or a decent aircooler so 13900k or 4090

Even servers are usually not water cooled.  High end and water cooling is contradictory because high end involves realiablilty.  Sure, it's not impossible, but you'd have to go to ridiculous lengths.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

9 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Well, what exactly does require water cooling with a computer you have at home?

Mostly because i wanna screw around with high oc and terrible die -> ihs heat transfer on my wolfdale cpus prevents me from just slapping an h212 ontop and expecting decent cooling performance (h212 barely gets warm but cpu just burns). I just wanna attempt hitting actually high freq without running into heat problems, best i can do full stable on both my e8400 and e3110 is 4.4g 1.4v and bench stable 4.7g 1.55v, very slow

 

10 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Oh I have done that long before water cooling for computers was a thing.  It was anything but cheap because aquarium pumps and the fittings are expensive.  I used a radiator from the cabin heating of a car since they come in reasonable sizes, and I had to have the block for the CPU made from a block of aluminium because there wasn't anything availble ready made and I don't have tools with which I could drill through a big block of aluminium.  That way, I didn't need antifreeze

 

It was a fun thing and a good learning experience which taught me it fundamentally sucks and that I don't want to do it again.  Just using air cooling with fans is a no-brainer, especially since it's easy to get good, quiet fans nowadays.

What year? Nowadays watercooling is readily available and easy to assemble atleast vs a ghetto loop

 

Mines cheap since i have access to dirt cheap china aquarium pumps (half decent 107 model that has hmax ~5m iirc) and i bought an evap rad usually meant for aircon systems at only 3$, the block im going for a direct water over die so its job is only to hold the water in, im problably just gonna punch 2 holes in a bottlecap and shorten it abit for that purpose. And everyting else im just rigging together either melting plastic or using superglue

 

15 minutes ago, heimdali said:

If you frown upon running the coolant into the reservoir before going through the radiator(s), you do have to have a separate loop for each component you want to cool.  Why would you want the components heat each other.

I didnt know the damn res needs to be cool but seems quite simple, instead of res -> rad -> cpu -> rad -> gpu and back to res just change it to res -> cpu -> rad -> gpu -> rad and back to res. Same thing it seems

 

But why run the coolant through a rad before entering the res?

 

Also the rads are placed inbetween cpu and gpu so dont seem like theyre heating eachother when the hot water goes straight into a rad before going to cpu/gpu

 

18 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Even servers are usually not water cooled.  High end and water cooling is contradictory because high end involves realiablilty.  Sure, it's not impossible, but you'd have to go to ridiculous lengths.

Reliability is standard across all ends not just highend. Though ive mainly seen ppl with highend rigs do watercool just for rather useless aesthetics so yea i get why youd frown upon watercooling, honestly me too if its just for aesthetics, i mean you are wasting your money for an aesthetic that needs maintenence? I thought overpriced rgb fans were bad

[LapsedMemory]

3 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

But why run the coolant through a rad before entering the res?

 

This is the only point I would disagree with you on.  Water pumps rely on the fluid for lubrication and some cooling.  It's why you should never run them dry.  Running coolant thru the rad before the res keeps the res at a lower temperature, which is better for your pump and prevents you from having an additional large volume heat source right in the middle of your case.  Dumping the heat as soon as possible is better than holding it in storage.  Even if it doesn't drop component temps any significant amount, it's an easy configuration change.  At worst, you don't actually decrease your PC component temps, but the pump stays cooler, and at best you get a few more degrees of cooling.  

 

A single loop Res -> GPU -> Rad -> CPU -> Rad -> Res is a simple, safe configuration.  

[Somerandomtechyboi]

12 minutes ago, LapsedMemory said:

This is the only point I would disagree with you on.  Water pumps rely on the fluid for lubrication and some cooling.  It's why you should never run them dry.  Running coolant thru the rad before the res keeps the res at a lower temperature, which is better for your pump and prevents you from having an additional large volume heat source right in the middle of your case.  Dumping the heat as soon as possible is better than holding it in storage.  Even if it doesn't drop component temps any significant amount, it's an easy configuration change.  At worst, you don't actually decrease your PC component temps, but the pump stays cooler, and at best you get a few more degrees of cooling.  

