LarryG on 18/10/2009 at 14:54

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By the by, If I wanted to stay with air cooling, from what I have read at the Asus Motherboard forum, I would need to install Thermalright IFX-14's. The attach snaps show what they look like installed on the L1N64-SLI WS board. The only problem is that they would not fit in my case! :laff: Not to mention that over time, I bet that the weight of those coolers would crack the board.:eek:

LarryG on 18/10/2009 at 18:26

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Thanks Bikerdude.

My case is a (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1123&ID=1407) Thermaltake Armor Extreme Edition, except that instead of the two channel air guides on the door, I have 2 90mm fans mounted there, and I don't have the 90mm exhast fan at the top ... there was no room for it with my Corsair HX1000W power supply (I have 7 internal hard drives).

I was planning to start with just the CPUs, since they are where I think the troubles lie. I have read that the northbridge runs extra hot on this board, but I figure if I pump the heat from the CPUs out of the case, that should cool down the ambient temp of the interior significantly.

I want to have sufficient pump/radiator capacity to address other devices later on should that become necessary. I'm so fed up with the CPU heat that I would rather be significantly over capacity than under capacity. I have read in a couple of places that with just two CPUs a 700 Watt capable system should be enough. But these CPUs are HOT. So I figure somthing on the order of 850 - 1000 Watts of cooling would be better and give me enough reserves for future expansion. What do you think?

LarryG on 18/10/2009 at 20:02

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Yes. I have cleaned up the CPUs and used fresh thermal paste everytime I try new coolers. Thanks for the thought though.

Liquid cooling has come a long way in the past few years. There are even low conductivity -- sometimes called called "non conductive" -- coolants to minimize the risk should leaks develop. But that is why I have tried everything else I could think of first to lower the CPU temps. Unfortunately, I have run out of options, as have most others using this board with those CPUs. I think liquid cooling is now a lower risk than the risk of continued random blue screens when the CPUs overheat.

dj_ivocha on 19/10/2009 at 19:46

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Fix'd

(http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/showpost.php?p=11000010&postcount=1486) Here are some pictures of my PC. I have two loops, which run like this:

Loop 1 (Black Tygon tubing): Laing DDC pump -> waterfilter -> Single radiator (front) -> GMR plexiglas flowmeter -> ASUS Fusion block (the northbridge) -> EK 8800GT -> Single radiator (back) -> D-Tek Fuzion V2 -> Thermochill PA120.3 triple radiator (top) -> XSPC 5.25" Bay reservoir -> Laing pump

Loop 2 (Orange tubing): Pump (Alphacool Eheim Station 600) -> Single radiator (bottom) -> Silentstar HD Dual HDD cooler -> pump (some day I might put a RAM block in this loop as well - not that I need it, but it's fun)

Even with two loops and fans on all radiators, I literally can't hear my PC or the HDDs running - I have to get to about 50cm from it to finally hear a very low hum of the pumps and some fans. And it could be even quieter still, as I can turn off half the fans and still maintain great temps. The fans on the triple radiator are (http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=41_68&products_id=993) Noiseblocker Multiframe S2, since they are a bit more powerful and that's my main radiator, the other three fans are (http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=41_68&products_id=994) Noiseblocker Multiframe S1. They all run at 12v because I can't be bothered to run them at 7v and they are quiet enough as it is.

As for your examples, I'd advise against that Exos all-in-one package - for that price you can get a lot better performance and quieter operation most of the time. Unless looks is really important to you, as I admit it does look pretty sweet.

I haven't heard about those CPU coolers until now and thus don't know how they perform, but I'd advise against going for an all too restrictive flow. As long as you get about 60+ liters per hour, you are good to go, especially if you won't be striving for breaking all overclocking records. Restrictive flow means that a more powerful (== noisy) pump is required. My cooler is a (http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=961) D-Tek Fuzion v2, which is barely restrictive at all, yet still ranks as one of the best performers out there, at least it did a year ago.

Also I'd rather not run any parts of the loop in parallel, except maybe blocks that cool less "important" stuff, like eventual RAM or south bridge blocks, and even then I'd advise against it).

Don't bother with "non-conducting" coolant - it will be a lot more expensive and/or will probably decrease the performance of your loop and/or will still not be entirely dielectric so you still won't be completely protected. Just choose the right fittings and make sure you fasten everything securely. Those barb fittings (with suitable hose clamps!) should do the trick. Other than that, distilled water and some anti-algae additive will be just fine.

And contrary to what TBE suggested, assemble everything IN PLACE, but connect the pump to another power supply and run the loop for a day with the PC off. Put a couple of napkins or something under all water blocks and everywhere your tubing plugs in whatever fittings. If you test everything outside the case, you risk making some mistake after you finally assemble it in the case and still frying your PC.

Oh, and unless you really want the best performance from your loop and don't care about the noise, get a radiator with low air resistance (one whose fins aren't packed too tightly), like my Thermochill, or even better, (http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=37_73&products_id=1238) this one. Not that it's much more powerful than the Thermochill, it just has standard dimensions for all mounting holes, so you can fit all kinds of fan grills and fittings on it. Rads with lower amount of fpi (fins per inch) allow you to use weaker and thus quieter fans.

Some other suggestions: Don't mix aluminum and copper in your loop! Go with all-copper blocks and stainless steel fittings to avoid corrosion. Use a filter like me, because otherwise your blocks WILL clog and you'll have to take the whole loop apart every 3-6 months for a full clean up. My PC has been running like that for 10 months now and I only took out and cleaned the filter out 2 months ago (though it was pretty clogged and my flow was pretty much nonexistant - around 30l/h and still it was enough). Get a flowmeter, preferably one with an electronic sensor to plug into a fan socket on your mainboard, so you can get some advance warning when your loop starts getting clogged. Don't get the smallest reservoir you can get - powerful pumps create vortexes in small reservoirs and increase the noise, and in extreme cases they can even get damaged if the vortexes are big enough for the pump to suck in air as well. Put your pump directly after the reservoir - other than that, it doesn't matter in what order you put everything else - blocks and rads and flowmeters etc., because the difference in water temperature is minute at best - no more than 1-2 degrees in any case.

dj_ivocha on 20/10/2009 at 10:04

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Not sure, but I read somewhere that Socket F uses the same mounting holes as S939, so if that's the case, it will work. You can ask (http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=210) D-TEK though, if you want to be sure.

Oh, one other thing - IIRC Koolance used to price their items a bit on the high side, so before you go and buy everything from there, make sure you compare the prices with a few other shops too. Unfortunately I don't know any US shops so I can't help you there.