Author Topic: Sick of watercooling...  (Read 4705 times)

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Offline bd139

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2022, 09:25:27 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2022, 11:33:00 pm »
the fan can be "adjusted" up by shifting the clips 1 or 2 fins up away from RAM. and the orientation can be rotated so fan on top blowing down vice versa or from left blowing to the RAM, depending on your motherboard populations and suitability. another thing about watercool is components on vicinity of cpu usually the hot smps' wont get airflow if heatsink is far away or on the outside, requiring extra casing fan to airflow the motherboard/bridge/gpu/smps. so the bundled intel cpu fan (blowing right to the cpu/motherboard direction) is still much preferable for me imho. the next option is that vertical fan setup, if the bundled fan is not enough anymore for the "upgraded cpu", and the last option is watercool. for me watercool is only reasonable if you cannot fit air cool system into the given space.
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline SiliconWizardTopic starter

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #27 on: June 18, 2022, 06:07:55 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun. Yes, some RAM sticks have ridiculously tall heat spreaders, but I'm not even talking about those. If you look at the pictures/look at the dimensions/and have ever mounted any PC, you'll figure out that the available height for RAM sticks with most of those huge ventirads is ridiculously low.

Of course the above won't matter whatsoever to people using only laptops.

I've found this Be Quiet top-flow model, which sits mich higher above the CPU and would fit much more easily: https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1074
that might be an option. There's no miracle though, and it's not nearly as effective as the bigger ones.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #28 on: June 18, 2022, 07:05:11 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun.
Just buy a professional workstation from Dell or HP an be done with it. These have dedicated ducting to get airflow where it matters and that makes these machines super quiet and reliable. I have left the consumer grade crap behind me a long time ago.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #29 on: June 18, 2022, 07:05:54 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun.
Just buy a professional workstation from Dell or HP an be done with it. These have dedicated ducting that makes these machines super quiet and reliable. I have left the consumer grade crap behind me a long time ago.

I had a Z6 here for a bit.

Nope!
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #30 on: June 18, 2022, 07:29:25 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun.
Just buy a professional workstation from Dell or HP an be done with it. These have dedicated ducting that makes these machines super quiet and reliable. I have left the consumer grade crap behind me a long time ago.

I had a Z6 here for a bit.

Nope!
Indeed. That is not a real workstation. Just blowing air into a case isn't going to work well. Look at the Dell Precision 5800 series; this has air ducts. HP (Compaq) should have similar solutions or they may have dropped air ducting.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2022, 07:38:17 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online wraper

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #31 on: June 18, 2022, 07:52:12 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun.
Just buy a professional workstation from Dell or HP an be done with it. These have dedicated ducting that makes these machines super quiet and reliable. I have left the consumer grade crap behind me a long time ago.

I had a Z6 here for a bit.

Nope!
This ducting and stuff is not less noisy or cooler that a decent case of a somewhat larger size and several 120mm case fans installed (running at low speed). CPU cooler in such PC is guaranteed to be worse than a good cooler in custom PC. Also this ducting is pretty much useless if you install a decent GPU. Of course you can use a blower type GPU which throws air out of the case, but it's an opposite of being quiet. Basically the only advantage is you can get a computer with decent cooling in smaller case and with lower number of fans. But under high load conditions, it certainly won't be able to compete with a good custom PC on temperature and noise.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #32 on: June 18, 2022, 08:09:37 pm »
Utter nonsense. I can kick the crap out of my Dell T5810 and it stays quiet at full load (with the CPU temperature well within safe limits). I guess you never really looked at proper workstations. The key really is air ducting; without that a CPU cooler is just recirculating it's own hot air making it extremely ineffective.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2022, 08:11:47 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #33 on: June 18, 2022, 08:12:11 pm »
I did like the performance compared to air cooling, and the fact they would take up a lot less space on the motherboard itself.

you need to have a regular look at the installation. Even when it doesn't leak, air bubbles are also always possible at some point and can be a major annoyance (from noise, decreased cooling performance, to the pump failing.) All in all, they work great when they work, but they are just too much maintenance for my taste now.

