A Watercooling DIY

I know most of you out there either dont want to get into watercooling because its too expensive or it seems too "risky"...

Watercooling, is the opposite of risky now, as its been taken through extreme measure to prevent leakage AND to prevent failure.

"Well, its still expensive" you say... no its not... not necissarily. If you purchased all the parts on your own, you would come up with a relatively cheap system!

Pumps!

NOTE : Not all pumps can just be plugged into your PSU, some may need to be plugged into an outlet! Relays can fix this, i will cover them at the end of this guide.

Eheim Pumps, can be found on most PC websites for $80+, at a fish store they have much lower prices :http://store.seacorals.net/ehcewapu.html

The 263 GPH pump is PERFECT and only costs $29.99.. Its dimensions are tiny so it will fit perfectly in your case!

Likewise, another brand that has a nice high amount of GPH would be fine, just as long as its not something overly excessive around the 200-270GPH mark should be good.

Water blocks, GPU, and chipset waterblocks!

Ok, I know what your thinking... "These have to be expensive" Not anymore! Now you can make your own with tools that you have laying around in your garage!

You'll want to buy a block of copper (not too big) make sure you get the reight dimensions before buying. It should look like this when bought!(sorry for bad quality)


Now take the thin peice of copper and braze it to the waterblock. You may not know what brazing is... So just in case, when you braze, you take a torch, a hand held one... and a metal, (kind of like solder) and basically "solder"/"braze" the two peices together. If you don't own a torch, try to find a friend who has one, as this is the safest method for finishing your water block. Now after they are brazed together you can cut the excess off and polish or sand or whatever you'd like to do to get a nice good looking finish (if you want a good looking finish).
This is what it should be looking like when your done! I like the Maze 2 for an example! If your making a regular waterblock, you dont need the seperate peice of copper below unless you plan on using a peltier. The 2 plastic looking pieces with springs are for what you use with a Northbridge and GPU waterblock.

Now the fun part! LAPPING!!!! Now this is VERY IMPORTANT! So you can get the BEST thermal transfer qualities out of YOUR homemade waterblock. Basically your going to take some sandpaper, appx. 600 grit sandpaper, sanding WET AND DRY, until you are satisfied with what you come up with. It should be about as smooth as this, since you will be using arctic silver 5 or another thermal grease, it doesn't have to be perfect!


To fasten the waterblock to your motherboard, you will need to make a mount out of acrylic and put it ontop of your waterblock and screwing it down to the motherboard. NOTE : Since there are many different types of motherboards i wont post pictures, You will have to design one and cut to YOUR motherboards needs!
The above guidelines can be used for your CPU waterblock, GPU waterblock, or chipset, or whatever you feel like watercooling!

Reservoirs!

You can make your own, simply by cutting sheets of acrylic to size, drilling the right sized holes in them (for fittings and mounting, if you want it mounted) and then use WATERPROOF sealant to seal the edges together. There is a picture of one located on the back of the comp. in the Plugging it in! section.

Fittings!


Now these can be picked up at your local hardware store.. in the plumbing section. You can choose whatever size fittings you'd like but I would recommend 1/2in. You'll put these in your waterblock(s) inlet and outlet holes, BE SURE TO PUT TEFLON TAPE AROUND THE THREADS! You can also use a sealer instead... This is an example of one, you will screw one end in (with teflon tape on it or some type of sealer!) and slip your tubing over the other end, using sealer around the edges of course if you want extra protection!

Tubing!

You can buy silicone tubing at your hardware store also, but make sure it fits your fittings... You dont want a big mess... Or do you...? You dont ... Which is important! Certain types also have different thermal properties and some even add UV colors! I hope all of you know what tubing is, so i dont have to draw you a picture! You dont need to waste your money on "tubing cutters" which cost about $10, you can just use some scissors!

Radiators!

