I've wanted to do this project for a little while now because there is pretty much no other way to get decent cooling with this motherboard/case combo. I also wanted to really see how far this mobo/cpu would overclock. Finally, 3 years and a new system later, this system is running with good temps and maxxed freqs.
Specs:
Mobo: AOpen i915GMm-HFS
Case: Silverstone SG-01
CPU: Pentium M 760 (2GHz)
RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR2-533
The system with some of the stuff to go in it:
Inside the system with air cooling:
About the Thermaltake Tidewater: I originally purchased this because the air cooler was so poor. This 'all in one' watercooling system was plagued with problems though. First, the blower fan is really really loud.. Thermaltake lied when they said it only generated 25dBa.. more like 35. Second, the pump died after less than a year. So I got the Tidewater plus with 2 waterblocks, for the GPU too. That pump also died. It seems Thermaltake just discontinued the Tidewater series recently.. no traces of it on their website.
The tidewater units before going under the knife:
I don't know why they used some non-flexible hoses inside this one, it started leaking when I was taking it apart:
The two pure copper rads. I realized only after-the-fact that these use smaller-than-1/4" tubing:
Three nickel-plated copper waterblocks. The rightmost one has poor machining and wasn't used:
Salvaged 1/4" and smaller-than-1/4" hose clamps:
The main motivation behind using the Tidewaters (aside from already having them) is the pure copper rads. Even though they are "condenser-style" they still work just fine for the small power dissipation of the Pentium M. Also, the waterblocks, while small, are pure copper and work very well for this project.
New parts:
Thermaltake P500 pump
Swiftech MC-500 reservoir
Scythe S-Flex 120mm fan for the rads and
Cheap PVC tubing from the local hardware store.
All the salvaged and new parts to be used:
And of course, distilled water:
The first thing I did when the system was all apart, was pin-mod the CPU socket. By grounding VID5, the voltages between 0.7v and 1.196v are +0.512 (so really they're 1.212v-1708v). The voltages above are normal:
Mounting the pump and reservoir required creative use of velcro, lol:
Velcro brand! lol. Came with the res.
Initial leak testing:
Out-of-case testing:
And 4 days later, inside of the case with water cooling. That big fat kink has no effect on the actual temps:
Closed up:
The final stable overclock was a bit disappointing at 2.72GHz but it did boot to the bios at 2.9GHz. The CPU voltage there lies, it's actually running at 1.5v:
Final thoughts:
The max stable OC went from 2.5GHz to 2.7GHz, pretty poor increase. I was hoping for at least 2.8 but I guess laptop parts can only go so far.
The temps did lower nicely though. The Pentium M is specced for max 100C, so it can run 70-80C 24/7 without issue. On air it ran foldingathome 24/7 at about 75C, depending alot on ambient temperature. Now it runs it at about 50C. Note though, this is after raising the voltage from 1.356 to 1.452 and the freq from 2.5 to 2.7GHz.
A note on power consumption: before, it was about 60W, after adding the pump, fan and overclocking, its only 72W. Just about the combined rated power for the pump and fan incl. AC efficiency. Not bad.
I still haven't put any biocide in the loop yet. I have some lithium hypochlorite here though, for swimming pools. Would this be ok in a milligram amount (1-2mg?) or is it too powerful? There's a big label on it "strong oxidizing agent." If not, what chemicals are good to use for this and how long can I wait before doing it?
Lastly, about the rads; the tubing in them is so, so small. I wonder if, in this specific situation, running the rads parallel would show better flow/temps. I've read lots of stuff saying not to do this but none of those articles/posts used rads with smaller-than-1/4" tubing.
What are your thoughts guys?
Reply With Quote
.
Originally Posted by Fragger
Bookmarks