Loop order

[starlon]

I finished a long day of working on my new rig. It's coming along quite nicely. I have a date with Lowe's in the morning for a tap and die set. The "really simple" tj07 BTX mod turned out to be a litte more involved than I thought. :) Really fun project though. I'm a little bummed that the top fans and grill wouldn't fit though. Ah well. I think I'll order some plexi glass, drill a bunch of holes, and fit two or three smaller fans up there.

Anyhow, the real reason for my post...

I didn't really have a drawn up plan. I ordered the parts I knew I would use, plus some extras, and figured once I had the stuff sitting in front of me I would start piecing it all together. The BTX mod came up when I saw how the hose was all going to tangle up. I did have a loop order in mind though when I started:

pump>Rad>cpu>gfx>hdd>res

However that's not what I ended up with:

pump>cpu>gfx>hdd>res>rad

I'm using a d5 vario for my pump. I'm not sure yet what speed I'll be running it with. Assume setting 5 for now. I'm wondering how much it's going to heat up the water is all.

[hollaback04]

pump>Rad>cpu>gfx>hdd>res
it is always better to have pump before the radiator > cpu after that it doesnt really matter :)

[starlon]

Yeah, the problem with that was in order to do so I'd have to tangle hose, and I think that's really ugly. So I made the decision to go with what I did. The hose is already cut, so there's really no going back now.

I know that I'll have max head pressure on the cpu with the loop I ended up with. That should amount for something, or am I crazy? The picture of someone's pump mounted directly to the cpu block comes to mind. I think I saw that one in the watercooled cases sticky up top.

[septim]

correction on that: it is always better to have a Reservoir or T-Line before a pump, the rest of loop order doesnt matter...

you might want to post a picture of setup, so we can see and comment/suggest some other mounting places for you. this would be easiest with a picture...

[starlon]

Ok, here it is.

http://starlon.lyrical.net/images/wc.jpg

[taylormsj]

I would have done my best to keep the res before the pump, res - rad - pump seems a bad idea to me in terms of flow rate

[Waterlogged]

Bleeding the loop like that is going to be hell. Order should always be res>pump>everything else.

HDD cooling is pointless. If you want silence, use a Nexus Drive-A-Way with a slow 120mm aimed at it.

If you can, flip the rad around so the barbs are closer to the pump, and push the pump back a little. Loop order for your layout should go: res>pump>rad>CPU>GPU>res

[71 (Bryan)]

pump>Rad>cpu>gfx>hdd>res
it is always better to have pump before the radiator > cpu after that it doesnt really matter :)

how hot does the water get cuz i think (ima noob though so im most likely wrong) if the water is already hot from the cpu and gfx-card wouldnt it heat up the hdd instead of cooling it?

[taylormsj]

no, water temperature is pretty cool even under load, the radiator's job is too cool it

[71 (Bryan)]

im talking about the hdd not the rad

[taylormsj]

Yes, you asked why doesnt the HDD get hot from the water, and i said t doesnt because the water doesnt get very hot because the radiator cools it !

[71 (Bryan)]

EDIT:nvm

[Xilikon]

This is a valid question but I don't think it will heat the harddisk because flow is fast enough so there is no time for water to stagnate and get hot. The temp may be 1-2C between the hottest and coldest point at most. However, if the loop water temperature is over 35-40C, it can indeed heat the harddisk if they run around 30-40C on average under air.

This is not a clear-cut answer but it's a moot point because it's useless to watercool harddisks.

[gmod]

Your NB needs cooling A lot more than you HDD..Also have you done the mod on the NB otherwise you gonna be running at 100c

[71 (Bryan)]

but then wouldnt it be best for the water to flow at a slower rate so it could absorb more heat?

[serial099]

how hot does the water get cuz i think (ima noob though so im most likely wrong) if the water is already hot from the cpu and gfx-card wouldnt it heat up the hdd instead of cooling it?

The way I've always understood it (and correct me if I'm wrong or have mis-information) but once the temperature of the water in the loop reaches a certain point, then water in the loop is withing .5 C of each other (no matter where that temperature reading is taken in the loop).

[Xilikon]

Loop flow speed doesn't really matter. Slow = pick more but less often, fast = pick less but more often. All it matter is to keep it above 1 GPM.

A NB would benefit more than RAM and HDD in my opinion.

[NysoO]

but then wouldnt it be best for the water to flow at a slower rate so it could absorb more heat?

hehe, but if you think of it the other way, don't you want the warm water to get out of the way more quickly, and then get some new cold water.
This is a tricky ratio I think. The thing that matters the most is the turbulence in the waterblock, that is what i've heard at least.

Edit: And as already said. It doesn't really matter in what order you put the things in your loop, at least not if you take the temperature in aspect. A thing that could be a benefin with a certain loop-order, is bleading, hence a lot of people put the res before the inlet of the pump.

[starlon]

Your NB needs cooling A lot more than you HDD..Also have you done the mod on the NB otherwise you gonna be running at 100c

Temps on NB reach 70c under load with stock clocks - 32c idle. I've ordered a waterblock from ViperJohn.

