Going To Be Special Guest On A PC Modding Podcast - Post Your Questions!

[Petra]

Hey guys!

I wasn't really sure where to put this thread, but it seems pretty applicable to water cooling since that's kinda what I'm best known for... Anyway, I'm going to be the special guest on an episode of The Mod Zoo podcast, with MNPC Tech's Bill Owen, that's scheduled for recording on Sunday 1/13/13 (sorry, this one likely isn't going to be streamed). We're probably going to spend some time talking about the history of PTS (prior to its sale), water cooling, the enthusiast industry in general, and whatever else comes up (I've got all sorts of I could talk about). But to make things even more interesting for you guys, I'd like you to post any questions that you would like me to answer during the recording of the show (could be about me, PTS, water cooling, modding, why Gabe and I always seem like we're arguing with each other on the forums, the most ridiculous mispronunciation of Quoc's name, whatever).

So, yeah, post whatever you'd like to know and I'll pass a link to this thread along to the hosts so that they can go through it and pick stuff.

*edit* You guys could also toss in questions about modding and stuff for Bill and the other hosts if you want.

*edit2* If you want a taste of what the podcast is like, they posted the last episode (where they had Mick from Mayhems Dye on) to YouTube: http://youtu.be/WhjTJHLPvII

*edit3* I'll answer any questions that don't make it into the podcast after the recording is posted to The Mod Zoo website... so don't worry if your question doesn't make the cut.

*edit4* The podcast has been posted: http://themodzoo.com/podcast/The%20M...%20-%20Ep9.mp3

*edit 5* Uh, yeah, you remember that Q&A video I promised? Well, here it is: http://youtu.be/lO___WCSAbk

[NKrader]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah.

ALMOST FAMOUS!

[Petra]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah.

ALMOST FAMOUS!

Damn skippy!

[defect9]

Questions? I like questions

1) What do you see being the next big trend in watercooling?

2) Are you going to (or have you already) open another WC shop?

3) What are your favorite styles/themes in computer modding?

4) What the hell was that gel-stuff you used to sell?

[Martinm210]

I'm just curious what you have been up to and if you have any water cooling community plans in the future. I miss your experiments, testing, and humor. While there are good vendors out there, none of them have really embraced community involvement in the area of testing and contributing data and science to the community as you did. A very few manufacturers today seem to publish any sort of performance data with their products and seem to pass that function off to third party reviews and testing.

Do you have any suggestions for how we could encourage more manufacturers and vendors to contribute in this area?

For example the community largely believed in non-conductive fluids somehow being an important and critical feature in cooling fluids until you stepped in with your videos to disprove the myth.

I believe performance products should come with performance specifications, yet even a simple 30min pressure drop test to provide restriction specs on blocks is absent from a good 99% of the products.

Why do you think it is this way and how can we fix it?

Do you think it is realistic to develop test standards that the manufacturers could agree on to specify thermal performance?

I believe the hydraulics side of things is easy enough to standardize, but I understand the challenges with thermal performance.

Regardless, I have always wondered how we can encourage more manufacturer and vendor produced data.

I have tried to fill in the gap with some testing, but always felt like it was treating the symptom rather than the problem. We need test standards and performance data that all manufacturers can and should provide. Third party testing IMHO should supplement rather than fill in a missing gap.

Anyhow, those are some things I have struggled with and appreciate your unique perspective have been in the vendor and test roles before.

Glad to see you still stopping by...you have always been one of my science inspirations in this little niche of a hobby.
Cheers!
Martin

[OldChap]

For some, the be all and end all of cooling is performance (I fall in this camp), for others it is all about silence.

Taking Martin210's thoughts a little further, do you feel it is reasonable to develop a standard test for Manufacturers and perhaps Vendors to use when supplying noise data for such things as fans and items sold with fans fitted?

I see fan and pump noise is a subject often mentioned but do you feel a simple quantitative test is useful or does the qualitative aspect of noise detract from db readings to such an extent that it renders the whole idea worthless?

[NKrader]

For some, the be all and end all of cooling is performance (I fall in this camp), for others it is all about silence.

yes but people who run for silence dont ever run at max, like manufacture tests state.. i dont really care what a fan sounds like at full speed, im gonna use 5400rpm pwm gentle typoon. i will only hear the sound level that is listed the once a month that I restart the rig

the raitings are pretty much useless in general unless they have a graph.. of ALL rpms with sound levels

[Petra]

*snip*

I love you too, Martin.