I had a water cooled pump and radiator in an Alienware case that was given to me. I had it opened on my workbench so I can plug stuff in there so it was convenient at the time where I can look out for leaks.

Three years later I started to hear bubbles a lot. I thought well the next change I do I'll replace it with a CNPS-9700 cooler that I got second hand in a job lot on Ebay which I am still using today. I have a few of them and fittings to fit newer boards at the time. The problem I find with them is that they can a bit too big for certain boards where it is round and sticks out so it can touch boards if the PCI slot is too near to it so I have rotate the heatsink around which reduces airflow where the card is in the way of the fan.

I put the watercooler stuff in a plastic box and a couple of months after that started to leak all over the rubber pipe. Maybe the seals were breaking up allowing the air to get in and I was pleased I stopped using it in time.
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #34 on: June 18, 2022, 08:47:26 pm »
I guess you never really looked at proper workstations.
i suspect he has or own one because he mentioned exactly what i experienced on my Z800 workstation. installed a RX470 graphics, and i have to bore a hole on the second ducting below where it clashes with the card. upgraded further to RX580, i have to remove it altogether. the Z800 weigh like a cruiser's anchor and i find it for no practical reason other than putting my life in misery. imho the ducting and extra metal is just a marketing mechanical stunt. i'm doing fine with open area no duct custom PC for decades, i dont even need casing fan all this while, just a CPU fan everything works fine. upgrading them is a breeze too, i'm not sure what went wrong with your experience with custom PC. i upgraded the RAM and CPUs for my Z800 and now the Mobo reporting underpowered fans during every boot, good it has detection mechanism, but i have to put more work and google at modding the fan to get rid of the warning, because suitable upgraded fans for the cpu "used price" is unreasonable in ebay.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2022, 08:51:25 pm by Mechatrommer »
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Online wraper

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #35 on: June 18, 2022, 08:49:13 pm »
Utter nonsense. I can kick the crap out of my Dell T5810 and it stays quiet at full load (with the CPU temperature well within safe limits). I guess you never really looked at proper workstations. The key really is air ducting; without that a CPU cooler is just recirculating it's own hot air making it extremely ineffective.
My PC also stays quiet and cool enough with no ducts. If you assemble properly ia a good case, no hot air stays in the case for long. Once it's out of CPU cooler most of it gets blown out by case cooler which is behind it.
Quote
with the CPU temperature well within safe limits
Actual numbers is something that can be compared. I found this post about T5810: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/are-these-temps-high-dell-precision-tower-t5810.3414169/
Where the guy gets up to 176oF (80oC) CPU temp while gaming, which is not some very heavy load. And it's for a 6 core CPU which AFAIK actually has soldered lid unlike Intel desktop parts of that time with thermal goop. It's a not a good result to be frank.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2022, 08:54:49 pm by wraper »
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #36 on: June 18, 2022, 08:57:15 pm »
it is imperative that you have cpu with built-in temperature monitoring and auto shutdown, i think newer cpus all have that feature, most of my older cpu's here dont. with temp monitoring i guess you dont have to worry about cooler malfunction, your PC will tell you when its time to change (when it shutdown).
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #37 on: June 18, 2022, 09:40:58 pm »
Buy RAM without stupid head spreaders and problem solved  :-DD

You buy what's available meeting your requirements. I have 64GB of RAM on this computer in 4x16GB sticks, They by no means have huge heat spreaders, and yet most of those ventirads won't fit unless you butcher them completely, which I don't particulary find fun.
Just buy a professional workstation from Dell or HP an be done with it. These have dedicated ducting that makes these machines super quiet and reliable. I have left the consumer grade crap behind me a long time ago.

I had a Z6 here for a bit.

Nope!
Indeed. That is not a real workstation. Just blowing air into a case isn't going to work well. Look at the Dell Precision 5800 series; this has air ducts. HP (Compaq) should have similar solutions or they may have dropped air ducting.

So does the Z6. They take it off for all the photos.

