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Hardware

Integrated Water-Cooled Case 162

Posted by CmdrTaco from the soothing-ocean-sounds dept.
man_ls writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of a new Koolance water-cooled case. It has a built in watercooling system, to save people into overclocking the trouble of building their own. Unfortunately, it only works with Athlon, Duron, and Pentium IIIs. The P4 socket isn't compatible with it. "
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Integrated Water-Cooled Case More

Integrated Water-Cooled Case

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  • Not for P4? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mendax Veritas ( 100454 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:20PM (#2600910) Homepage
    It has a built in watercooling system, to save people into overclocking the trouble of building their own. Unfortunately, it only works with Athlon, Duron, and Pentium IIIs. The P4 socket isn't compatible with it.
    Overclockers are generally performance freaks, so why the hell would one be buying a P4?
    • Overclockers are generally performance freaks, so why the hell would one be buying a P4?

      No, overclockers like the illusion of speed. 2GHz Baby!!!
    • I'd say the issue is more that most overclockers don't use Intel chips for ease of overclocking. It's far easier to overclock an AMD chip than an Intel chip. Plus, Athlons run so damn hot anyways ;)

  • Wow. (Score:2, Funny)

    by x136 ( 513282 )
    Integrated Water-Cooled Case

    --or--

    Don't put the computer in the refrigerator,
    Put the refrigerator in the computer!
    • I saw this at Comdex in Chicago. in APRIL.

      Send in a post. No response. But enough bitching.

      This is a really useful piece of hardware. It's a lot quieter than a regular case. In addition, because water's both cheap and extremely effective as a conuctor of heat, it can keep the temperatures of your CPU, graphics card, hard drives, anything you can slide a copper plate on near room temperature. It really increases systemic longevity.

      Of course, you could just have your motherboard immerced in a vat of mineral oil and have a similar effect.. (Mineral oil is non-conductive. And before you say I'm full of it, this was the at the demo the Koolance people used at Comdex Chicago.)
      • One of my friends tried this and encountered a problem. A refrigerator is not made withstand the influx of heat from the computer. After a while the refrigerator will start to fail until it doesn't work at all.

        Really sucks because I wanted to do the same.. oh well.

  • What a waste! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bazman ( 4849 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:29PM (#2600928) Journal
    All that energy should be going into your domestic hot water system. I reckon a machine left on all day could heat up enough water for a shower. But how many overclocking geeks shower daily?
    • Clever.

      We best get at the job of obliterating the 200 Koolance cases that exist on earth, because after all, they were only created by the Demon Realm to destroy us with their fish tank pump, right?

      What a waste of energy. I've got to go do the dishes and take a bath, right before I drive 45 minutes to and from work in my internal combustion engine vehicle.

      But first I have to have lunch. I've got a few pounds of waste left to produce in my day, not to mention all the recyclable items I have to throw in the garbage before I go to bed for the night.

      After all, I can have a restful slumber knowing that me and my peers are the perfect humans for picking on some geeks and their water cooled computers.

      Exactly.

  • Leakage? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:38PM (#2600934) Homepage
    What if one of the pipes bursts? Or evel leaks a little? Is such a risk worth the extra CPU cycles?

    • Re:Leakage? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:48PM (#2600961) Journal
      Always, ALWAYS use distilled water... first, it doesn't end up putting deposits in your pump, and second, if it does leak, nothing bad will happen to your CPU/components, since distilled water is an insulator (not a good one, but it won't conduct)...
      • Do make sure that absolutely NOTHING is in there with the distilled water, as that can turn it into a conductor. I would suggest flushing it at least 3 times with distilled water to make sure there are no previous deposits in there, manufacturing or otherwize.
        • And you'll need to replace it v.frequently.
          Water is an extremely good solvent.

          And however careful you are, you're probably screwed if water gets into your power supply.
    • Use alcohol, or even anti-freeze if you're careful (it being posionous). I can't say I've seen or heard of a case where anti-freeze was used but I've heard people suggest it.

      As far as alcohol goes, alcohol can be brought to a lower temperature then water anyways, so it's much better then water, and it won't conduct electricity if you happen to spill it all over your precious boards.

  • ...but I want to get into overclocking.

