I got an idea, need some feedback...

[TheWeaseL]

Ok, here is something I was thinking, as I have been pondering various configs of water cooling circuts...

What if, say I was to fit onto my pump with 5/8" barbs, and the with 5/8" tubing all the way up to my first Y spliter, and then either get a reducer in there, or connect straight to it with a couple hose clamps. And then from the Y, it would run 1/2" I.D. tubing through the rads, out into the Y merger, through cpu, gpu, nb, to the res, and then from the res, 5/8" tubing again back to the pump, or 1/2" from the res to a coupling that well, "unreduces" if you will.

See what I'm getting at here...I think the parallel setup would be much more effective if it got more water to the Y, since it is trying to divide 1 half in ID tube flow into 2...

[zippyc]

What size fittings do you have on each of your blocks? Which CPU block do you use? NB? GPU?

And your res? And how many (and what ID) inlets and outlets does your res. have?

And finally, what pump and rads (size fittings on rads too) are you using?

I could speculate for you knowing those variables.

Yes, in principle if you split a larger diameter hose using a Y that reduces, you can maintain some pretty good speed through the individual smaller outlets. In general that will work well with a large capacity pump.

Also, I have never found a "Y" that is larger than 1/2 ID, so you will be talking custom manifold for your purposes. If you put a 1/2 ID y there, you will be adding a significant restriction (defeating your large hose benefits) and possible leak point putting 5/8 ID onto it.

[zippyc]

I just noticed you have the WW. I have that block and have tried multiple routings. Here is my advice:

Run Pump to Rad 1 then Rad 2, then to WW using 5/8 Fittings on your pump and 1/2 ID hose. You should be able to "carefully" force fit the 1/2 on your pumps larger outlet (using very hot water to soften the hose).

Take 3/8 ID hose (if your northy and GPU use 3/8 fittings like mine) and soak the ends in very hot water. Using windex as lubricant you can force fit the smaller hose over the WW's two 1/2" exit fittings.

(Note: This takes some force, so do this BEFORE you mount your WW to your CPU))

Then take the lower flow WW outlet and run it to your NB cooler in series. Do likewise with your high flow WW outlet and run it to your GPU in series.

Use 3/8 hose from the exits of those two blocks and again force fit them onto the two arms of a 1/2 ID y. Run 1/2 back from that Y to your res, and 1/2 from your res to the 5/8 Inlet on your pump.

Oh, the WW has the focal point sligtly off center from the inlet, if you look down there you will see that water has more opportunity to flow one direction vs the other. Note this oreintation and direct the higher flow to you GPU.

If your pump can handle the backpressure, serial Rads should give better results. If not, parallel might work better.

If one rad pushes air into the case, make that the second rad in the series so it gets coldest air for the last cooling stage.

Essentially you are then using your WW as a "Y", as you are coming from one large inlet to two smaller outlets, manitaining good velocities for your smaller blocks. And the WW benefits from 100 PCT of your systems flow.

If your res had 1/2 ID inlets and outlets, consider replacing those with 5/8 ID fittings. Connectors that accept 1/2 hose have a considerably smaller internal diameter than 1/2 hose does, and are constriction points in your system wherever you use them.

[Keeper]

Dielectric grease will make the squeeze easier and water proof your connection, and try to get as much hose into the 1/2 as you can.

[zippyc]

Yes, D. G. could be better cause the grease is thick enough to fill small aperatures to prevent leaks where hose meets metal. But I have "never" (knoking on wood) had a 3/8 hose on a 1/2 fitting and had a leak though, that seal is very tight to begin with.

I'd be careful not to introduce any into the interrior environment however...even a small bit in your fluid might clog part of the WW channels.

I had no problem getting my 3/8 ID vinyl hose on the WW using windex, it has nice rounded-end barbs, and once the hose got started it slipped all the way down to the collar no problem...

It IS much harder to force hose over plastic fittings though, so the D.G. might really help there.

[Keeper]

If you get a peice of hose from the end of a roll, and it has been flattened, leaks can happen. Thats how I came to use grease, it worked real well.

[TheWeaseL]

Actually, all of my blocks use 1/2 fittings.

My rads use 1/2 fittings, 2 dtek pros. I'm running them parallel, and I find that when I first bleed my system, the water usually will only go to one, and stop at the barb of the other. I can get the other to bleed if I clamp down a bit on the hose to the one with water, and then it works, but I dunno. I was hoping that getting more water up there would help with that.

[zippyc]

I'd still recommend the routing order I listed above, and putting the rads in series could even help your system prime faster/better.

So your pump is not submerged (guessing because submerged pumps prime very easily.)

What pump do you have?

One more detail. If both your NB and GPU blocks have similar flow rates, you might try deliberatey/permenantly constricting the NB flow by like 50% in a parallel setup like I described.

I did this by using two 1/2 ID 90's in between the WW and NB, and with distances properly measured it makes for a cleaner route instead of a sharp bend for the hose. Not as pretty though.

The routing to the GPU is a hose with a very smooth bend, so it is definately seeing more water flow. Coupled with the fact that I used the higher flow outlet from the WW for the GPU.

This is forcing more water to go via the GPU block, getting better cooling there (could tell from bubble speed during priming).

The NB really only needs a fraction of the flow the GPU needs for good performance cooling (to maintain the same temps on each).

At least that has been my experience with two nforce2 boards (8rda and NF7-S), and two hot GPU's (9700 and 9800 Pros).

[TheWeaseL]

My pump is the via aqua 1300. Fully submersible if I want/need. But I don't have a res, for it that it would fit in. Or the space for that...Unless I got or built a big enough res to take up the space in my remaing 5.25" bay area.