One of my earliest watercooling articles.... excuse the specs :D

Water cooling the Dodgy way.

Well after 6 months of messing around, i finally have my water cooling working
the way i want it to. I am now at MARK 5.

This article will explain the various versions, they destroyed 3 motherboards
1 geforce 256 video card and a network card, and nearly a CPU before i managed to
get it perfect.


BASIC SYSTEM
I am using a conventional water cooling system similar to one in a car.
The cpu is the heat source.There is a pump, a jacket, and a radiator.
I have it set up so that the hot water coming from the CPU water jacket goes
throught the submersible pump and then goes to the radiator which cools the
water, and sends it straight back to the CPU water jacket.

The water jacket is what i have had the most problems with. Making one that
wont leak, and is efficient is harder then it looks. I started this whole
project with the intent to spend the LEAST amount as possible on parts.
In the end, i spent about 30 dollars on piping, 10 dollars on sealant
and 24 dollars on the pump. oh, and about 2 bucks on the pump container.
After extensive researching on the internet, and after my own stubborness
i decided to make a jacket myself. It ended up more difficult then i imagined.

MARK 1
This was a basic block of aluminium with some holes drilled in it. It wasn't
very good at all. in fact it was so bad i didnt use it. Here is a pic:


It looks pretty junky cos its got old glue and muck on it. What surprises me is
that a lot of commercially available water blocks or watersinks are biult the
same way, and i find them to be pretty useless. The water to aluminium ratio is
pretty low. This jacket was relegated to the junk heap.

MARK 2
This one was the first one i put on a CPU. It didn't leak (the first time), and it
gave me the fever, and the results that i wanted from watercooling. At this time it was
just a P3 450, and as soon as i watercooled it, i was able to push it to 585 mhz.
It was the first time i discovered that a lot of glues DONT adhere to metal very well.
It was constructed out of an old 486 heatsink. i used two strips of plastic to seal the
edges, and a plastic plate to seal the top. I used superglue to hold it all together
barely! here is the pic of the heatsink.


It looks junky as well, for the same reason. You will notice a hole in the side.
thats where i glued the pipes in. The next pic shows the detail of the holes.
I drilled them with a 5 mm bit first all the way to the other side (bar one vane)
And then drilled them with a 10 mm bit to just over half way. This hole profiling
makes the water tend to flow the most through the centre of the heatsink.
It worked very well in THAT respect. The biggest problem i had with this heatsink
is that the base was too thin, the core of the chip would only heat a small area
and because of the base being that thin, the heat wouldn't spread properly and biuld
up just over the core. Here is a pic of the hole profiling. This heatsink would be
excellent to cool a peltier device.


Apart from the heat biuldup problem, this thing leaked, the glue would not stick to
the anodised aluminium, under pressure from the pump would slowly lift the glue
from the metal.

MARK 3
This one was biult along the same lines as MARK 2. I used a different heatsink, instead of a
finned heatsink i used a pinned one, specificaly, the heatsink that came on the i486 dx4 100
cpus. I glued the plastic strips to it with superglue, and it worked a bit better then MARK 2
did due to the fact that it was pinned, and the base was thicker. After lapping and polishing
this one lasted me the longest so far. I actually made two, one for the cpu and one for the
geforce GPU. I have got a the still assembled geforce watersink here, and i will pull
it apart to show the relative bits.


This one didn't work too bad at all, the biggest problem came down to the relatively small
contact area between the strips and the base of the heatsink. MARK 3 is the one responsible for
2 motherboards and the geforce and network card. Mark 3 was still installed when i moved from
brisbane to darwin. Much to my disgust, the movers had dropped my computer, and bent the case.
This shock also seemed to have cracked the watersink glue seals, but only minutely. ( i didn't know it yet)
I reinstated the computer system and water cooling, and all went well for a couple of days.
However, soon i was noticing some odd problems with the computer, strange BSODs and the like,
and no matter what i did, the problems remained. I ended up pulling the system apart and finding
water depostied gunk on the p3 450. I assumed at this point of time that i had spilled water on
it during the filling process. I cleaned and put it all back together again, and the problems
remained. To cut a long story short, the p3 450 is a slot 1 processor. What had happened is
that the water system was totally sealed, and when running the water had expanded slightly,
putting pressure on the watersink seals. It had leaked and dripped down the slot 1 card,
and straight into the slot 1 connector on the motherboard causing corrosion there.
The 2nd problem came from the pump being shut off (my own fault). The water in the watersink
had heated a lot, and the metal heatsink had expanded more then the plastic did, creating a
large leak. I did not see this at the time, but coming back 4 hours latur to find my computer
shut down made me curious as to WHY it had shutdown, cos the power had not gone out. (clocks)
I opened the case to find water had dripped from the slot 1, straight through the core of the
geforce, and then onto the network card beneath it. The resulting short circuits shut the
computer down. In one hit, i had lost my vid card, my network card, my motherboard, and
i thought also my CPU. I got myself a new vid card (asus v7700) and a new mboard (Asus CUV4x)
and a CCO celeron2 600. This is my current system.
I jumped up and down on the CPU watersink. thats why i only had the geforce one. ;)
The cpu was found to be perfect (just needed a clean), in another motherboard. I dont
think its possible to kill that katmai. it was indestructible.
So with my new system , i lowered myself to a clone golden orb for a week, and sitting at
805 mhz. It annoyed me no end. So along came mark 4 and 5.