My Ryzen 3700X with Be Quiet Cooler, power supply and 3x 120mm fans was virtually inaudible when running flat out. The Z6 was louder idling.

But screw that, the mac mini was faster and the whole box used 22 watts and didn't make a noise :-DD
« Last Edit: June 18, 2022, 09:44:21 pm by bd139 »
 

Offline KaneTW

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #38 on: June 18, 2022, 10:00:47 pm »
I've never seen a pro workstation that had satisfactory noise performance under load.

Quick google for a comparative system to mine:
https://hothardware.com/reviews/lenovo-thinkstation-p620-review?page=3

60 dBa is unacceptable.
 
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Offline amyk

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #39 on: June 19, 2022, 12:18:08 am »
I wonder if the OP's experience is just due to the quality (or lack thereof) of most PC watercooling kit. Where are the leaks happening? MTBF should be in the decades, not weeks or months.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #40 on: June 19, 2022, 05:22:45 am »
I wonder if the OP's experience is just due to the quality (or lack thereof) of most PC watercooling kit. Where are the leaks happening? MTBF should be in the decades, not weeks or months.
I think a lot of it has to do with watercooling hardware reinventing the wheel regarding the fittings used, they should just use the same kind of PEX tubing and fittings used in building plumbing, cheap and reliable.
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Offline Ranayna

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #41 on: June 19, 2022, 06:58:33 am »
There are sooo many reports about failing AOI coolers at the moment.
The pumps die, they leak, they clog...

There is just too much stuff that can fail in such a cooler. And they are not even guaranteed to be silent. They need fans on the radiator anyway, and some pumps can also be noticable.

Give me a decent air cooler any day. Fit as many case fans as you can in addition to the CPU cooler, set up a proper temperature controlled fan control, and the thing will be silent in many circumstances.
 
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Online wraper

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #42 on: June 19, 2022, 07:13:10 am »
Average water cooler has no advantage over high end air cooler which probably will be cheaper too. You can only beat air cooling as such only with high end water cooling. But it comes with a much higher price and way more potential problems. The only problem with big ass air coolers is when you want to ship a PC with one installed. They can break a motherboard.  But so are the big ass graphics cards too.
 
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Offline bd139

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #43 on: June 19, 2022, 08:16:20 am »
I wouldn’t worry about the case breaking. If you look at some of the cooler instructions they tell you not to ship the PC with the cooler attached as it may break the motherboard :palm:

I’m done with custom PCs now. They add nothing to my existence other than uncertainty and unreliability.
 

Offline SiliconWizardTopic starter

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #44 on: June 19, 2022, 07:43:18 pm »
There are sooo many reports about failing AOI coolers at the moment.
The pumps die, they leak, they clog...

There is just too much stuff that can fail in such a cooler. And they are not even guaranteed to be silent. They need fans on the radiator anyway, and some pumps can also be noticable.

Yup. That's my point after years of experience.
As I said, actually the only leak I experienced was with an AIO from one of the major brands. Was that a quality issue? Sure. They used rubber tubing, and rubber is known to dry up and crack over the years, especially when submitted to heat. Nothing new here. And that's exactly what happened: when it leaked, after inspection I noticed that the tubing had developed cracks around the fitting that connected it to the radiator, which was the "hot point" in the system. And it's still pretty common. Of course those AIO things have benefits and are easy to install and are supposed to be maintenance-free, but...

The custom loop I built (from Alphacool parts) has never leaked. The tubing is of way higher quality, I used "real" fittings (not the crap Corsair uses on their AIOs). But it still requires regular maintenance, and I had some issues with the pump sometimes failing to start - usually due to air bubbles. It's extremely hard (or even impossible) not to had a few air bubbles form over time in a custom loop, however well you have built and filled it. I should probably drain it more often, but that's a PITA. And to understand what makes a typical watercooling pump fail to start, you just need to take a look at how they are built.

Give me a decent air cooler any day. Fit as many case fans as you can in addition to the CPU cooler, set up a proper temperature controlled fan control, and the thing will be silent in many circumstances.

