Ben- water cooling kit

I guess I'm running a little behind on posts lately. Anyway, I got my copper cooling block from this place, and they have kit with everything you'd need.

I bypassed the kits, though. My motivation for water cooling was to reduce the noise from my case. I was able to remove 5 fans and the computer is a LOT quieter now. I figured it would be counter-productive to replace the fans inside the case with fans outside the case to cool a radiator, so I took a different approach.

I got the copper block from these guys, got a 170 gallon per hour pump at a hardware store ($60), 3/8 inch vinyl hose, and a 15 foot coil of copper tubing. I started with a 3 gallon bucket for a reservoir, but now I have a 66 quart plastic tub from Target that cost about $6.

The pump is submerged in the tub, and sends water directly to the copper block. The water then goes from the copper block to the copper tubing to cool it down a bit before it goes back into the tub. I'm just using the copper block with no peltier.

The thing I didn't anticipate is that the system not only keeps the peak temp from getting as high, but it keeps the idle temp from getting as low. The water takes a lot longer to cool than a heatsink, so there is less variation between stress and idle temps. Right now it's 45 deg C, and under stress it's about 50 deg C.