H2O Cooling Build Log (Retiring) 4-way SLI - Successful

[TB]

I plan to play pong at 16,982 FPS FTW!

I think you might be able to pull that off! But would you really want to?

Of course, Echodrome looks pretty good in black and white 1080i (as that is all I currently have). Hmmm... You might be on to something there!

1920x1200, that would be 1080p+

Touché.

 

[Robin]

I have 2 quick questions about your water cooling setup..

1. How loud are the pumps? Are you getting any better silence than you would from a quiet air cooled setup.

2. Can you run the system without fans (on the radiator) if you live in a cold place like the UK?

Thanks,

Robin.

 

[Pako]

I have 2 quick questions about your water cooling setup..

1. How loud are the pumps? Are you getting any better silence than you would from a quiet air cooled setup.

2. Can you run the system without fans (on the radiator) if you live in a cold place like the UK?

Thanks,

Robin.

I will have a better idea after this weekend. I can say that my PSU is the loudest fan in my system. Louder even than the 5 radiator 120mm fans I have running. The pumps are almost silent to non existent, and that's with my head right by them. I think If I replaced the PSU fan for a much quieter one, the system would would be much, much quieter. I'm trying to get away with no other case fans other than the radiator and PSU fans. I have the fans blowing air out of the case, through the rads, hopefully this is a good decision and one that is suggested so it should help keep heat out of the case as well, allowing natural flow of air to come in through the various vents.

I am really hoping for a more quite solution. The Air cooled system before with the 3 way 8800gtx cards on air, plus the Hyper 212 on the cpu with two 120mm fans, plus the other 5 120mm case fans, plus the PSU fan, it sounded like a huge turbine getting ready to take off. The heat coming from the case was almost unbearable after a half hour of heavy gaming or benchmarking.

As far as no fans on the rads? I think you have to have something cooling the radiator down, it's not much different than a car's radiator. When it's stopped, a lot of radiators have a secondary fan that kicks in to help keep temps down. The only other option would be to build a chiller for the loop. A wall A/C unit might be a good option for this, but then you have noise from compressors going off. If you have a central cooling system, you can tap into that, or use ICE packs but that gets old.

I hope to achieve three things with this build:

1.) As high or better performance than my 3-way SLI setup.
2.) Quieter operation under full load.
3.) Lower ambient and operating temps under full and idle loads.

One thing that's nice about the 280's is that they will clock down in a non-3D intensive environment. Should help save on power also. Kind of which the CPU had an option for this as well.

 

[nick09]

I would not open the PSU if I were you. I'd rather not have 1000Watts going through my body.

 

[Pako]

It's a good idea to unplug and discharge the PSU before working on it.....💡

 

[Pako]

IT LIVES!!!! Now I need to see what it can do. Stock GPU 3.6 OC on the 9550 gives me a nice 19,260 score in 3DMark06. Loaded temps on the cores while running Prime were in 45-48c range on all cores. The GPU temps were in the low 40's after the 3DMark06 bench. The mobo and system temps were in the 24-28c range.

 

[NocturnalPS]

Your just crazy Pako... and well....... yeah hope to get back in to tinkering with this hobby soon.

 

[Pako]

, just scored a 21,468 in 3DMark06 and still going, I have my CPU over 4.0 ghz now... I am going to low my voltage back down and see if I can stay stable. At 1.4v now, really don't want to be above 1.365 on this chip according to everyone. Will post pics of the finished product later....

 

[Pako]

Finished Pics:

 

[Eric.]

Could you do me a favor Pako? Run the GPU client for Folding@home for 4-6 hours in SLI mode. I can barely do it without a BSOD. Usually I can complete one work unit, but that's all. It will only use your second GPU, so if you're watching temps don't be worried that only one is changing.

Also, in regard to you voltage, I've always been told that voltage isn't going to kill the CPU, but the resulting heat can. So as long as you've got the heat in check (I think you've got that covered ) it should be alright.

Edit: And my 3dMark is barely below yours. Are you using Vantage or 06?

Edit2: Or I could just reread your post...What do you score in Vantage?

 

[Pako]

Vantage scored much higher, P25216.

I'll give folding a shot and share my results.

 

[Pako]

Well, I've been folding since lastnight (around 12 hours) and no BSOD yet.

 

[opendriver]

Damn Pako! That thing looks f'ing sweet

 

[Pako]

Damn Pako! That thing looks f'ing sweet

Thanks bro. I have one more UV light I want to put in the pump cavity area to "light it up"! The ballast can handle one more light.

Now if I can get get it prime stable at 4.0ghz.

 

[Eric.]

I'll give folding another shot I suppose. I'm sort of wondering if my RAM was overheating...If so I'm not going to be real eager to figure out which module is causing the problem.

 

[Pako]

To get stable at 3.8 I had to under-clock my ram to 800mhz. It's 1066 standard.

I've managed to hit ~4.0 with good temps at 1.368v where it will bench but Prime is having issues and will error out. Not close to stable, but I can work with it and get benches. I can always clock it back for day to day use. I also found that at 730 core on the video cards, again works for benching, but after about 20 minutes of Crysis Warhead, I had to clock it back to 700 core to remove the graphical artifacts.