Well sure, that's kinda the point of this topic. Unfortunately, while there are many air coolers on the market, many of them have the drawbacks I mentioned: compatibility with a given system is most often a headache, or you need to resort to using the smaller ones which are just not enough to cool down some systems. Yep. Some of the higher-end Intel CPUs can generate a LOT of heat.

For future systems, I'm probably going to reconsider things, including the kind of processors I use, and more recent CPUs also tend to dissipate less power. But for now, this will have to do. The workstation I'm talking about is working plenty fine and is pretty powerful, I'm not gonna throw it away and buy new gear just because I have a hard time finding a proper air cooler. ::)

What would be pretty cool is a cooling solution that would give the best of both worlds. A relatively small CPU block with heatpipes running up to a distant place in the computer case, then going through a big heatsink with a fan or two would be nice. Of course, the problem is that heatpipes are not flexible, contrary to watercooling tubing, so while this kind of solution works for laptops and for completely custom cases, it's impossible to make one that would adapt to a variety of motherboards and computer cases...

For instance, on the other end of the spectrum (or almost), I have built a small headless box for running Linux, a completely passively cooled system with a mini ITX motherboard, a Core i7 4790T with 16GB of RAM, in a case that has a buit-in heatsink connected to a CPU block with heatpipes. The case was not cheap. It gets warm after a while, but the CPU never gets over like 65°C under full load and there is absolutely no fan, no noise, no failure point. Of course it doesn't perform as well as my workstation, but the difference is actually just in the order of 30% which is significant but not huge. The only downside is that it has no decent GPU, only the builtin one in the CPU. Doesn't matter for a headless box, but would not cut it for a workstation.

But I'm definitely considering something in that vein for a future workstation. Proper cases can be expensive, but if you add up a decent, classic tower case plus the cooling system for the CPU and the additional case fans, add it all up, and a dedicated case for passive cooling may not be that much more expensive...
 

Offline KaneTW

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #45 on: June 19, 2022, 07:51:40 pm »
Air bubbles should not form in a pump. The pump should be at the lowest point of the system after the reservoir. Any potential air bubbles would be caught in the reservoir, and the pump always has enough suction head.
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #46 on: June 20, 2022, 02:53:31 am »
Air bubbles should not form in a pump. The pump should be at the lowest point of the system after the reservoir. Any potential air bubbles would be caught in the reservoir, and the pump always has enough suction head.
the problem is people dont usually think in common sense.. or either the space not allow it... i'm thinking of a "raiser" (closed or semi closed) pipe installed on top most where the heatsink should be, a little bit or air inside to see coolant level, trap the bubbles and provide some pressure relieve. tee fitting should not be too hard to find.
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline David Hess

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #47 on: June 20, 2022, 04:39:35 am »
The two 65 watt AM4 CPU systems that I built last year have a Scythe Fuma 2 and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO V2 respectively.  The systems I built 10 years ago had Hyper 212s.

I was not impressed with the performance of the Scythe Fuma 2 but it is comparable to the Hyper 212 EVO V2; I expected more.

I do not consider any of the above loud but there is audible noise.  The case fans make more noise.

The systems I built 10 years ago used 120 watt CPUs, yet I had a much easier time cooling them than my current 65 watt CPUs even with the nominally same Hyper 212 heat sink.  I think the difference is that the smaller CPU die on the modern AM4 CPUs yields a higher junction-to-case thermal resistance than the larger die of the older 120 watt CPUs.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2022, 04:47:48 am by David Hess »
 

Offline Ranayna

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #48 on: June 20, 2022, 05:53:58 am »
I had to get used to the Ryzen as well :D
There apparently really is no issue with the new AMD processors when they hit 90 degrees. I think they throttle soon after, at 91 or 92 degrees.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Sick of watercooling...
« Reply #49 on: June 20, 2022, 06:30:40 am »
Ryzen will be fine up to 90 easily. However depending on where you are in the world it can be unpleasant to have one in the room with you. I remember summer with that 3700X blowing on my feet here  >:(
 


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