Help with my watercooling system

[stardust]

I recently installed a new Prescott system and I used my old water cooling system that used to cool a A64. I know prescotts are warmer, but it seems my temps are pretty bad for a watercooling system. I get 47C idle and near 51C on load detected by Abit AA8 bios.

My setup consists of:

Whitewater block
Hydor L30
Dtek "black ice" 120mm radiator with shroud and fan @ 8V.
Bay Rez

I haven't cleaned the waterblock and the only thing new in the system is the water which I refilled with purified water.

The reason why I'm concerned is because I am planning on adding a VGA waterblock and I don't want the temps to skyrocket.

Would cleaning my waterblock improve temps? any other suggestions? is VGA waterblock going to kill my system?

[Ancient_1]

That sounds decent to me. When I had my Prescott in my WC system on my IC7Max3 under load I would get temps in the mid to low 50s with the CPU @ 3.7 and 1.43 volts.
Cleaning your block could help but I think you are going to have relativly high temps with a prescott and a vga card with just a BI rad and a fan at 8v (going to 12 will help but not a lot).

[stardust]

Thanks! I'm glad I'm not alone with the high temps..

What worried me was the online reviews I've been reading for prescotts cooled by water.

Like this, the temps are much lower than what I am getting and the Whitewater is definitely as good if not better than those 2 waterblocks.

What sort of temps would I get with a VGA waterblock? I have a 6600GT graphics card. I don't want the system getting too loud..

[Ancient_1]

I can tell you in that review the biggest problem your seeing is the - Asus P4C-800E that is being used. I have that board also and when I had that water cooled (never had the prescott in it tho) it read about 15°c lower temps than my Abit does. One thing there is no way a prescott could have actual temps in the high 30s to 40 with just water cooling. It is just a bad reading from the MB. On that board I was getting it showing idle temps cooler than my actual water temp and load temps were just a couple degrees higher (should be 15°c higher aprox).

[stardust]

I get it I had an ASUS P4P800E-D once and it often had my CPU temp lower than my SYS temp!

Thanks for your help

[MaxxxRacer]

Boards 99 percent of the time dont read accurate temps.. Ive never had a board that did. I used to think my a7n8x did, but I learned that it was just one big lie... Now days I dont care what the temp says it is... I know my system is running good and thats that... Until it overheats blowing gaskets and squirting water everywhere... but thats only happend once or twice...

[Maelstrom2160]

so you have a single 120mm*120mm rad with one or two fans running at 8V?

Is there anything else in your loop or just a CPU block?



Try running thoses 120mm fans at 12V again it'll probably solve ya issue

[stardust]

I just got my PolarFlo VGA waterblock so I'll be putting that on in addition to my CPU waterblock.

Do you think I can stay at 8-9V safely, because the fan is too loud at 12V. It's one of those quiet aluminum fans, but it still gets really loud on full blast.

Maelstrom, I have one 120mm fan. I think its 54CFM @ 12V. It's pushing air so I increasing my fan speed won't help much. I wanted to have it pull since it is attached to a shroud, but the way its placed, my system will overheat if it does.

[MaxxxRacer]

well your problem i think is your fan.. if its only pushing 54cfm at 12volt its got nearly no static pressure and even less at 7volt.. I would venture to guess that you are getting nearly no flow out of it. Am i wrong??

I would suggest a stronger 38mm thick fan...

[Ancient_1]

I agree with Max, if you want silence with performance you have the wrong rad, if you want performance silence is not an option. If one of the companies could make a compact high performance low noise solution they would make a fortune, thing is its just not possible.

The best perofrmance quiet solution I know of would be the BIP3 with quiet fans but that combo is too big for most peoples setup. Second would be the BIP2 which still is big for most. Any single with a 120mm quiet fan will not be a performance setup.

[MaxxxRacer]

My suggestion would be a dual heatercore.. With one of weapons shrouds it will beat the bip3 in performance, and you can make it quiet with a fan controller with some high pressure fans...

for fans as i always suggest.. sanyo denkis. They can be had at ebay for 4.99 a piece...

[Ancient_1]

My suggestion would be a dual heatercore.. With one of weapons shrouds it will beat the bip3 in performance, and you can make it quiet with a fan controller with some high pressure fans...

Not even close with quiet fans.

[MaxxxRacer]

denkis man. denkis... these babies give great flow on a heatercore at 7volts... the joy of high pressure fans..

[stardust]

This is my fan click

It is 79CFM on 12V, sorry my memory is totally failing me. What do you guys think?

