Custom Water Cooling Loop. Need advice!

[TheNaitsyrk]

Hiho,

I always wanted to get custom Water cooling loop, but I'm a bit scared to do it myself. I'm thinking of cooling my CPU and motherboard (GA-Z87x OC FORCE with built in water loop) with a custom Water loop (GPUS will be water cooled out of factory). Is there a service that would do this for me? Also, is InWin GRone case good enough for it? Thanks in advance.

 

Also, how much it would cost?

[atomicus]

I am not aware of any companies that take an existing system and watercool it... for good reason probably. Plenty of places build custom watercooled systems from scratch, but that's probably no good to you. Best bet may be to find someone local who you can either work with or pay to do outright... obviously you'll want to make sure they know what they're doing though! Personally however, I would never want to hand my system over to someone else unless I had 100% complete trust in them. Doing this yourself isn't as hard as you may think, providing you have some PC building experience. You just have to do your research and there are countless resources online, YouTube, forums etc, that you can draw on for tutorials and advice. As for cost, how long is a piece of string lol? You could easily spend a small fortune if you wanted! There will be a bottom limit, but a custom loop is never cheap. Do you have a rough budget in mind?

[KE2012]

Custom Loops are not install and forget like AIO's, you will need to maintain it regularly, be that to change coolants, upgrade, or even clean out the blocks, so if you're not willing to get your hands stuck in and get to it for building your loop then custom watercooling probably aint for you.

 

HOWEVER if don't want to listen to me and why you shouldn't do it, some small custom PC business around your area MIGHT do it for you if you went in and asked. 

 

 

 

 

[brighttail]

There may be some local computer shops like NCIX here in Canada that will order all the stuff you want and will custom install it for you for a huge fee (like $300 when I inquired). 

 

I was in a similar situation like you when I started.  I researched and researched, did everything I thought was right, got the components and even then my radiator wouldn't fit properly in the case.  Had to use a dremmel tool but it fits now.   Bottom line do your research.  Figure out the case you want then figure out the components you want in it.  Look on the internet for people who have the same case and who have watercooled to see the size and types of their components.   Soft tubing is easier to work with than hard tubing and is more forgiving.  Watch all the videos you can on how to do a loop.

 

In the end, part of the reason a person watercools is the sound / temps, but the other part is the fact that you did it yourself.  If you have someone else do it for you and something goes wrong, you may not know what you need to do (aside from shutting down your computer) and there can be a lot of down time fixing a problem.  I had my fair share of Oopses, like leaving a plug off while I filled it to allow it to fill more easily but forgetting to put it back on when I turned on the computer.  Another time i forgot an oring on a fitting and had a slow leak.  if I didn't know how to drain it and change out the fitting, I could have easily paid someone lots of money to do something that took me 10 minutes to do myself.  Not only are you out the money to fix it but the time and effort to transport your entire computer to them.

[atomicus]

I definitely echo the above, and ultimately every job you pay for someone else to do you are not only out of pocket on cash, but out of pocket on the valuable knowledge you'd have gained doing it yourself. It undoubtedly takes a lot of effort, more so in the research stage than anything else, but at the end of the day you'll have learned a tremendous amount and have a great sense of pride in the finished product. Not only that, but as mentioned, should anything go wrong you will know how to get it sorted without spending even more money. It's a win win in the long run.

[TheNaitsyrk]

18 hours ago, brighttail said:

There may be some local computer shops like NCIX here in Canada that will order all the stuff you want and will custom install it for you for a huge fee (like $300 when I inquired). 

 

I was in a similar situation like you when I started.  I researched and researched, did everything I thought was right, got the components and even then my radiator wouldn't fit properly in the case.  Had to use a dremmel tool but it fits now.   Bottom line do your research.  Figure out the case you want then figure out the components you want in it.  Look on the internet for people who have the same case and who have watercooled to see the size and types of their components.   Soft tubing is easier to work with than hard tubing and is more forgiving.  Watch all the videos you can on how to do a loop.

 

In the end, part of the reason a person watercools is the sound / temps, but the other part is the fact that you did it yourself.  If you have someone else do it for you and something goes wrong, you may not know what you need to do (aside from shutting down your computer) and there can be a lot of down time fixing a problem.  I had my fair share of Oopses, like leaving a plug off while I filled it to allow it to fill more easily but forgetting to put it back on when I turned on the computer.  Another time i forgot an oring on a fitting and had a slow leak.  if I didn't know how to drain it and change out the fitting, I could have easily paid someone lots of money to do something that took me 10 minutes to do myself.  Not only are you out the money to fix it but the time and effort to transport your entire computer to them.

Yea everything you said is true. I'm planning to either leave my H115i on the CPU and just add fans on the top so it's like a sandwich. Then I'd get hybrid cooled cards or just water cooled ones. The only thing that I'd have to leave is my motherboard. It saddens me a little bit since it has a water cooling tubing and fans preinstalled.