[71 (Bryan)]

but wouldnt adding the nb in the loop be 2much for the rad to handel?

[taylormsj]

They dont produce that much heat to bottle neck a radiator, i think

[starlon]

I don't understand why placing the res before the pump inlet makes it easier to bleed. Won't the bubbles reach the res regardless where it is?

[71 (Bryan)]

ah sweet, i hope not because if not ill get a nb and sb block for my striker and put it in the same loop as the cpu but i would also like to know, by how much would this increase the cpu temp?

[gmod]

Temps on NB reach 70c under load with stock clocks - 32c idle. I've ordered a waterblock from ViperJohn.

Good move. I will have mine sometime this week...But will be doing a total seperate loop for it on 120.1...Figured since I have the room in this MM case might as well have 3 loops

[NysoO]

I don't understand why placing the res before the pump inlet makes it easier to bleed. Won't the bubbles reach the res regardless where it is?

Well, maybe it wont make it easier to bleed (Or will it?), but filling the system migh be easier if the res is right before the pump

[fornowagain]

Loop flow speed doesn't really matter. Slow = pick more but less often, fast = pick less but more often. All it matter is to keep it above 1 GPM.


The faster the mass flow rate the smaller the water delta once equilibrium is reached. After a certain point increasing mass flow shows diminishing returns as the system then becomes radiator limited. I did the sums somewhere on here, but a typical WC loop with a flow of 2GPM & 7/16" bore with a 250W heat load would have a 0.5C water delta. So with high flow don't worry too much about loop order, other than the mechanical constraints for bleeding/priming etc.

[starlon]

Well I filled it with water. It's still not bled. The air is trapped up top and won't come down to the res. I think you guys have it wrong. The res needs to be up top. (Actually you guys never said put it at the bottom; you simply said place it before the pump in the loop.) I'm going to swap the hdd cooling with the res, placing it at the top of the loop above everything else.

[starlon]

Well, maybe it wont make it easier to bleed (Or will it?), but filling the system migh be easier if the res is right before the pump

You're right. Filling the system would be alot easier if the res was right before the pump. I get a lot of bubbles that the pump has to deal with doing it this way. It's not bad though.

[nick2crete]

Check your molex connections and be sure that the pump takes enough power (It has happened me..)
..dont think that folks said something wrong..

[Xilikon]

The reason it's mandatory to put the reservoir before the pump isn't for bleeding purposes but to make sure the pump is always fed with water. not doing this will cause the pump to starve for water as it's trying to pull water. Doing this can shorten the pump life and not trapping air bubbles before it enter the pump is another cause of shorter life as well.

While bleeding, it's wise to have the reservoir as the highest point but when it's fully bled, it doesn't really matter. You can just lay the case on the side to help with bleeding.

[starlon]

Ok, I did it; the res is before the pump, and the rad is before the cpu. I have a tangle of hoses though :\ It's sure easy to fill like this. I also took the hdd cooler out of the loop. That thing was really restrictive. The water going in was way faster than the water coming out. I'll figure out something else for the hard drives. I took some pictures but they didn't come out very nice. The lighting is terrible. Here's the best one...

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/4263/wc2mv3.jpg
By starlon (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/starlon), shot with DSC-S600 (http://profile.imageshack.us/camerabuy.php?model=DSC-S600&make=SONY) at 2008-02-18

[septim]

you want to make tubing shorter:
1. stand the pump so that inlet pointing upwards, outlet is pointing to rad barbs...
2. you may invert rad so barbs closer to pump outlet or keep it that way

[starlon]

you want to make tubing shorter:
1. stand the pump so that inlet pointing upwards, outlet is pointing to rad barbs...
2. you may invert rad so barbs closer to pump outlet or keep it that way

Thanks for the suggestions.

1) I might do this. I'll need to drill a hole so I can access the pump's pot (although that's broke right now :( ). I also need to figure out the bracket. I'm in a hurry to be back online for a WoW raid Tuesday night though, so this may have to wait.

2) Yeah, I think I'll do this. It'll get those tubes out of the flow of air for one. That's been on my mind.

This case is so big it's easy to run lots of tubing. I'll trim here and there before I finish. I still have a lot to do - cutting holes for wires, what to do with the front bay openings, window and fans for the top, side needs a window, handles up top, hdd mounting, etc... lots to do. :)

[Xilikon]

You can make the tube between GPU and reservoir shorter so it's a gentle 90 degree bend and straight to the reservoir, not getting down then back up to reach the reservoir. You should also turn the reservoir the other way as well.

There are lots of possibilities to make the loop much shorter. Just wait till it's the right time to drain it again then take your time to route the tubing properly.

[starlon]

I flipped the pump over. That makes a huge difference. I also tried it with the radiator turned around but it caused a kink. I tried moving the pump as far back as I could, but it still kinked. So it was this or an elbow. I think this is best.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/4336/wc3fm6.jpg
By starlon (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/starlon), shot with DSC-S600 (http://profile.imageshack.us/camerabuy.php?model=DSC-S600&make=SONY) at 2008-02-19