The setup is (basically) complete!

[HDNitehawk]

They do. It uses "iWater", which is like regular water except twice as expensive and it comes in a baby bottle. They also use it to make the Kool-Aid. I'm sure it's better for you than Microsoft Water Pro 2011 Starter Edition, which is actually industrial sewage masked by thick sugar syrup. Personally, I prefer GNU/Water 3.0, which provides the ultimate in purified dihydrogen monoxide (a very dangerous chemical; look it up), the only downside is that you have to spend weeks building the contraption from scratch with the free blueprints.

Hmm....I may stick with tap water.


[View:http://www.iwater.org/]

Aside from the obvious (protection, portability), there can be several reasons. For me, it's mostly a matter of noise. I buy sound-dampening cases (Antec) that go a long ways to lower the decibels of my water cooler fan and raid array. Lower noise helps my sanity as well as audio/video post-production.


Another issue is cooling: in a still room, the convection alone (and/or turbulence from nearby component-specific fans) may not provide sufficient cooling for components that lack their own cooling fan. In a case, the power supply fan and case fans generally ensure sufficient air flow and turbulence over such parts (e.g. south bridge, video card, hard drives, etc.).

Back in the day (1985 to be exact), I had a business acquaintance that had a rental shop for construction equipment. He spent piles of cash for a computer for his little shop and had to build a special room for the computerto keep it air cooled. With Dr's method he could keep the garage at a chilly 68 degrees and be ok I think, plus being surrounded by computer equipment your room becomes the computer box.


I really like his system, but last week itwas 110-112 degrees where I live, I am not sure I could afford the air conditioning in my uninsulated garage to build a system like his.

[neuroanatomist]

Daniel, take another look at those speakers - somehow, I don

[Daniel Browning]

Daniel, take another look at those speakers - somehow, I don't think a little fan noise would be an issue.

That's for sure. You know that TV Dr Crubie has was a LED flat-panel when he bought it, but then he turned up his sound system so loud that the TV was blasted back into the 80's.

[Raid]

Dr, I love your new setup but if you are serious about cooling shouldn

[Dr Croubie]

Ha, no iWater, just Ethylene Glycol.


In my last job i
(re)designed a watercooler for a 50/100kW electric car charger. DC
converters put out 4/8kW of heat (1/2 modules). We installed them in
places like Norway and central Germany, so had to use Ethylene Glycol at
up to 40% (freeze point ~ -30C or so). But its thermal transfer ability
is less than pure water (maybe 5% or so), so when we installed them in
warmer places (like Istanbul, or the test setup in the office i'll
attach a pic below) we only used 10% Glycol to get the heat transfer
more efficient.


But we didn't use any fancy coolant stuff, we just
went to the hardware shop and bough 20 bottles of no-name brand car
radiator fluid. If it's good enough for a 100kW that probably costs more than $1/W, it's fine for me []


[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/800x0/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/24/1616.IMG_5F00_0446cs.JPG[/img]


.


As for the box, I might resurrect the box I originaly
bought for my Pentium2, it's still in one (near enough) piece. But like I
said, the side panel of the case doesn't fit on properly, especially
with the water tubes, so no proper air movement. Found a pic of my last setup (shortly before demolition), with the greenish glycol coolant i had to throw out last time. You can also see the relay i put in line with the 240V for the pump, to two wires plugged into a fan-header on the motherboard, so the pump switches on when the PC starts.


[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/600x0/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/24/3364.IMG_5F00_0829s.JPG[/img]


.


I hate to think
what it's going to be like in summer, we get up to 47C here in Adelaide
too in summer. And my garage has no cooling, it was designed as a
garage, single brick walls, half insulated tiled roof, west-facing
windows, and a fan. I hope i've bought my new house by then. Damn, the
monitor puts out some heat too, 120W on normal brightness, i can feel it on
my face within 1' away... yeouch