Now, a radiator is EXTREMELY important!!! The water runs through it and gets cooled by a fan(s) mounted to it. A radiator can be purchased from a website such as http://www.dangerdenstore.com/home.php?cat=5 . They very in price from radiator to radiator. Also, you CAN goto a local junkward/pick-a-part and find a radiator OR a heater core. Be careful to make sure you find one that has the RIGHT fitting sizes for you! If you find a dirty one, thats great! Use some solvent to clean it and put a thin coat of spray paint on if you want to. OR if you find a damaged one, you can use a screwdriver to straighten out the little fins and then clean it and spray paint it! Although I would recommend purchasing one. Also, be sure that the radiator you find at the junkyard is the right dimensions! http://www.dangerdenstore.com/home.php?cat=5 has them by fan size! A rad. will HOPEFULLY look like this, if you haven't alrady seen one!


Plugging it in!

So, once you've got your whole homemade watercooling setup assembled, be SURE to leaktest it first... So Leave your computer on with the watercooling setup OUT of your case, if its a submerged unit, put it in a bowl of water, if not, use a bowl of water as your reservoir. Likewise, if you DON'T plug the pump into the computer, just plug it into an outlet and let it run for a day or two and then check for leaks. If there are no leaks then you can install it into your system OR you can leak test for a longer amount of time. Please be careful to put arctic silver 5 or thermal paste/grease onto the bottom of the waterblock(s) before installing for BEST thermal transfer! Here is a reference picture as to what it might look like. Yours maybe cleaner, messier, no UV... whatever YOU want.


Also, here's a pic of what I did with my pump during a leak test.


Relays!

A relay will allow your watercooling setup to power on WITH your PC instead of your having to do it yourself BEFORE the computer turns on... Which can be VERY handy, if you forget to turn your watercooler on first one day, you don't fry your CPU, it powers on with the system! Yay safety!

A relay can be purchased HERE for $20...

The Final Step(s)!

Enjoy your new watercooling rig, and show off to everyone! You've earned bragging rights to say "I built it myself"! Have fun!

ACE256's guide on overclocking, In the Overclocking Forum will also allow you to have a fast, stable and COOL computer!

A complete kit from a manufacturer like www.thermaltake.com, www.coolermaster.com, www.swiftnets.com, www.zalmanusa.com and others CAN be purchased anywhere from $80-$400+ USD!!! by no means do I WANT you to attempt this if you DON'T feel confident!!!

Please be weary these are only guidelines, you CAN follow these exact instructions to build your own however, I am not reliable or responsible if you bust/break/damage/destroy/maul/destroy(did i say this twice?)/get in a fight with your computer!!!

 

Nice thread sleepygamer213. I used the hoses and the heater core out of a old ford I found in a junkyard and made a water block out of a old heat sink. I just sealed off the heatsink on all sides and used a pump out of a water fountain. It diden't cool things off better then my SLK900 but it did work and it was free ...

 

Hi, this is a very nice thread, unfortunately, i have some questions and suggestions. like for me a pc builder and experimentalist. i just wanted to ask you if you could post here a listing of the tools and equipments we would basically need to create this water cooled system. it could help a lot men. thanks in advance. nice thread 4 globes dude.

 

Just my 2c here, my first build was a water cooled pc, at this point in time im thinking why? but regardless, it took me a whooping 3 days to build, this is where I learned my lesson on reading manuals.

I recommend at least a couple of years building / taking apart pc's as some basic backdrop knowledge. Do 1-2 months research how it all goes together, the pro's in cons, maintance and upkeep. My setup lasted a good while with my xp 2000, sadly its thick core never allowed me to OC beyond 200mhz which sucked.

One day i noticed a few dropps of water near the resevoir I thought musta been a leak when I had to flip upside down the pc case to fit more cooling into the system.

A Month later there was rather an alarming puddle on the bottom of my pc, not sure how I was not zapped. I went to wipe it down and realized water was ALSO on my mobo, and was constantly leaking from the fittings, tryed to replace/readjust and nothing really worked. Nothing was fried thankfully but thats the end of my adventure with watercooling.

I figure(now) for what I do with my pc, high end air cooling, efficient cabling, and proper airflow, there's no reason for me to go that extreme with my pockets or otherwise.

 

Tools, basically what you have around your house will do. Im not a big believer in going out to buy a tool and only using it once or twice.