Anyway, you have given me an idea... expect a PM (probably tomorrow).

[Church]

Will customers profit from having published testing data by LC component manufacturers from standardized testbeds using same testing methodology? Certainly. Can it be done? Not in easy way but yes. BUT! Is that in business interests of manufacturers? Unfortunately i haven't any sales data to back up my guess, but few years ago when skinneelab put EK HF as best - my guess that 50% blocks sold worldwide were HFs, other vendors had to chip from what left. Same for fans (Martin - you are at fault for GT shortage at several shops a while ago ). When all testing that is available to customers are different 3rd party testing done on small share of blocks and often compared to very old blocks, with often sub par methodics - it's up to vendor to link in ones where it's product shine most. It's not in their interests to show their products in bad light. Nothing personal, it's just business.
Thus imho independent 3rd party tests for LC components and fans is about the only more or less objective way to find out what is best, and imho we should better think about how to distribute/parallelize immense workload of testing among different testers (so as not to loose tired testers ) while still getting trusty data usable to compare performance relatively to data from other testers.

Petra: my questions would be:
1) have you considered returning to LC/pcmod business?
2) seems that several features of LC components (blocks/rads) have nearly topped out (with little improvement lately and little difference between products of different vendors). What are your wild guesses of what can be improved next in future products of this hobby?
3) efficiency of LC means big rads. Aesthetically users given choice prefer mounting rads internally. Unlike small share of vendors producing half-custom well fit for LC cases most major vendors make them mostly just for air cooling (mounting places for just 2-3 x120 rads and few extra rubber grommets for tubing imho doesn't cut it). What can be done to improve/change that, so that customers can easily get at affordable prices well fit for LC cases from major vendors for LC, and this hobby to mean less of modding (requiring good skills and expensive tooling) more of assembling thus more widespread (and probably cheaper, as volumes of LC components produced/sold grow)?
4) what are your current unrelated to LC hobbies

[SkItZo]

Where do babies come from?



P.S. Congrats

[Bill Owen]

Hey Gang, just reading some of the questions you've submitted, Excellent! I'm very excited to record this episode. I'm preparing for a longer than usual recording. Every episode is recorded "off the cuff" without any preparation, so discussions are genuine and open. I express my opinions freely and encourage my co-hosts and guests to do the same, but never anything that makes them uncomfortable. It's pretty much like hanging out with your enthusiast friends, but you have a Host.

@Petra, See you Sunday!

[Petra]

4) what are your current unrelated to LC hobbies

There's a dangerous question... how much time do you have?

[Martinm210]

Any little mini Petra kiddos running about pouring water on running electronics these days..or favorite Petra pets?

Got any spare Petra pens...

How about the A little history on the Petra DDC top? How about the creation of the PTnuke, how did it start and get developed?

What about the famous PTS yates, how did you secure the better quality yates back in he days?

[Petra]

The recording went well, aside from a little time zone confusion on my part (sorry Bill). I'll have to wait for the final cut-down version of the podcast before I'll know what made it in and what didn't--I was a bit scatterbrained today. A link will be added to the thread once the final version of the recording is released and, at that point, I'll go ahead and start answering whatever questions and stuff didn't make it into the podcast.

Also, Martin... what were your thoughts on my idea?

[Brodholm]

Any eta on the pod cast? Really looking forward to it!

[Mankz_91]

http://themodzoo.com/podcast/The%20M...%20-%20Ep9.mp3

[Brodholm]

http://themodzoo.com/podcast/The%20M...%20-%20Ep9.mp3

Thanks! I have been looking for this!

[relttem]

Tell Bill I said, "hello"..missed both you guys at CES.. next year.

[Petra]

http://themodzoo.com/podcast/The%20M...%20-%20Ep9.mp3

Damn, you beat me to it!

Anyway, yeah, the edited version of the podcast was posted today--we actually recorded for a little over two hours, so they had a lot of editing to do. The odd section in the beginning (pre-intro) was pulled from a portion of the recording where Daz (Dazmode) dropped in.

I listened to the podcast this morning but need to go back through it and actually take notes on which questions were answered and whether or not they were answered as fully as I would have liked... because I'm going to either shoot a video or do an audio recording (not sure which) to address anything that wasn't covered in the podcast. Do you guys have a preference?

In retrospect, I realize that I mentioned Swiftech a lot... which was totally unintentional. I must have had Gabe on the brain

[Petra]

Q&A follow-up video posted... a bit later than I had originally planned.

http://youtu.be/lO___WCSAbk