Simple Watercooling Setup - 1000L water drum - would this work?
Hi Guys,
I haven't been on the scene for a while now. I've just built myself a new machine and want to OC the Q9550 (SLB8V) CPU.
I live in Southern Thailand in the tropics. The ambient room temperature of my front room is around 32 degrees - pretty warm, so I'd like to avoid air-cooling it and adding more heat to the front room!
I was thinking about a simple water cooling setup:
Under my house I have a spare plastic water drum. It holds around 1000 litres of water! It's in the shade and pretty cool.
I was thinking of buying a wate rcooling block to put on the CPU, running plastic piping from this through the floor of the house and in to the 1000L drum and then back to the CPU with a good water pump.
I figure that the CPU would never heat 1000L of water up very much.
What do you guys think? Any advice/suggestions on this would be appreciated. It's just an idea. Would it work?
My main concern would be pump failure. If the pump failed wouldn't the water that's not moving heat up rapidly in the waterblock creating steam and explode? Is there any safety devices that detect the flow of water has stopped and kill the pump?
I run this machine 24/7 as it's a file server. It's on a APC 2KVA Smart UPS. I would connect the pump to this as well. So in case of total failure the machine and pump would turn off together.
All suggestions welcome,
Cinders.
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Desktop:
Intel Q9550 SLB8V CPU un-opened in Box
Gigabyte EG45M-UD2H un-opened in Box
8Gb DDR2 Crucial Memory un-opened in Box
2 x 1Tb WD Caviar Green (RAID-1 Storage)
80Gb Intel X25-M SSD (System)
No Graphics Card (yet)
No PSU (yet)
No Case (yet)
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Desktop:
Intel Q9550 SLB8V CPU un-opened in Box
Gigabyte EG45M-UD2H un-opened in Box
8Gb DDR2 Crucial Memory un-opened in Box
2 x 1Tb WD Caviar Green (RAID-1 Storage)
80Gb Intel X25-M SSD (System)
No Graphics Card (yet)
No PSU (yet)
No Case (yet)
Well, there is a setting on your bios to shut off you comp if a certain temp is reach, that will be a very effective and cheap way to go about pump failure. So there will not be any steam or explosion. I think a concern might be condensation, since the water will relatively be cooler then your ambient temp. I think this could work, just need a powerful pump to push the water from under the house to your room. You should also keep the drum sealed, just incase bug or something get in there and clog up your cpu block.
Processors will automatically shut down if beyond a certain temperature. Always. That is the primary function of the temperature sensor.
You will need a radiator. It doesn't matter if you have 1000 litres of water, eventually it will heat up since a plastic drum has little to no heat transfer. If it was of metal, then you could get away by just having it.
If you plan to have it outside anyway, why not buy like three or four swiftech 360 rads, delta screamer fans and serious fan filters (for the bugs)?
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Feser or Koolance rads might be cheaper where he is
But yeah, 1000L will hold a pretty serious amount of heat, but all that really does is delay the inevitable - the water needs to somehow shed the heat it takes on, or it'll just keep on getting hotter. And plastic is a really miserable material for heat transfer.
If the drum is noticeably lower than your computer, you'll need a very strong pump to get things started. Once fully bled, a closed loop circuit doesn't care about the height difference, but until it's fully bled, you'll need some serious head pressure to move the air/water mixture around.
you guys really think 1000L of water without a rad isnt going to work? he said that its below his house therefore the air must be somewhat cooler. regardless of if its plastic or not
you guys really think 1000L of water without a rad isnt going to work? he said that its below his house therefore the air must be somewhat cooler. regardless of if its plastic or not
You'd be amazed at how much heat a sealed plastic container of water doesn't conduct. Yeah, it'll move a little bit, but not nearly enough to make it worth the effort. I'd take a budget triple rad over that any day of the week.
You'd be amazed at how much heat a sealed plastic container of water doesn't conduct. Yeah, it'll move a little bit, but not nearly enough to make it worth the effort. I'd take a budget triple rad over that any day of the week.
thats not xtreme at all.... now what you could do is go rad less and when the water warms up just drop in a chunk of distilled ice block to cool it down or you could buy an aquarium water chiller and have it cool the drum
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thats not xtreme at all.... now what you could do is go rad less and when the water warms up just drop in a chunk of distilled ice block to cool it down or you could buy an aquarium water chiller and have it cool the drum
Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a fun idea. But the OP's system is a 24/7 file server, so you have to be somewhat careful about what kind of xtreme you use.
1000l of water is some very serious amount of water, like nuclear power plants don't use rads they draw cold water and dump it back on the lake or river. the average wc system holds about 1l, would you think 1000x of water is going to do worse than a 360 rad with 3 lil 120mm fans? so on top of that the water also cools itself down through the ambient 32C but more like ~23C at night in Thai. I think it will work and he can always dump cold water from the tap.
What if the plastic container had some metal pipes sticking threw it and extending out each side, and maybe have some air flow going threw the pipe?
Could that work as a rad for it?
Well, considering that the comp runs 24/7. The water should still reach an equilibrium point. I guess what point that is (and what the goals of the OP are) will then decide if a rad is needed. Also, who knows if he has direct access to the barrel on a regular basis. Not to mention it would get a bit annoying to have to keep dumping ice and water into the barrel. I agree with MPG. Its a cool idea, but not certain if it is really worth the hassle. That's up to the OP to decide that though.
Depending on how far away the barrel is, you might need to use a submersible pump or bilge pump. It would probably be a bit too hard to wire up a couple of DDCs or D5s to the comp and have them close to the barrel.
He has 1000L. Martin had 3.5L capacity. How is that any where relevant?
His hold capacity is pretty insane. So why would he need rads?
As the water got hotter, very very uber insanely slowly, the same time he will undergo evap.
He will evap and the coolant will stabilize.
Im assuming water isnt an issue for you. Also i wouldn't advise sealing it.
Infact id probably bong it since ur already that far, and be happy.
Well yeah, if the drum isn't sealed, that's a different scenario entirely. Then sure, it'll loose heat both through water->air conduction/convection, as well as evaporation, depending on how much water surface area the drum gives. Whole different scenario though. And for that matter, he'd be better off only filling the first 100L or so and having the drum inlet at the top for a bong setup like you said.
The OP said 24/7 server, so water volume in itself is largely irrelevant over the long term. The heat needs to go somewhere, and I don't see a plastic drum being up to the task. Not with temperatures any better than air-cooling, that's for sure. A metal drum on the other hand...
well if its a 1000L drum, i think convection though plastic would even be enough.
Have you seen the size on a 1000L drum b4?
I haul 1m^3 chem containers regularly, so I know what you're talking about. I know they're bloody huge, it's just the plastic part that leaves me skeptical.
I haul 1m^3 chem containers regularly, so I know what you're talking about. I know they're bloody huge, it's just the plastic part that leaves me skeptical.
im aware...
But if plastic couldnt transfer heat at all.
It wouldn't get warm.
Its that he has so much surface area... i dont think he would have a problem at all.
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