 

18 hours ago, atomicus said:

I am not aware of any companies that take an existing system and watercool it... for good reason probably. Plenty of places build custom watercooled systems from scratch, but that's probably no good to you. Best bet may be to find someone local who you can either work with or pay to do outright... obviously you'll want to make sure they know what they're doing though! Personally however, I would never want to hand my system over to someone else unless I had 100% complete trust in them. Doing this yourself isn't as hard as you may think, providing you have some PC building experience. You just have to do your research and there are countless resources online, YouTube, forums etc, that you can draw on for tutorials and advice. As for cost, how long is a piece of string lol? You could easily spend a small fortune if you wanted! There will be a bottom limit, but a custom loop is never cheap. Do you have a rough budget in mind?

I thought as much, but I thought I'd ask here to confirm.

 

18 hours ago, KE2012 said:

Custom Loops are not install and forget like AIO's, you will need to maintain it regularly, be that to change coolants, upgrade, or even clean out the blocks, so if you're not willing to get your hands stuck in and get to it for building your loop then custom watercooling probably aint for you.

 

HOWEVER if don't want to listen to me and why you shouldn't do it, some small custom PC business around your area MIGHT do it for you if you went in and asked. 

I was more thinking to have a small loop. Just for the CPU to keep the temp even lower than the current ones.

 

13 hours ago, atomicus said:

I definitely echo the above, and ultimately every job you pay for someone else to do you are not only out of pocket on cash, but out of pocket on the valuable knowledge you'd have gained doing it yourself. It undoubtedly takes a lot of effort, more so in the research stage than anything else, but at the end of the day you'll have learned a tremendous amount and have a great sense of pride in the finished product. Not only that, but as mentioned, should anything go wrong you will know how to get it sorted without spending even more money. It's a win win in the long run.

Yes, but if I kill my components then no one is going to pay me back for them so sometimes it's much safer to pay much less and be "insured". Working with liquid cooling isn't exactly the safest thing to do when working with a PC haha.

[atomicus]

7 minutes ago, TheNaitsyrk said:

Yes, but if I kill my components then no one is going to pay me back for them so sometimes it's much safer to pay much less and be "insured". Working with liquid cooling isn't exactly the safest thing to do when working with a PC haha.

 

Well, if you're worried about this, don't do it at all lol! I doubt you'll have an easy time trying to claim money back off someone if that does happen, no matter what... you could have a messy legal battle on your hands there! Your best course would either be to stick to air (that never leaks lol), or go with a top end AIO from someone like EK (check out the Predator 240 and 360, which is expandable so you could have GPU in the loop as well with pre-filled blocks). If that leaks, you'll certainly be covered under warranty, although I am not sure what percentage they cover if a leak damages other components. I am sure I read somewhere that Corsair only cover 50% of damage cost, I'm not sure about EK, but EK products are certainly better quality and they use many components that you will find in a custom loop.

[KE2012]

13 hours ago, TheNaitsyrk said:

I was more thinking to have a small loop. Just for the CPU to keep the temp even lower than the current ones.

Even a small custom loop requires maintenance, if I was you I would honestly go aio. 

[TheNaitsyrk]

On Tuesday, August 02, 2016 at 2:17 PM, KE2012 said:

Even a small custom loop requires maintenance, if I was you I would honestly go aio. 

I'd be fine with a small loop. Maintenance cannot be that hard for such a small thing.

 

On Tuesday, August 02, 2016 at 1:01 AM, atomicus said:

 

Well, if you're worried about this, don't do it at all lol! I doubt you'll have an easy time trying to claim money back off someone if that does happen, no matter what... you could have a messy legal battle on your hands there! Your best course would either be to stick to air (that never leaks lol), or go with a top end AIO from someone like EK (check out the Predator 240 and 360, which is expandable so you could have GPU in the loop as well with pre-filled blocks). If that leaks, you'll certainly be covered under warranty, although I am not sure what percentage they cover if a leak damages other components. I am sure I read somewhere that Corsair only cover 50% of damage cost, I'm not sure about EK, but EK products are certainly better quality and they use many components that you will find in a custom loop.

You can't tell me what to do and I already have H115i. I guess the question which asks: "can anyone do it for me?" Is basically a no I have no more questions. Thanks.

[atomicus]

40 minutes ago, TheNaitsyrk said:

You can't tell me what to do...

 

I can because I AM YOUR FATHER! Go to your room and learn to watercool!

[KE2012]

56 minutes ago, TheNaitsyrk said:

I'd be fine with a small loop. Maintenance cannot be that hard for such a small thing.

The matter is, if as you have stated you are scared to build your loop and want someone else to do it, then custom loops are not for you as to maintain your loop you will need to dismantle it and rebuild it on a regular basis, so are you going to take it back to whoever to do this every time you need to clean your loop? Or are you going to do this yourself?  

 

 

[TheNaitsyrk]

Another useless thread full of arrogance. I'm out.