Custom water-loop questions

[asim1999]

Seeing that my uncle has now converted to PC (see previous thread that i made on PC gaming) he is considering  to build a watercooled PC. The only thing is, i have no experience with watercooling.

I have a few questions:

1) how hard is it to assemble a custom water loop and how long will it take?

2) is it possible to cool the CPU and GPU(s) using 2 separate radiators and connect them to one resevori and pump?

3) How long should the leak tests be performed?

4) how easy is it to upgrade CPU when it is watercooled? do you just have to remove the block and reseat the CPU without dismantling the loop?

5) What about GPUs, how much harder is it to upgrade GPUs which have waterblocks on them and will u have to dismantle the whole loop?

5) How hard is it to dismantle a custom water loop?

 

Thanks, even if my uncle changes his mind about watercooling, it would be good to know as i would like to watercool in the future. 

Thanks

[Luc401]

Id suggest watching the ultimate water cooling pc guide on the NCIX channel 

[C0LL0SS0S]

Don't buy him a custom loop, its for enthusiats! Just normal Air cooling and maybe a AiO CPU cooler. Really don't suggest a Custom Loop just he has the money for it. 

[Mao_Zedong]

1) It will take a decent amount of time if you do it right and are careful. I'd say 1-2 hours for flexible tubing and a lot longer than that for acrylic tubing.

2) Not unless you have two separate loops. It is best to just use one loop. If you just meant two radiators in one loop, then that is easy.

3) Put paper towels around the fittings and check every 5-10 min until you are sure it is safe (I would go around 30 min.). I would also check every few hours after that. Finally, you should take out the paper towels then.

4) Yes, it is basically the same as with any other cooler.

5) You need to drain the loop beforehand, and after that it won't be very risky (as long as you turn it off).

 

@C0LL0SS0S why not? It would look amazing, so if he wants it, why not go for it?

[Ashley]

Tell him he can get an AIO to watercool much more easily.

If he is willing to put much TLC in to his PC then custom watercooling is an option too.

[C0LL0SS0S]

...

 

@C0LL0SS0S why not? It would look amazing, so if he wants it, why not go for it?

He said his uncle wants to discover the PC better, and has 10k $ of a budget, I just think it is not right to use other peoples money just because you want to build, because lets be hones his uncle won't care about if it is a Custom Loop or not he will just play games. Atleast I think so

[ForsakenLive]

It's not hard, as long as you are well informed before doing it, and do things in the most convenient order, it's like building a PC. However it's more time consuming, pick a day and dedicate it to the building process, then do some testing on both long and short time periods as well as though the night (with the system off, then on.). It's more like a weekend project.

 

It's possible, but it's not only harder to do, but has no benefits at all. I don't recommend it.

 

You do a couple of tests, one to see if there any leaks (usually takes a couple mins), one just to drain the big air bubbles (you will have to tilt the case a bit and run the pump at max), and finally a couple hours long test where you make sure it's not going to be leaking at all, and also taking out the rest of the air. Finally, you do all the PC testing, just like you do when you OC.

 

Depending on how your config is, if you have something like Linus' PC which has extra tubbing length, it can be easy and quick; if you have a more fancy setup or use hard tubbing, it's a pain, you basically need to drain the whole thing and dissasemble part of the loop, then built again . You can build to upgrade or to have the sleekest looking rig.

 

With GPUs you pretty much have to do what I said you do with short/hard tubbing.

 

If you build it properly not much work really. With a proper drain/fill setup, radiator positions and simple component mounting it's fairly easy to do.