 

A single loop Res -> GPU -> Rad -> CPU -> Rad -> Res is a simple, safe configuration.  

And i was gonna run that damn ghetto loop with the rad after the res, good to know since im running a ghetto version of a pump res (some tupperware with the pump submerged, yea im gonna need something larger so it dont run dry as easily)

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

29 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Mostly because i wanna screw around with high oc and terrible die -> ihs heat transfer on my wolfdale cpus prevents me from just slapping an h212 ontop and expecting decent cooling performance (h212 barely gets warm but cpu just burns). I just wanna attempt hitting actually high freq without running into heat problems, best i can do full stable on both my e8400 and e3110 is 4.4g 1.4v and bench stable 4.7g 1.55v, very slow

 

What year? Nowadays watercooling is readily available and easy to assemble atleast vs a ghetto loop

 

Mines cheap since i have access to dirt cheap china aquarium pumps (half decent 107 model that has hmax ~5m iirc) and i bought an evap rad usually meant for aircon systems at only 3$, the block im going for a direct water over die so its job is only to hold the water in, im problably just gonna punch 2 holes in a bottlecap and shorten it abit for that purpose. And everyting else im just rigging together either melting plastic or using superglue

 

I didnt know the damn res needs to be cool but seems quite simple, instead of res -> rad -> cpu -> rad -> gpu and back to res just change it to res -> cpu -> rad -> gpu -> rad and back to res. Same thing it seems

 

But why run the coolant through a rad before entering the res?

 

Also the rads are placed inbetween cpu and gpu so dont seem like theyre heating eachother when the hot water goes straight into a rad before going to cpu/gpu

 

Reliability is standard across all ends not just highend. Though ive mainly seen ppl with highend rigs do watercool just for rather useless aesthetics so yea i get why youd frown upon watercooling, honestly me too if its just for aesthetics, i mean you are wasting your money for an aesthetic that needs maintenence? I thought overpriced rgb fans were bad

For some people, building PCs is an art my friend. Not everyone's PC is a fugly RGB puke mess lol 

[heimdali]

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Mostly because i wanna screw around with high oc and terrible die -> ihs heat transfer on my wolfdale cpus prevents me from just slapping an h212 ontop and expecting decent cooling performance (h212 barely gets warm but cpu just burns). I just wanna attempt hitting actually high freq without running into heat problems, best i can do full stable on both my e8400 and e3110 is 4.4g 1.4v and bench stable 4.7g 1.55v, very slow

Ok, that isn't required   Water cooling can remove heat much better than air cooling, of course ...  But then, when you have a cooler with heat pipes, that isn't strictly air cooling.

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

 

What year? Nowadays watercooling is readily available and easy to assemble atleast vs a ghetto loop

At least 20 years ago ...  There was one manufacturer, called aqua-something ... maybe https://www.aquatuning.de ... I'd have to search through old emails because I remember I ordered some additive to put into the water so it wasn't supposed to go bad, and I probably still have some email about it.  They did have CPU blocks and even coolers for graphics cards and fittings --- but not for the CPU I wanted to cool, and I didn't want to cool the graphics card.  It was the only manufacturer back then, and nobody did it because it was rather expensive ...  I cooled my server because it was a little louder than I was willing to bear.  I wouldn't have needed a radiator because the hoses were long enough to get rid of the heat   The 'reservoir' was an end of a hose with a large diameter ...  Aquarium pumps can have large outlets ...  But it worked until I retired the machine.

