Indigo Extreme on H20 Setup - Need Opinions on Installation

[ABalthazor]

Hello,

I'm getting ready to put in a different motherboard, install a 980-X and want to try out the Indigo Extreme.

For those not familiar with it, you have to run your CPU under load with no cooling to heat the material, which lets it 'reflow' and make a perfectly even layer across your CPU. If you are water cooling the instructions direct you to turn off the pump and case fans, and that it only takes about 30 seconds at load to complete the process with your pump turned off. You then turn the pump back on.

My question about this:

My GPUs (5970s) are watercooled. Will they survive with the pump turned off, given that they won't be on long and won't be doing anything but desktop rendering? I don't have the stock coolers for them any longer.

Or should I create a CPU bypass in my water cooling loop, letting my GPUs continue to be cooled and just let the CPU heatup by itself? Then shut the thing down and reconnect the CPU to the loop? I can do this with relative ease using quick-disconnects, if that is the consensus.

Thanks for your feedback.

[Splave]

your cards will be totally fine

[ABalthazor]

Thanks! I thought so... but it would be a shame to damage expensive hardware.

[NKrader]

yea the nice thing about most new hardware is it will turn off before it burns up.

[Vinas]

Hello,

I'm getting ready to put in a different motherboard, install a 980-X and want to try out the Indigo Extreme.

For those not familiar with it, you have to run your CPU under load with no cooling to heat the material, which lets it 'reflow' and make a perfectly even layer across your CPU. If you are water cooling the instructions direct you to turn off the pump and case fans, and that it only takes about 30 seconds at load to complete the process with your pump turned off. You then turn the pump back on.

My question about this:

My GPUs (5970s) are watercooled. Will they survive with the pump turned off, given that they won't be on long and won't be doing anything but desktop rendering? I don't have the stock coolers for them any longer.

Or should I create a CPU bypass in my water cooling loop, letting my GPUs continue to be cooled and just let the CPU heatup by itself? Then shut the thing down and reconnect the CPU to the loop? I can do this with relative ease using quick-disconnects, if that is the consensus.

Thanks for your feedback.

If you use afterburner just turn the speed and voltage down all the way. I do this for folding because I need all the cooling I can get. My 5870 stays exactly 2c above ambient when underclocked like this

[pby5cat]

If you disable ati overdrive, and let powerplay work, your 5970 will idle at 157MHz core. So the card should output about 60 watts. FOr the relitively short period of time, the water block should be fine.

[Vapor]

Like others have said....you'll be totally fine

An all-metal CPU block will take a little longer for the reflow process to occur (took me like 25-30 seconds on an Apogee GTZ but takes like 90 seconds on a Koolance CPU-360), and I can't stress enough how important a horizontal motherboard is when doing the reflow

[NKrader]

Like others have said....you'll be totally fine

An all-metal CPU block will take a little longer for the reflow process to occur (took me like 25-30 seconds on an Apogee GTZ but takes like 90 seconds on a Koolance CPU-360), and I can't stress enough how important a horizontal motherboard is when doing the reflow

hah even when doing this I still ruiened both of mine.. and ran out of money.. now i use shinetsu

[ABalthazor]

Like others have said....you'll be totally fine

An all-metal CPU block will take a little longer for the reflow process to occur (took me like 25-30 seconds on an Apogee GTZ but takes like 90 seconds on a Koolance CPU-360), and I can't stress enough how important a horizontal motherboard is when doing the reflow

Good to know. I'm installing a CPU-360 to replace my CPU-345, so this is useful, since I was expected a 30 second duration. Now I know, if it takes longer, not to give up.

And yeah, I noted the instructions and read reviews regarding the process, and will definitely do the reflow process with the MB horizontal.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[wesley]

hah even when doing this I still ruiened both of mine.. and ran out of money.. now i use shinetsu

Wow. That's strange. Was thermal throttling disengaged? =(

Wes

[ABalthazor]

I think he means he ruined the indigo extreme applications... not his CPU.

[wesley]

I think he means he ruined the indigo extreme applications... not his CPU.

Ah. Thanks for explaining.

Wes

[NKrader]

Ah. Thanks for explaining.

Wes

[dejanh]

Like others have said, you will be fine. However, if you want to be extra safe why don't you just unplug the power to the cards that are not connected to the display and just run one card for the duration of the reflow. That will further minimize the chances of anything going wrong. Alternatively, plug in an older card into one PCI-E slot and unplug both watercooled cards (by unplug I mean just remove power).

A few options there.

[ABalthazor]

Like others have said, you will be fine. However, if you want to be extra safe why don't you just unplug the power to the cards that are not connected to the display and just run one card for the duration of the reflow. That will further minimize the chances of anything going wrong. Alternatively, plug in an older card into one PCI-E slot and unplug both watercooled cards (by unplug I mean just remove power).

A few options there.

I like this idea. I actually have a 9800 GT I can put in my board without moving anything around, so might do that. Thanks for the idea.

[ABalthazor]

Thanks for the assistance, everyone.

I got the Indigo Extreme installed and its working great. Although my 'reflow' procedure wasn't exactly as the manual instructed, it does appear to be doing the job; even with my fans and pump on their lowest settings the CPU cores are only getting to 60C at the hottest (and that is with both 5970s under a furmark load, and running Prime95 on all cores.) Using more aggressive fan and pump settings results in lower temps, of course.

To perform the reflow I turned off all fans and the pump, and laid the unit horizontally. I then started Speedfan to monitor temps, as well as RealTemp, and started Prime95. Within 5 seconds my temps went past 100 (I saw RealTemp read 101 and flashing red), and the computer promptly shut down. There must be some thermal protection on the gygabyte board that I didn't turn off (and I'm not sure I would have had the guts do so anyway.)

Then, with the computer off, I thought I'd try again, booted into BIOS to see what thermal protection options were available, and then noticed that the coolant in the CPU-360 block was boiling. I figured that if the coolant was at 100C (or higher), then the block and CPU must have gotten hot enough to reflow the Indigo; I waited for the boiling to stop, and then reconnected the pump and turned the pump and fans on using the paperclip jumper method. This cooled the system for a few minutes, and then I booted up and tested it out.

Definitely not for the faint of heart, but the material seems to work. At idle, with all case fans and pump on the lowest setting, core temps are 17-27, which seems pretty darn good to me. Under load (with just the CPU) cores are 43-50, again with all fans and pump on lowest settings.

I liquid cool mostly for noise reduction, so being able to stress my CPU while running my fans and pump at the lowest possible setting is a major win.