MARK 4
I couldn't resist myself. i had water cooling fever. The CCO just BEGGED me to have a go.
I saw the golden gigaherts on the horizon. i was unstoppable. stupid maybe also.
Mark 4 saw me get a small heatsink, and physically GLUE it to the CPU itself. I then got a
60ml syringe and cut the end of. I then glued that end onto the actual CPU base. the green bit.
It worked not to badly at all. But not good enough. Here is a pic of that one.
Sorry no real pics i lost em.

This was the system design at the time.

I found that the heatsink wasnt big enough. At 945 mhz, the celeron just put out too much heat
and it got too hot. I had to run it at 900, which annoyed me. a bit. ok. a LOT.

MARK 5
The final chapter (i hope so). I returned back to the pinned heatsink, however this one was out
of a 10 year old thermal wax printer. It was the heatsink on the main system processor.
It was an AMD processor too.. hahah. I discovered much to my delight the the pins were exactly
the same distance apart as the thickness of my favourite plastic strips. I proceeded to biuld
myself a new watersink. This time i have pics of all the steps and stuff.

The heatsink by itself.

Its hard to see, but i cut out 4 pins right in the centre. It allowed me to put the intake hose
closer to the actual heatsink surface.

The plastic shell i made using the heatsink as a guide.
I put the strips in and sized them to fit, then put the top lid on with superglue. I didn't let
any glue touch the heatsink surface, so after half an hour curing time, i could pull the shell of
and finish glueing the insides. thats how i got the pics.

The heatsink together with the shell and the clamp i made out of sheet aluminium. The clamp
rests on the centre intake pipe with a small section of larger diameter pipe holding the clamp
just above the top lid. This gives it central force when i want to screw it onto the socket 370.
The clamp screws are just 40 mm M2 screws from Dick Smith. The nuts where solderable, so i made
two loops out of copper wire and soldered them to the nuts. The loops clamp onto the socket 370
offset lugs. They are bigger and stronger then the central ones.

You can also see the proliferation of pipes. i will explain those in a sec. Of course.... more pics.

That is a cut away view.

Ok you might be wondering about those pipes. Ok, the heatsink has water going into the middle, and
spreading out to the sides. this means the COLDEST water goes straight to the heatsink directly
over the core. The water then disperses to the sides. I thought about it for a sec, and realised
that the water would pool with only one outlet. Hot spots would form at the opposite side of the
outlet tube. So i decided to put 3 in. 1 largish inlet pipe and 3 outlets. This means that the water
wont pool and also means that no air bubbles will form. The water spreads out and disperses properly
to most of the heatsink and is then taken away to be cooled.

Here is a pic of the 3 into 1 pipe system. Like a set of extractors. for what i dont know. haha
I used silicone sealant to keep those sealed and in there. The green pipe is oxygen tubing from
the last time i was in hospital. btw, there is 3 there. 1 is hiding.

UPDATE!!!
That particular piece of piping has been deemed JUNK, due to the fact that it started to leak
into my NEW video card. Now that video card cost me 500 bucks, so i would have preferred it
NOT to leak. I have replaced it with THIS....

WATER SYSTEM DETAILS
COOLANT:
Tap water with SERIES 500 Corrosion and Rust Retardant Fluid.
There is appoximately 1 litre of water in my whole system and it has about 100 mls
of that fluid. it gives the green but clear tint to the water as you can see in the
above pic.



RADIATOR:
The radiator i am using is a modified heater core out of a landrover. It works pretty sweet.


PUMP:
I have used a aquarium pump, only a small one, but enough. I cant remember the GPH, but it
was the smallest pump in the store. Here is a pic of it in the resorvoir. The resorvoir is
just a small sealed container. The pump runs of 240 volts, i had to cut the cable to get it
through the lid. I am designing a control system to automaticily shut the computer off
if the pump fails.
Here is the pic of the pump, and the control unit (not finished).


Here are two rough system shots. ROUGH.

And thats about it!
After some more system mods, IE, playing with the clamping system etc, its now working very nicely.
I am at 925 mhz now, at 1.8 volts. The cpu temperature under full load (rc5) is 37 degrees C.
the ambient temperature at the moment is 30 degrees C. The best i have seen yet is that 37 degrees.
I can only improve this particular system (MARK 5) in two more ways. One is to use arctic silver thermal
compound. Its only got normal white gunk at the moment. And two, is to use the aforementioned arctic
silver with a copper heat spreader plate. I reckon this will get me down another 3 degrees.

27 December 2000.
l8ur!

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