cootees

Do you guys regret it or have ever regretted it? I've been tinkering with the idea of going water cooled but with the heat pipes out a lot of reviews have shown that they keep it cooler than water cooling.

My video card is having a overheating problem and they make water blocks for it but I have not yet seen a heat pipe that s made for it. So I am hesitant about going for water cooling or waiting it out for a little while to see if someone releases a heat pipe for it.

amusement

I water cooled my GPU and CPU. Always had to check for leaks. Not worth the risk to use mineral oil.

Try Artic cool products to cool down the GPU. I got a heck of deal at newegg.com.

(I am not associated with negegg.com).

Chuki

I'm water cooled! And will always be watercooled. (well I lied) I'm not watercooled anymore..... yet. I just upgraded to A64 system with an X1800 ATI vid card. Just waiting for the rest of money to complete my water cooling. If you buy the parts and do it yourself rather then one of them fancy pre watercooled setups. You'll have a much more effiecient setup.

check out www.dangerden.com and buy everything you need from them. Go with 1/2" tubing also, and water cool your GPU,CPU and chipset. Those blackice radiators are sweet.

I have a blackice radiator now, but I'm going with a blackice extreme, Maze4 CPU waterblock, and the new X1800 waterblock (price is outrageous though)

Also checkout articcool I'm sure they have something for your vid card that will bring the heat down. Also how are cables inside your case? Move them out of the way and tuck them in nicely it should help with airflow.

phorunninduke

I am water cooled. Have been for 2 years now.

I have a very nice closed loop system that doesn't leak or evaporate one bit.

I use a toyota heater core as a radiator, maze 4, 1/2 tube, dd-d5 pump. My prescott core runs 15degrees cooler than the stock set up. I run my computer pretty much 24/7 for nearly a year now on the current set up with no worries.

what kind of video card do you have?

alpha

I just built a new desktop about a month ago. I decided against watercooling it. My main reasons..

I don't plan on overclocking my comp. Only benefit I see to watercooling is if you overclock.

It's a closed system, yes, but not fullproof from leaking. My roommates friend had a watercooled system that was ok for 2 years, and one day it just leaked. It was properly set up, ran well for that long.

My comp isn't loud. I have 2 case fans (the ones that came with the case). The CPU came with a heatsink/fan combo. And the video card game with its own fan. It runs about 40 degrees C to about 50 degrees C. I haven't checked it under load though. It hasn't given me a reason to. Does well.

It does keep it cooler, but can fail. I recommend monitoring the system regularly to watch for leaks.

Churnd

Use distilled water and you'll be fine. It's not the water that's conductive, it's the minerals in the water that's conductive. Some experiment with a mixture of distilled water and antifreeze, claiming it cools better. I can't comment because I have a laptop.

bob200587

Speaking of laptops, I've gotta come up with some way to keep mine cooler, It cuts off from over heating way too easily. Anything I can get to remedy this?

midiwall

What's the laptop?

There are internal heatsink and fan systems available, and there are also fan trays and heat conductive pads you can set the laptop on.

For example...
http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/comlapnotsta.html

My Mac Pismo get's plenty warm and it'll shutdown from time-to-time as well. I actually helped things out by pulling it apart, and re-greasing the heatsink-to-CPU junction. I also found it better to make sure that there's plent of airflow to the vents in back. i.e., stop laying it flat on the couch, tilt the bottom up a bit.


side story...

I worked at Zenith Data Systems from 94-96. During that time, they came out with their first P120 based laptop. omg - what fun THAT was! This thing would run so hot that it would actually melt a divot in the bottom of the case in about an hour. We used to travel a bit, and of course bring our laptops with us. That meant putting them on the desk in a hotel - we left MANY burn marks in desks all over the country.

bob200587

Its a Toshiba A75, I think part of the problem is alot of dust being drawn in by the fans on the bottom, I'll occasionally see some accumulation on the fan grills. I tried to take it apart and see if it was dirty, but I couldn't get it apart and I'm afraid to, my warranty wouldn't be very useful if I screw something up like that.

I usually try to keep it on hard surfaces as it gets alot hotter on couches or anything fabric, but I need it to stay cool and operational in my passenger seat while I'm using my GPS.

I saw this on the link you gave: http://www.sportsimportsltd.com/usbcosyforno.html

but I'm not sure what's best for my situation.

Churnd

Something like that or this would be your best bet. How old is your laptop? If it's ~7 years or newer, it really shouldn't be having these problems just from sitting there on flat surfaces. You mentioned it was still under warranty, so I would get that checked out while the warranty's still good.

cootees

All the cables are tucked behind the skeleton. The reason for the excess heat in my case is because of running dual psu's. I may go ahead and do some purchases to get a nice cpu & gpu setup done. My biggest concern was with it leaking but if what Churnd sais is true about the distilled water then I will give it a shot and try it. Thanks for the help.

Churnd

Here's a good article found via google: http://www.wc101.com/guides/installguide/

Plenty of into out there, just gotta search for it. Another option besides watercooling is upgrading the stock heatsinks and fans. Newegg and FrozenCPU have lots of cool stuff for this.