 

I just built my first computer,then put a bigwater se in it no problems cooled cpu great.Then decided to ad a block on my 7800tx,so took it all apart put graphics thermaltake vga block on,worked great,lowered temps 10c on both.Then found a danger den maze4 a8n chipset block(fits with 2 graphics cards)but it had fittings for 1/2 tubing,i was using 1/4.I decided to use some adapters that came with vga and cpu block 3/8 and 1/2 fittings.The 1/2 tubing i bought from micro center was to thick walled for the fittings so i found some 3/8 and 1/2 tubing from lowes that worked with fittings,i suggest a more flexible tubing as this was wanting kink until i got it perfect lenth.I kept 1/4 tubing on the pump and water tank and 1 side of radiator(until i figure out how or if i can change the pump and tank adapters to 3/8 or 1/2)the rest were 3/8 and 1/2 fittings and tubing.In trying to remove a kink i unknowingly loosened the maze 4 fitting(trying to twist tubing on fitting while installed ,is a no no i found lol,it was not even clamped yet but super tight on fitting)back all apart.Did the fix back all together,cpu block had a leak lol.back apart and find out it was the plastic block and copper block screws were loose,glad i caught it when i did,it was not a place i would have exspexcted.after this i took all blocks apart and used plumbers silicon between plastic and copper blocks and on all the threads of all the fittings and tightend up all th blocks good.I also got a thermaltake flow indicator,only for the fittings(because i dremmeled 2 of the other 1/2 bigger to try and use the fat tubing i bought by mistake with them to no avail)i used the flow indicator and it gave me better tubing routing options too.Well its been running good now for 2 weeks,but whew for my first time i was thrown some curves,but im glad cause now i feel like its easy,took me an allnighter,mostly pondering 1/2 to 3/8 to 1/4 where what when lol.Now i want to make it all 1/2 or 3/8 and replace the drive bay tank with maby a fill port and a thermaltake liquid level indicator,think that would be ok?Right now my cpu is 11c but i have a vent i made sucking in cold ,bored agian lol.My chipset if it is system is 19c it is allways 5-8c hotter,my graphics card temp only shows as low as 31c so im unsure of it,although i have a temp sensor just sitting in a heatsink on the vga it says 57f hard drive says 49f.Whew sry for the long post,i needed to vent lol

 

Hey,i also have the bigwater se setup,heres something that you may want to consider,as it helped me cool my GPU down 10 more degrees..In the manual that came with the GPU waterblock from TT it says to rout it from the cpu to the gpu then to the Radiator(wich i have on the outside of my case)..Well,i figured my HOT prescott would be transfering hot/warm water to the GPU then to the radiator to get cooled,wich didnt make sence to me,so i purchased another pump sence the one that comes with the BWSE is crap,and split the lines from the resivoir to each pump and one pump pumps water to the cpu and the 2nd PUMP took care of the GPU,and then the out lines from the CPU and GPU blocks connected back together at the radiator with a T pressure fitting then back to the resi..(its a vicious cycle,but its what we do when were bored) i also cut the side of my case and added a fan with a duct to the back side of the radiator,i havnt went to the bigger tubeing yet sence i have my 3ghz P4 at 3.8ghz anf i dont even break 53c with a load at 1.55v(vcore) So that was my project and it worked feel free to ask questions if u are considering doing this..

 

Tools, well, heres some basic stuff that'll get the job done...

A pair of scissors, for cutting tubing
A wrench (depending on what fittings you buy)
Your fingers
A screwdriver

And Sealant (if you want to call that a tool)

Also, depending on the parts you use, it may not work like a supercooler, but hey, you still have bragging rights saying your PC is watercooled.

 

I recently saw in one of the trade rags that prior to mounting the CPU H2O block that they polished the top of the CPU (AMD). Has anyone previously heard of this and if so, what is the proper media to use??? Wet and dry million grit sandpaper, Jewelers rouge, .........????????????

 

Re: A Watercooling DIY-SleepyGamer123

SG123, Based on the comments in your dissertation regarding "lapping" I assume that you agree that the top heat spreader on the newer CPU's should in fact be "lapped". I see that you used 600 grit and that must have given you the surface that provided good solid heat transfer from the CPU to the water block. I have always used AMD's because my wallet wasn't thick enough for a comparable Intel. My assumpition is that if I polish the top of the CPU until the identification alpha-numerics have disappeared that I have done as much as I can, and as much as I should. Would you agree with my assumptions, and is there anything you can add?