[MaxxxRacer]

Yah i have one of those. they suck for static pressure... i emailed the guy on ebay selling the sanyo fans.. if you got a sanyo fan or two with a dual heatercore you would solve your cooling problems.

[stardust]

Thanks Where can I buy one? Other than ebay..

Will replacing my current fan with the denki's help drastically? I just want my system to be stable and under thermal spec. How many degrees C increase will I expect after adding a VGA waterblock?

[MaxxxRacer]

not sure on the vga block. I dont know anywhere to get the denkis other than that one guy from ebay... the guy owns a company that does acquisitions of failing buisnesses and they bought like 2 thousand of those fans.

[stardust]

Alright, all is installed. My temps are now: (temps in celcius)

CPU [idle]: 41 on a cold day, 44 on a warm day
CPU [load]: 48 on a cold day, 51 on a warm day
VGA [idle]: 35 on a cold day, 39 on a warm day
VGA [load]: 47

What do you guys think?

Also, my VGA waterblock was rotating around when I was installing the tubes. Do you think that would wear down the thermal compound? The PolarFLO design allows "rotating to prevent kinking" but it felt awfully loose when rotating.

I'll post pics as soon as I get new batteries in my camera!

[stardust]

That LGA775 WW adaptor was made by me


It's alive!!!



I know my loop order is pretty bad, but thats the only way it will fit my case without cutting my case into pieces. It seems to be working fine too.

[MaxxxRacer]

Im guessing you didnt talk to us before you build the system??? Either way, your system is entirly not capable of handling the hardware your throwing at it. Well i should say that its not capable of doing its job correctly. Like that WW should be keeping ur temps at load in the mid to low 40's and no higher. Possibly even lower.

If you like i can help you out to hopefully get some better system temps, but it looks like you are kinda locked into that setup.

[Psyche911]

Maxxx,
I'm considering those Denkis and was wondering how quiet they are on a fan controller. I bought the Zalman 6 channel fan controller and was planning on plugging two of those into it.

I'm also considering the L1A, as I want 38mm wide fans. How do the Sanyos compare at a similar airflow/noise level? If the Sanyos are noisier no matter what, I'll go with the L1A, as the biggest reason for me watercooling is to quiet my computer. Either one should provide enough pressure & airflow for my system, but the Sanyos cost 1/3 as much.

[stardust]

Hey MaxxxRacer, since its wintertime, I have a heater in my room that is pretty close to my PC. When that thing goes on, my temps jump to upper 40's low 50's. Also, it seems the Abit bios detects core temps?? so they might be higher than if you were to place a thermal diode on the CPU plate.

Is there anything I can do, without rearranging my tubing that will give me better performance? What about if I DO rearrange my tubes? Thanks for your help!

[Psyche911]

Your flow is going strait from the radiator to the CPU? If so, then I don't think anything you do (other than adding new hardware) is going to help.

I don't think that a single 120mm radiator is enough for that system. Prescott CPUs put out a rediculous amount of heat. Then you're adding the heat from a moderately warm GPU.

I'd go with what Maxxx suggested and get a dual heatercore. I think that radiator just isn't able ti dissipate all that heat.

[MaxxxRacer]

WOW WOW WOW, i just noticed how badly you set up the tubing... im surprised you actualy have it working correct at all.. first off you have to rearrange your tubing... its not a matter of if, u just need to do it.

arrange it like this
pump>rad>cpu>gpu>res
pump>cpu>gpu>rad>res

either one will be fine. but havign the rest right after the pump kills your flow and pressure in ur system. The res always has to be the first thing before the pump...

Your other issue with your system is the lack of radiator. Having one rad that small with such a weak fan will really hurt temps. its also on a 80>120mm converter which also hurts flow. If you got a dual heatercore or a dual rad of any sort you would see a major increase in performance. But as of now that rad cant disapate the heat that is being put into the water. I havea feeling that your coolant temps are very high right now.

Psyche, I have never had the panaflows, but weapon has had tons of them and when he found the denkis he tossed all of the panaflows in a pile to never be used again... The denkis are very quiet at 7volts. They are noisy at 12volts, only because of the massive air flow. There is no motor noise what so ever, or bearing noise. The only noise from the motor comes when they are starting up, and when you turn them down to such a low voltage that they start to click becuaes the fan is trying to start up..

[stardust]

I can't afford another radiator. A dual core will at least set me back another $60-70.

Also, I forgot to mention. My CPU is running at 4ghz right now, at 3.2ghz the temps are much lower.