first time

[Grand Monkey]

After seeing Hexadragon in custom pc mag, its finally pushed me into wanting a watercooled system. i have been putting it off for ages, mainly cos i'm a newb at it and scared of putting one together. So my question is, just how difficult is it to put a watercooled system together, and just how much modding of my current case (Antec PlusView1000AMG) would i need to do to fit it all in nice and neat! thanks for any help you can give, i know its a hassle dealing with beginners!

[Pug]

Hi Grand Monkey.

Depending on your level of experience and familiarity with the innards of your PC, it's not so bad.
If you've ever swapped out heatsinks and maybe modded your case to fit larger than standard fans, you're part of the way there already.

For a basic setup, a 120mm rad is reasonably easy to accommodate in most full towers and a 240mm rad can often be persuaded into its new home (as in the case of HexaDragon) by means of a jigsaw or dremel and a drill.

You don't have to go to the extent of modding the front bezel like I did, although it often pays to cut out part of the front chassis to get the best from less-restrictive airflow. I have a 120mm rad mounted behind a single 80mm intake in my Lian-Li PC-50 (http://www.wizarddesigns.co.uk/images/allLit.jpg) for instance and it cools the CPU adequately. I'll mod it for a 120mm fan and sort out the intake restriction when I add a GPU block to that loop.

Apart from the radiator being the main concern, a res like my AquaTube can make life easy when it's top mounted (which would again, require you to cut your case) but they are also available in a twin 5.25" Bay mount (with pump bracket for mounting that out of sight) or you can use a pump mounted one, as I have in my PC-50 (partially visible through the bottom of the window cutout) if you really don't want to hack about on the first go.

Tidyness is relatively easy to achieve with a bit of careful forethought and with the narrower tubing I used, it's tight bend radius gives you a host of possible routing options (and the integral clamp mechanism means you don't need unsightly worm-drive clamps all over the place, as a lot of people use with barbed setups).

Ease of assembly isn't bad (imho). Pushfit connectors are a blessing to me, simple push the hose home a couple of cm to fit and push the release collar to detach.
http://www.wizarddesigns.co.uk/imgs/onetouchfitdiagram.gif
No messing with a screwdriver right next to circuitry or anything. Just use your fingertips.
Apart from fitting the radiator, plumbing a system used to be many peoples biggest headache. I've had nothing but praise for the approach I use, from that point of view.

Oh and it's no hassle to deal with beginners. We all started somewhere and it's good to be able to share experience where it's appreciated.
Ask away. :)

[Grand Monkey]

I'm fine with messing with heatsinks and the innards of my case. Looking at the layout of your chieftec case it looks pretty similar to my antec one. so may just remove the HDD bays as i have free 3.5" bays, hopefully freeing up room for a radiator to go there. Unfortunatly it only has two 80mm fan mounts in the front. i'd be tempted to drill a hole in the top of it to mount the res. My main concern i guess is how easy it is for me to screw up and kill my entire system with water?

[Knipex]

If you take your time and take elementry precautions its actually pretty hard.

Leak test the system for at leeast 24 hours before adding power to you components. Then give each connection a good tug and generally play with them to see if water comes out. After that its very very unlikely anything bad will happen.

You can really pull on those push fit connections and they dont leak.

Of course there are no guarantees but I wouldnt worry.

As Pug recently said in another forum. If you are so worried about water and electricity why do you use an electric shower ??

[mnpctech]

why do you use an electric shower ??

huh? must be one of those European thangs again... ^_^

[Pug]

Well my own days of 24hr leak testing are long past - I think the only time I ever did that was with my first ever setup. I've got leak-testing down to about 30 seconds (http://www.wizdforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=79) now. :)

Essentially, if all your tubing connections are good (with pipes properly connected) and your hose routing isn't putting pressure on joints or components, you should be good to go.
A leak will generally only damaged components if power is applied whilst they are wet.

A well setup system can be as safe as the electric shower that Knipex mentioned, whereby the fluid passing through the thing is isolated from contact with any electrical or electronic components.

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

As a watercooling noob who's just built there 1st watercooled PC i can put your mind at rest as to how easy it is. :)

The push fit connectors make it nice and easy and the small diameter tubing is easy to route around obstructions. Pug and the rest of the community here have always answered my queries quickly and have offered useful tips based on their past experiences.

As for your case, theres loads of room in the Plusview 1000AMG and i would be tempted to mount the radiator at the top as i beleive theres enough room above the PSU.

[Siplace]

Hi all, first post :D

I was going to post an almost identical thread so i thought I'd tag on to this one.

I've been dwelling on the thought of WC for a few weeks but I've got a nice shiny new case that I don't want to wreck.

Read the article last night in custompc mag so thought i'd have a look here.

Basically, I've got an AMD system and want to cool a bit better, plus i can't stop tinkering with my puter :p

I can't seem to decide the best place for a rad and don't want to mod the outside of the case at all for blowholes or anything. Case is an Antec P160 by the way.

I've got quite a lot of room in the 5.25 bays, the case has 4 and I'm only using the top one. I read on another forum that really the res should be at the highest point to minimise bubbles in the sytem so this means that it would be best up there and not the rad, so then I think where can I put the rad. The case has a 120mm fan at both front and back but not any room at all behind the front intake due to the 3.5" bays.

I suppose the 3.5" bays probably come out easily but then where do my 3 hard drives go ?

Could move them to the 5.25" bays but then where does the rad go ?

See what I mean?

Anyway was looking for some suggestions cos I ain't had much luck with the old google.

Hopefully someone knows this case and can give me some tips.

Was thinking on going for one of those external setups like the Corsair one but read a few bad reviews on them.

Thanks

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Hi Siplace welcome to the boards m8. ;)

The more experienced members may be able to help you more but you might be interested in looking at this thread from the bit-tech forums about putting a watercooling setup in a P160.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?...65&page=2&pp=20 (http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=49665&page=2&pp=20)

It looks like you might have to mount the radiator outside the case on the rear 120mm blow hole and either pass the tubing through a blanking plate or drill 2 holes to pass them through. Make the holes big enough to accomodate some rubber grommets and it would look tidy enough. ;)

Hope that helps a bit.

[Pug]

Hi Siplace. Welcome. :)

I'll try and take some photos of the PC-50 I just reconfigured last night later - it might give you a few ideas.
I should have taken some of it with the old setup before I stripped it because I've just changed rads, pump, res and hose, so there were a couple of different approaches I used. <_<
I'm pretty sure I had less space to work with from scratch too.


As a thought on where to mount your HDDs, maybe you could track down or fabricate something like the Lian Li lower caddy which attaches to the floor of the case - I'll post a pic of mine if you're not sure what I mean.

[Siplace]

Thanks Lads :D

I'll have a look see what I can come up with. Was thinking about having the rad outside at the back of the fan.

Can you recommend a decent rad that size and I'll give it a go

Ta

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Which components are you wanting to cool as that really dictates the size of the rad?

I'm currently cooling an Athlon XP2500+ overclocked to 3200+ speeds and a Radeon 9800 Pro on a single 120mm fan radiator. Temps are around 42 degrees under full load and a gentle purr from the computer. B)

All my components are Aquacomputer bought from Pug and its the Airplex Evo 120 (APE120) radiator i'm using.