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

 

Mines cheap since i have access to dirt cheap china aquarium pumps (half decent 107 model that has hmax ~5m iirc) and i bought an evap rad usually meant for aircon systems at only 3$, the block im going for a direct water over die so its job is only to hold the water in, im problably just gonna punch 2 holes in a bottlecap and shorten it abit for that purpose. And everyting else im just rigging together either melting plastic or using superglue

That seems cheap

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

 

I didnt know the damn res needs to be cool but seems quite simple, instead of res -> rad -> cpu -> rad -> gpu and back to res just change it to res -> cpu -> rad -> gpu -> rad and back to res. Same thing it seems

 

But why run the coolant through a rad before entering the res?

I guess the idea is that when you keep hot water in a reservoir inside the case, it can heat up the case, and that doesn't make sense to do.

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Also the rads are placed inbetween cpu and gpu so dont seem like theyre heating eachother when the hot water goes straight into a rad before going to cpu/gpu

If it's a single loop, they will inevitably heat each other.  You know I always find it really funny when someone wants to test/benchmark a computer and lets heat up the water cooling for a little while.  The couple minutes or hours they are doing it are nothing.  I need to see a computer working under its designated load 24/7 for at least a month at ambient temperatures of about 30--38C before I assume that the cooling is ok.  Three months and I'm going to assume that the hard drives will fail not early but either shortly after the warranty is expired or even not before they're replaced.  I've never seen a video where they actually tested what they built, so what they're testing is funny at best.

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

 

Reliability is standard across all ends not just highend.

Oh I have that seen otherwise, and I doubt that the hardware has improved that much over the years.  Professional hardware has become really good, though, not only servers.  But the arbitrary gaming or gaming-like computer someone puts together from some parts probably isn't.  If you tell ppl to use raid the answers you get already show that nobody even cares about reliability.

 

How long does a water pump last?  I have servers well over 10 years old that still run flawlessly --- not efficiently because they need way too much electricity --- but they do run great.  If they were water cooled --- and these servers have redundant fans --- how much effort and cost would that take, and would they still run at all?  Hoses get brittle over time, especially when subjected to heat ... way to flood the datacenter, yay

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Though ive mainly seen ppl with highend rigs do watercool just for rather useless aesthetics so yea i get why youd frown upon watercooling, honestly me too if its just for aesthetics, i mean you are wasting your money for an aesthetic that needs maintenence? I thought overpriced rgb fans were bad

Nah, I don't really frown upon watercooling.  If someone has fun with it or finds it esthetically pleasing or wants to experiment with overclocking or has some other purpose it is needed for, by all means, go ahead and do it.  Water is readily available, not poisonous or anyhing, and it's really good at transporting heat.  But when someone asks if it's a good idea to do it, I can only say it's not a good idea for enough reasons not to do it unless there's some special requirement.  And I'm sure glad that I don't need to do it.

 

[heimdali]

3 hours ago, ShawtyT30beTHICCC said:

For some people, building PCs is an art my friend. Not everyone's PC is a fugly RGB puke mess lol 

Yeah look at HP and Dell servers and some HP and Dell workstations ...   If I can find one for a good price, perhaps I'll go for a Precision 7910 ...

[thrasher_565]

19 hours ago, heimdali said:

Water cooling for computers is generally a bad idea to begin with ...  It's kinda expensive, bad when leaking, needs too much maintenance, is not sufficiently reliable and can be difficult to troubleshoot.

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the radiators separated, one for the CPU and the other for the GPU?  Why should they heat each other.

pretty bold statements there...

my dads wc build didn't see any maintenance for years... no leeks. and only costed like $200... and ya with a d5...

back then you got like 50% oc...

[ManemeJeff]

On 10/26/2022 at 12:42 PM, heimdali said:

Water cooling for computers is generally a bad idea to begin with ...  It's kinda expensive, bad when leaking, needs too much maintenance, is not sufficiently reliable and can be difficult to troubleshoot.

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the radiators separated, one for the CPU and the other for the GPU?  Why should they heat each other.

WC has its place.

My ATX case allows max. 155mm take some more mm for clearance away and you caj see why an AIO is the goto.

