Liquid coolant

[ToxicBug]

What sort of liquid coolant do most of you use? Just water? Antifreze? Freon? Water with salt? I'm wondering if its that much better to get the water temperature below zero, for example during winter put the radiator outside where the temperature is around -10C to -25C (I'm in Montreal) to get some hardcore overclocking done or something.

[ShawnMcGrail]

Just a little mix of Anti-Freeze in there is perfectly fine and will have no negative effects on your system...

..But then again, this is Xtreme systems, Wait a bit for Maxx and the other hardcore water guys. ;)

[NothingToLose]

:o another montrealer yay

[craig588]

Alchohol, about 70% or so. The rest is water.

[1031.nu]

What sort of liquid coolant do most of you use? Just water? Antifreze? Freon? Water with salt? I'm wondering if its that much better to get the water temperature below zero, for example during winter put the radiator outside where the temperature is around -10C to -25C (I'm in Montreal) to get some hardcore overclocking done or something.

Theres plenty of coolant threads in the water cooling areas, search around over there, theres always a post about this. As for coolant I used Zerex supercoolant with some destilled water, but that has a freezing point close to water. If you want to prevent freezing alot of the guys talk about using anti freeze, just have to make sure your pump can handle it.

[Ugly n Grey]

If you put the rad outside in a Canadian winter, you need to run a 40 per cent mix in your loop. It can get -40 in Montreal at times. In summer 15 per cent is fine. You can buy any premium automotive anti freeze at crappy tire for ex...

You will have to insulate the lines and proc against condensation if you intend to cool at a temp that is below ambient, otherwise you will have condensation problems in all likelyhood.

A long time ago in galaxy far away, I stuck a standard automotive rad outside in a shaded area, I plumbed it in using standard 1/2 copper pipe and used foam insulation sleaves you can buy at any hardware store for the copper that was inside the house. I installed an anode from a hot water heater in my loop to prevent corrosion (it worked excellent btw). I used a rad and fan off a 79 civic. At the point where flexible pipe was needed I insulated it by wrapping my flex hose and taping it up. (I am sure there are better methods today, check the water chiller section.) At -40 I never got above - 38 on a 486 with extreme voltage.... and I doubt even a 400 watt load can make a loop like that move more that a degree. You will get wilder fluctuations just because the outside temps change.

Another cute thing we did one year was to cut a hole about a foot down in the ice and embed a heater core in the ice of the lake and run the loop back to the house. That worked great, at least until spring.

Most folks here use aquarium equipment in the loops today, we used hydraulic pumps because of the load they can take and the pressure they can push through even the tightest restrictions. Not a viable option really because of the cost of that stuff, but's it's what I had at the time.

Anyhow, take advantage of the free cooling winter provides and clock that sucker :)

[craig588]

You were watercooling back when a 486 was new? I thought I was the first person to ever try it on a home computer, I don't remember it getting big until the Pentium 2 era.

My 486 waterblock consisted of a little tin conainer with some random little metal peices epoxied to the base. I took a heatercore from a bus scrapyard and used a very weak fishtank pump that probably didn't do more than 10GPH.

[Ugly n Grey]

I watercooled a 486 DX 25 when that was the top chip in hopes of eliminating hot spots on the top of the ceramic. I was the fastest Intel PC on the planet as far as I knew and sent letters out all over Fidonet and to Compuserve emails explaining how to up the voltage and where to buy frequncy crystals etc. I ran a computer company and tested 40 boards before I found one where the chipset would hold out. That computer replaced a 386 /16 that ran at 22MHz thanks to a motherboard I helped develop at a small manufacturer in Toronto. Those overclocks were SO tiny compared to what we get now...sigh

I didn't go back to extreme cooling until the PPro came out and I immediately got the idea that it should be LN2 cooled. That worked fine, but I went through a bunch of chips and that hurt financially. The PPro w/ 512K cache prices were unreal, making anything today except an Itanium look cheap.

Anyhow, it's all ancient history, sands in the hourglass, as the stomach turns....

[Plague_oc]

ive always used 20% water wetter and it works great

[Fresh Daemon]

Overclocking with crystals - that brings back memories.

Anyway, to the OP, you will need to use antifreeze (at least in winter, in summer you could bleed and replace with water/Zerex) but you want to use as little as possible since it makes the water more viscous and worse at heat transfer. The increased viscosity also lowers flow rate significantly, you will need a powerful pump to keep the flow up.

Water with salt?

Please, please don't try this.

[shocktech]

antifreeze and some non conductive fluid like fluid xp is what im going to be using