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How To: Maintain Your Water-Cooling Setup

Posted 09/28/07 at 05:28:00 PM by David Murphy

How2Mini

Sprung a leak? Totally stuck with your installation? Need a quick read while your kit debubbles? Here are some tips to help you achieve maximum water-cooling awesomeness.

1. Don't Hulk Up

Tightening the fittings for your water blocks or radiators doesn't require a Herculean effort. Resist the twisting temptation and you'll be rewarded with a leak-free setup. The bolts should be hand-tightened; torquing them more than that only damages the block and rubber fitngs.

2. Hot! Hot! Hot!

Putting 1/2-inch tubing on a 1/2-inch fitting is tough enough. Jamming 3/8-inch tubing on a 1/2-inch fiting is nigh impossible without the help of some hot water. Boil up some water and stick your tubing into the steaming mi for a few seconds. You'll find the fitting process much easier.

3. Check Your Levels

You know what fluids do? They evaporate. Check your levels once a month and fill up your rig as need be. There's no point in water cooling if you don't have enough liquid running through your pipes.

4. Don't Get Kinky

The best water-cooling setups maintain as short a distance as possible between cooling points—such as the CPU and the videocard, for example. But give yourself enough wiggle room so that you don't create any kinks in the tube. Crimping and pinching only hurts your overall water flow, which reduces the cooling potential of your rig.

COMMENTS:2

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Totally fill system with 0 air in lines or resivour.
Submitted by lovebug653 on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 9:59pm

I use a large mouth container. I disconnect the input or return line from the CPU water block. I submerge the CPU block into Distiled water. I afix fishing weights to the return line and submerge that into my large mouth bottle. I add a bit of water into my reserve tank and close cap. I turn on the pump. The pump will suck water minus bubbles from the bottom of my large container. The air that normally circulates and gets trapped in the loop drops into my large container and floats out of my loop. I now look at my reserve tank and simply tilt my case until the air in tank is replaced by water. When no air is in the loop I stick my gloved hands inside the jar and connect the hose back to the CPU block closing the loop. I then wipe off all the water or coolant, remove the weights, tighten the hose clamps, and place block on top of CPU using artic silver. You will have no air in system and your PC will not sound like a fish tank.

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to prevent leaks in blocks
Submitted by lovebug653 on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 9:37pm

Go to auto zone and purchase hi-temp silicon gasket cost about $3:00 per tube. I use hi temp just in case the water level becomes low and water starts to boil over the CPU. I apply a very small bead of gasket silicon over and under the o - ring or in both the upper and lower o- ring groves. I then wait a a few hours before tightening up the block. I have never had a leak since I began doing this over 5 years.

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