gypsy's chiller

[a_gypsy]

Here is my converted remote water chiller (the kind that go to drinking fountains). I picked up the unit on ebay for $130 new, as in never been run, but from old stock.

I painted it black, mounted a pondmaster mag 2 on the back, cut the temp sensor rod, and then wired a switch in instead of the thermostat. The waterblock is an enzotech sapphire rev 2. The coolant is denatured alcohol and antifreeze, about 2:1.



I used quick disconnects going to the waterblock so I can just undo those and move either the pc or the chiller independently.










In the near future I'm going to get a 200mm d/c fan to replace the loud ass a/c one that's on there now. Right now I have it set on a timer to run 15 on/15 off, but once its not so loud I plan to just run it continuously. I also used some sound dampening material (luxury liner pro/damplifier pro) in the walls to make it more quiet.

I didn't take any pictures of the cpu insulation really, but basically I just fill all the holes in the socket with dielectric grease and then I used clay for the rest of the insulation.








The overclock was kind of disappointing. I was hoping to get high 4's or even break 5ghz. There seems to be a large wall somewhere around 4ghz with this chip, you need a lot more voltage per bclk than before.

[BigBig5]

Is that frost in the pic with duct tape.

[a_gypsy]

Yes that is ice beginning to form. I didn't let it get super frosty, but I felt I had to take the obligatory "omg this thing gets really cold" shot.

[flesheatinvirus]

Not bad for a water cooler comp, I like it.

[Q56_Monster]

Great job and nice conversion. Just be careful of condensation on front and back of mobo...remember clay/eraser is not an insulator. I found that cutting a 1/2 inch piece of large diameter pipe foam insulation to form a gasket around the cpu works real well and keeps the cold from migrating too much. And you can use a shop towel gasket on the clay then the foam gasket on top of that.

[Stewie007]

BWahahaha! I'm back.

I always see people using eraser as insulator. The truth is, its density makes it a horrible insulator. It will conduct heat (in this case extremely low levels of heat, but still "heat"). If you're like me, you'll create some nifty custom moldings to your enzotech block so that you can fit it up perfectly with no gaps. It may seem painstakingly tedious, but its doable.

[shadow6491]

Looks like a very neat setup. Just a couple of questions as I am planing on doing some form of chilled water cooling myself. What is the compressor rating? The other question I had was the maximum temperature of 58 seemed high to me considering the heat sink started at 3. How quickly did this temp go up? Is that the temperature difference you can expect between the cores and the water block heat sink heat sink 3 and cores 58?

[shadow6491]

Well Ive got my system up and running now. Just about. I will post a new thread with it soon. I have been able to answer my own question now. My water temp is 13 at idle the cpu ranges between 20 and 27 depending on the core at at max using intel burn reaches about 55 instantly.

[Stewie007]

Hey, curiosity. What size chill reservoir/container are you using. Just trying to gauge how big I want to go with my own based on what others are doing.

[a_gypsy]

I'll try to take care of all the questions without having to quote because I'm feeling pretty lazy right now.

Sunroc (the chiller brand) has pretty poor documentation tbh, but if memory serves the compressor is a 1/4hp tecumseh. I'm not sure on the exact res volume, but I'd estimate total loop volume is around 1.5L.

And yeah, clay is a pretty crappy insulator, I just really didn't want to deal with the mess of grease + neoprene again. (as I did with my first chiller) The clay goes on really easily, and I actually wanted it to cool around the socket. It extends quite a ways on the back of the board too, which is also in direct contact with the case tray. It does get cold, but not to dewpoint. Plus, the clay is such a porous material that it is very hard for condensation to actually form on it anyways, unless it's super cold.

And lastly, yes, the chip still gets very hot, very quick with IntelBurnTest. I'm not sure if its just a flaw with the IHS design, reporting, or what. I just don't think it's thermodynamically possible if there are no obvious failures in the conduction of heat that the temperature can go from -4C to 60C in like 4 sec.

I also don't show it in these pictures, but I've added a tube "reservoir" to the t fitting fill port. This was the first time I've ran a closed loop chiller, and the coolant really changes volume a lot over the temperature range the chiller goes through. I actually pulled a fitting off because of the negative pressure created by the change in volume. I plan to build a simple res out of pvc in the near future.

[marru]

Could you tell us what were your Tout and Tin of the chilled liquid with a typical load on the PC?

I'm curious what is the typical temperature gain on the liquid on the PC loop.