 

[Eric.]

To get stable at 3.8 I had to under-clock my ram to 800mhz. It's 1066 standard.

I've managed to hit ~4.0 with good temps at 1.368v where it will bench but Prime is having issues and will error out. Not close to stable, but I can work with it and get benches. I can always clock it back for day to day use. I also found that at 730 core on the video cards, again works for benching, but after about 20 minutes of Crysis Warhead, I had to clock it back to 700 core to remove the graphical artifacts.

Hmm...I'll have to try running everything at stock speed and run Folding@home again. I just tried it again after my previous post and got a BSOD within an hour in Vista and it also happened in Windows 7, but that was sometime in the middle of the night. I was hoping I was just getting a problem with my driver or something, but now I really don't know what to think. I've switched the GPU's locations, as my original card ran F@h for weeks without issues. Either configuration with two cards (and not in SLI mode) will eventually cause a BSOD. I don't really think the card temp is an issue. It happened with the fans at about 85% and running about 70C.

 

[Pako]

What about motherboard, system, and core temps? Memory timings will also play havoc of system stability.

 

[Eric.]

What about motherboard, system, and core temps? Memory timings will also play havoc of system stability.

The RAM was all set to its stock speed, timing, and voltage. I don't have any board temps, but as I had the CPU Folding@home client stopped/nonexistant for 7, I don't think that the board would have been having heat issues.

 

[Pako]

I have stock 1066 ram with 5-5-5-18 2T timings, for stable OC's, I have the ram at 800-850 at 1T timings. I can't even boot at stock ram speeds when I have the CPU OC'ed past about 3.2ghz.

Something to consider.

 

[Pako]

As I continue to tweak this setup, I am considering a couple things. I was running a 2gb kit of ReaperX 1200mhz ram. Loved the speed but 2gb just wasn't enough for Vista. As a response to picked up a couple 4gb kits of 800mhz ram. In a quest for better performance, I am now looking at a 4gb kit of DDR2 P2 9600 ram at 1200Mhz DC ram. GSkill, Kingston, OCZ, and Corsair all come to mind.

OCZ is out, they only have a 2gb kit other than their water cooled kit (not about to re-engineer my water cooling loop for the ram).
GSKill has some, kind of expensive at @ $289 for a 4gb kit. - Link
Corsair - Too Slow. PC2-9600 Not available.
Kingston - Only 2gb Kits Available.

Looks like GSKill is the only options for a 2 module, 4-gb kit.

Once I get the ram situation figured out, I am definitely getting a fan controller. I'm curious how long I can run the system with just ambient temps cooling the rads with no fans going, and if I need, bump the fans a bit for everyday use. I would love a fanless/noiseless setup. To have just the PSU fan going would be awesome!!!

Controllers I'm looking at:
Sythe Kaze controller
On the non LCD controllers, the Lamptron is a solid build.

There are a lot of controllers on the market with a lot of different options. I need to do a little more research before I fully commit.


SO yeah, two things left on the build and I think I will be done (for now).

 

[livemusic]

Can't you get 1066 RAM and overclock it?

 

[Pako]

I am running 1066 now but I'm running into issues when the CPU is ocerclocked as well. I can get about 1150 about of my ReaperX ram, but as soon as my CPU is overclocked, I have to knock the ram down to 800. From what I've found, I should be able to maintain higher CPU as well as higher Ram speeds with the G.Skill ram. *shrugs* I might just be dreaming also. Looking at the i7 systems and their 1600+ MHZ ram speeds running CPU's over 4.4 on a quad core, I am obsessing for more....

 

[nick09]

Remeber to check for how much power the fan needs and how much the fan controller can give per a channel. If I were you I'd get a Sunbeam as they have two products that can do 20W and 30W per a channel.

 

[Pako]

I'm not running any heavy duty Delta fans or anything. Using Yate Loon Medium Speed Fan: D12SM-12

Specifications

* Operating Temp: -10 - 65°C
* Model: D12SM-12
* Rated Voltage: 12V
* Operating Voltage Range: 6.5 ~ 13.8V
* Rated Current: 0.30A
* Thickness: 25mm
* Rated Speed: 1650 RPM ± 10%
* Max Air Flow: 70.5 CFM
* Sound Level: 33 dB

Running 5 of these for the two rads.

 

[nick09]

OK the Sythe one will do you fine with three fans on each channel(going with the fans you have right now).

 

[opendriver]

Im only able to push my DDR2 800 to DDR2 1066, anything higher and it bluescreen's. Id have to say that the G.SKILL's are your best bet. you could probably get 1300Mhz out of them, but that's just a guess.


I also need to get a fan controller, having 6 fan run at near 100% is becoming a nuisance

 

[Pako]

Are you looking at a fan controller? Which one? I haven't decided...., though the Sythe ones look nice.

 

[Pako]

Well, I decided on this one.

It's only a two fan controller, but that's all I need and want for this system. I honestly don't want anymore fans.

 

[nick09]

Well thats really all you need Pako to run those fans and you can power the UV light's brightness with the fan controller too.

@opendriver, what fans are you planning to use? If the fans are Vantec Tornados or another powerful fan then you need a fan controller like the one I suggested.