 

I hate people recommending the D15.

 

Just because Noctua D15 is the best statistically, doesn't mean that everyone can mount them practically.

 

Even if it would fit, I wouldn't trust that thing even with 2 brackets....

[LapsedMemory]

21 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

WC has its place.

My ATX case allows max. 155mm take some more mm for clearance away and you caj see why an AIO is the goto.

 

I hate people recommending the D15.

 

Just because Noctua D15 is the best statistically, doesn't mean that everyone can mount them practically.

 

Even if it would fit, I wouldn't trust that thing even with 2 brackets....

The D15 is the best, but Noctua has smaller units that are nearly equally as great, and a compatibility database that's top-notch.  I'm personally running an NH-U9S, which was the maximum size I could get for my particular case.  

[heimdali]

5 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

pretty bold statements there...

my dads wc build didn't see any maintenance for years... no leeks. and only costed like $200... and ya with a d5...

back then you got like 50% oc...

So he got lucky, and he has no way to see if the cooling is still ok unless he'd take the pump and everything apart.  And $200 just for cooling?  That seems really steep.  As to overclocking, I have yet to see it working reliably.  I tried and it never worked, so I don't do that anymore.

[heimdali]

58 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

WC has its place.

My ATX case allows max. 155mm take some more mm for clearance away and you caj see why an AIO is the goto.

 

I don't understand why anyone still uses these awful desktop or tower cases.  They are a nightmare to work with.  Either they block your desk, or you have to crawl around on the floor to work on them and have to do it in the dark because they don't let the light in, and even when you have a flashlight it sucks.  19" cases is the way to go, you work from the top with the light right above it and just slide it back into the rack when you're done.  With a 5U case, you have plenty room to work with and don't need water cooling.

 

How do you clean a radiator when all the dust is in it when you don't have an air compressor?  A fan is easy enough to clean and you can always see if it still spins or not.  With an AIO, you never know if the pump still works, if it leaks or is plugged.

[ManemeJeff]

4 minutes ago, heimdali said:

I don't understand why anyone still uses these awful desktop or tower cases.  They are a nightmare to work with.  Either they block your desk, or you have to crawl around on the floor to work on them and have to do it in the dark because they don't let the light in, and even when you have a flashlight it sucks.  19" cases is the way to go, you work from the top with the light right above it and just slide it back into the rack when you're done.  With a 5U case, you have plenty room to work with and don't need water cooling.

 

How do you clean a radiator when all the dust is in it when you don't have an air compressor?  A fan is easy enough to clean.

First of all it was my first build, I didn't even knew how to mount a CPU Cooler properly.

Second of all ATX cases are 100% not an issue, literally everyone has an atx case because it's standardised across the board (pun intended) and cheap.

 

I don't see how flashlight orientation makes a difference. Besides, who the heck works on their PC vertically.

You flip it on the ground like anybody else.

 

How do you clean a fan heatsink when all the dust is in it when you don't have an air compressor?

What an utterly stupid remark.

[heimdali]

3 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

First of all it was my first build, I didn't even knew how to mount a CPU Cooler properly.

No worries, you have to start somewhere to figure it out.

3 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

Second of all ATX cases are 100% not an issue, literally everyone has an atx case because it's standardised across the board (pun intended) and cheap.

That many ppl use these cases doesn't mean that they don't suck.  I did, too, and I've moved on.  I only wish I got the rack 20 years earlier than I did.

3 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

I don't see how flashlight orientation makes a difference. Besides, who the heck works on their PC vertically.

You flip it on the ground like anybody else.

You still have to crawl around on the floor when you flip it, and you can only do that when you have enough room.  When you use a flashlight, you need 3rd hand.

3 minutes ago, ManemeJeff said:

How do you clean a fan heatsink when all the dust is in it when you don't have an air compressor?

What an utterly stupid remark.

Please explain what's stupid about it.  Doesn't the radiator have many tiny fins between which dust gets stuck over time and which are easy to damage?  How do you clean that out without compressed air?