 

Re: A Watercooling DIY-SleepyGamer123

For lapping the top of the processor, It'd be pretty risky business. I personally don't have the extra cash to go about and try it. Although I DO NOT believe it would be practical to try to lap a processor such as an athlon XP or the likes, due to the fact it does not have a large flat metal surface for you to work with. There really is no way to tell how much is too much and you may end up with a busted cpu. Something such as a Athlon 64 would be a bit more practical, however the ONLY thing that I would do to the processor would be to polish it using some mag polish or something like that, and CAREFULLY clean it off with some rubbing alcohol. With lapping you don't know how much you are going to have to sand to make it all smooth again.

As for lapping till your alpha numerics are gone, in theory it would work, but then once they are gone, you would need to lap AGAIN to make it smoother. The only way to be fairly accurate in your lapping would be to lap so the alpha numerics begin to disappear, then proceed to lap it with a finer grit sandpaper, and once its gone polish with mag polish or something like it, and clean the residue off carefully with rubbing alcohol. Although, you have to lap the surface PERFECTLY flat, or else you would just hurt your end result (this is a pain, even laying sandpaper on the ground and rubbing something against it isn't a flat sanding job).

 

Sleepy, I keep wondering about this whole business of lapping, and the point that you bring up regarding a "perfectly flat" surface is what has kept me wondering. I don't have a mill or a milled surface just laying around the house. Consequently, the idea of a flat surface to use as a means to actually lap any surface is in question. I do have a Scandanavian made, 3" thick workbench surface for the making of fine furniture, however, the numbers we're talking about (microns) are, in my belief, unacheiveable without a finely milled and ground surface to start off with.

All of this makes me question the validity of the article from OverclockersClub: http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/heatsinklappingguide.php. They show an impressive mirror finish in the end, however, the mirror does not necessarily mean the surface is flat. In addition there aren't any comparitive results, although within these threads there have been some figures quoted. I have no doubt in my mind that if you are able to get 2 flat sufaces that the heat transfer is going to better. Basic thermodynamics, but using a countertop, as quoted, seems a bit fishy.

My conclusion is the same as yours. I'm going to use the best rubbing compounds I can get my hands on, but, in the end I won't be altering the flatness of any piece I choose to "lap".

If there are other folks out there with experience in this area I sure would like to hear from them!!!! Thanks Again, BTW the system I'm building is:

Asus A8N-SLI
AMD FX-57
Thermaltake Volcano 405 w/side fan
BFG 8800GTS (not SLI)
Thermaltake Aquarious III
4 Gig Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200/DDR 400
2 150 Gig Raptors RAID 0
300 Gig Seagate
2 Liteon 20X Super All Writes
& Just Picked up the Behemoth Thermaltake Mozart Tx that looks like a water cooler

 

"unacheiveable without a finely milled and ground surface to start off with."

I start with sandpaper on my bench - it is reasonably flat and has no nicks or dents in it. Light does not show through when the bench is checked at multiple angles with a straight edge and flashlight (shine the light on the back of the straight edge and look at the "gap").
Then I use a piece of glass for my final lapping. If the reflection is true at a few angles the glass is good enough to lap a CPU "flat".

 

Jamesbarnes - extremely experienced - how do you check flatness?
I posted a common method for comparing a known true surface (straight edge) by using a light behind it. Doing this at multiple angles on a surface gets you within about .002". Be sure it is clean and use sandpaper of progressively finer grit on this surface. If you then the lap on glass to finish up. Your CPU will be plenty close for Arctic Silver to be effective.
If you have a better method, please post it.

 

Can you quantify the amount of light and convert it to a decimal figure, please?
How much is "about .002"? At best that leaves .001 fudgeroom........ in my business, that is way too much - as I stated, I spoke as a mechanic - and 30+ years as a topflight engine builder/diagnostician with NHRA credentials makes me extremely experienced.
Agreed is close enough for Arctic Silver, but the issue was precision of and quantifiable measurement.
I wouldn't ask that anybody go out and buy the tooling I have for precision measurement - it just wouldn't be practical for your purposes here. A genuine machinist's straightedge, milling block, and feeler guages would be a start, though, and only about a $350USD investment (if it just HAS to be right).

 

Oops... sorry - forgot F.A.A. credentials as A.&P.