08.19.06
Water Pump Fixed
It took longer than I expected, but my PC is up and running again with a new water pump and a whole new cooling system to go with it. Was fun putting together a system from parts rather than just using a kit like I did last time.
Yeah, I’m kinda proud of it. It’s got half inch piping through it, a 150gph pump, CPU block, GPU block, external radiator (the black blob attached to the glowing blue fan on the back of the case) and internal reservoir (the green blob in the centre of the case). I got some fun UV reactive coolant and the side panel fan has a fairly strong UV light on the back of it which makes the whole coolant glow. You can even see the coolant in the CPU block glowing away happily in the top left of the case!
Now, the cooling performance is interesting – idle temperature for the CPU is about 30 degrees (C) and it goes up to about 40 degrees under load. This is actually a fraction higher than the air cooled temperatures but the real difference is on the GPU which used to go to 80 or 90 degrees under load but now has the same temperature as the CPU! I’m really not complaining about a fifty degree drop in GPU temperature.
One thing I did find about setting up the water cooling is the value of clamps on all the hose connections. When I first plugged everything together (outside the case, fortunately), the whole thing leaked like a sieve. A few cable ties later (the glowing yellow bands on the hoses) and everything was incredibly watertight – the real advantage of thick silicone hosing. The additional cable ties around the pipes are to prevent kinking, as well as they look pretty good under UV light.
In the end, I’m pretty happy with the outcome. The cooling performance is far better than the old quarter inch kit system I had and with the GPU block I’ve been able to run with far less fan noise in the system. The biggest downside is the fact that there’s really barely any room in the case now because the hoses and reservoir take up pretty much all the available space. I guess that’s the price you pay for a fun water-cooled PC.