[ManemeJeff]

9 minutes ago, heimdali said:

You still have to crawl around on the floor when you flip it, and you can only do that when you have enough room.  When you use a flashlight, you need 3rd hand.

That's not true. I have flipped my machine onto the ground many times before, it doesn't require much space at all (unless you're living in one of those tiny Tokyo appartments but even there you could probably put it on your hips).

You don't need a third hand for the flashligh, you just turn on your ceiling lamp or just put a lamp down onto the ground (I personally never had issues with just the ceiling lamp).

Same "issue" with the 19" case you mentioned, so again, this isn't a point.

9 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Please explain what's stupid about it.  Doesn't the radiator have many tiny fins between which dust gets stuck over time and which are easy to damage?  How do you clean that out without compressed air?

Maybe I phrased it too direct / harsh or should've said "nothing personal".

The reason why it's stupid meaningless is because you need an air compressor regardless whether you clean a radiator or air cooler.

 

Unless you literally placed the fan directly onto the chip without a heatsink, I don't see how cleaning a cpu heatsink vs radiator makes any difference whatsoever. Both are a pain to deal with. An air compressor is a must-have regardless. Don't use paper towels, toothpicks, q-tips etc. it's an unefficient waste of time compared to a good old air compressor.

[thrasher_565]

2 hours ago, heimdali said:

So he got lucky, and he has no way to see if the cooling is still ok unless he'd take the pump and everything apart.  And $200 just for cooling?  That seems really steep.  As to overclocking, I have yet to see it working reliably.  I tried and it never worked, so I don't do that anymore.

after he told me he hadn't touched it for 2 years one day i whent to his house and looked and the flow was still ridiculous so... and he didn't care he could just replace it anyway.  i mean the best tower cooler was $100+ so...

 

but sounds like you had a bad experiences when wc so you hate it. and now your saying free  performance is bs...

 

way back then besides the diy water cooling aquacomputer was the only one selling parts to do it then later on in the west we had thermltake.  the uk seemed to have done it as i remember seeing cases with a bunch of tubing and distro blocks and they loved having the mb fliped up side down... then something happen and i didn't see it any more... economy when to shit or something...

 

we didn't get in to wc in till the x58 when you whent from 2.66 to 4.0 4.2 if lucky was a huge jump...

 

 

[heimdali]

12 hours ago, ManemeJeff said:

That's not true. I have flipped my machine onto the ground many times before, it doesn't require much space at all (unless you're living in one of those tiny Tokyo appartments but even there you could probably put it on your hips).

Then you're lucky that you're have the space to do it and that you have very light cases or are pretty strong.

12 hours ago, ManemeJeff said:

You don't need a third hand for the flashligh, you just turn on your ceiling lamp or just put a lamp down onto the ground (I personally never had issues with just the ceiling lamp).

That only works when you have been able to lay the case flat.  In some cases, you even need to turn the case over because you have to get at something from the other side.  All that hassle totally sucks.  With a 19" case there is no hassle except slipping it into the rack once.  You have lots of room to work with and no need to lay them flat or turn them around.

12 hours ago, ManemeJeff said:

Same "issue" with the 19" case you mentioned, so again, this isn't a point.

Maybe I phrased it too direct / harsh or should've said "nothing personal".

The reason why it's stupid meaningless is because you need an air compressor regardless whether you clean a radiator or air cooler.

 

Unless you literally placed the fan directly onto the chip without a heatsink, I don't see how cleaning a cpu heatsink vs radiator makes any difference whatsoever. Both are a pain to deal with. An air compressor is a must-have regardless. Don't use paper towels, toothpicks, q-tips etc. it's an unefficient waste of time compared to a good old air compressor.

Having compressed air is nice to have.  So far, I don't have one and have been able to clean CPU heatsinks well enough without one.  I haven't tried to clean radiators yet, it only seems they can't be cleaned as easily.