    Is there an easy to read intro guide (just covering the ideas of overclocking and cooling) somewhere online?

    Also, is using watercooling really safe?
    • HardOCP.com might be of some help.. you already know of Tom's Hardware. If you can't find anything to cool your oc'd hardware try the pc mods part of thinkgeek.com or pcmods.com
    • you should check out ocmod [ocmod.com] and virtual hideout [virtual-hideout.net]. Both have good tutorial sections, plus lots of info on water cooling (and all of the other alternatives). But if you really want to overclock, your most important source of info is the users manual that came with your mother board. It will tell you where all the jumpers (or bios settings) are for voltage, clock multiplier, and front-side bus.

  • Chemistry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Knunov ( 158076 ) <eat@my.ass> on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:43PM (#2600945) Homepage
    I wonder if this unit can be filled with alcohol or ethanol.

    Perhaps using aluminum dust in the water would help, as well.

    Knunov

    • In Related News, Overclocker Kills 10 (Score:4, Flamebait)

      by Myriad ( 89793 ) <myriad@the[ ]d.com ['bso' in gap]> on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:56PM (#2600987) Homepage
      In related news a local mans foolish attempt to squeeze a few extra cycles out of his processor has ended in tragedy with the death of himself, 3 friends and 6 neighbors.

      Around 3am last night a blast shook the neighborhood blowing out windows and killing 10 people including 4 young men who were in the immediate blast zone when it occurred. These men apparently were also responsible for the explosion itself.

      The four men described as "Geeks" were apparently attempting to "Overclock" their system. Witnesses say one man was last seen carrying a large jug of Alcohol he claimed would "ch!ll th!5 f()k3r t0 d@ b0n3!".

      The investigation continues...

    • No, this unit cannot be filled with alcohol or ethanol. Alcohol cooling is a much debated topic at http://www.hardforum.com , among other sites, and the general consensus is that it can be done, but very expensively, and most definitely not in just a watercooling system. Among other things, alcohol burns off much quicker, and would require a LOT of refilling.

      People have experimented with water additives, but I don't know about aluminum dust. I think somebody has tried some sort of conductive metal dust though. Generally, you're better off with Water Wetter or Jet Dry.

      ---
      matt fury
    • You could fill the system with an alochol. Why? The thermal conducticity, and, more importantly for a system with this type of design, lower specific heat capacity. This would mean that the pumps would have to move more fluid to remove the same amount of heat at a specified temperature.

      Cooling systems based on alcohols (generally iso-propyl alcohol) have thier place, but this is not one. Also, alcohols have less viscosity, and thus different pumps aught to be used for maximum performance.

      Putting aluminium dust in the water tank is a stupid idea. Firstly, it'll sink, and not be of much use unless the resoviour is desingned to have turbulent flow (unlikely). Even with most of it sinking, you'd get enough going through the pumps to gently abrade away all of the delicate seals, making the system fairly useless.

      If you wanted to improve the cooling over water, the best bet is to go for oil cooling, but that requires totaly differnt styles of pumps for high performance.

      The best thing you could do would be to use a saturated sugar solution, as it has a slightly higher specific heat capacity, for not significantly increased viscosity.. However, that would also require you to prevent bacterial growth, and so on.

      This comes, by the way, from someone in a chemistry deparment that involves a signifcant number of pumps, moving various liquids, and, indeed, a number of water cooled systems, some of which are rated at about 100kW. Water is a damn good coolant.
  • ... familiar [slashdot.org]. Anyways, here are some obligatory links:

    Koolance [koolance.com]
    Overclockers.com [overclockers.com]
    [H]ard|OCP [hardocp.com]

  • the P4 Socket is too different... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:50PM (#2600968)
    The P4 is very different from the Athlon and the P3. I don't know how the new P4 (socket 478?) looks like exactly, but the older one (socket423) was definitely larger than the Athlon or the P3 socket. Probably it is not cost effective to produce such a case for the P4, since the differences in design and manufacturing would have added to a significant price.

    Also, I haven't seen or heard of any people o/c-ing their P4s (correct me if I'm wrong). So that market share is pretty slim to begin with. If you're not into o/c-ing, such a case is definitely an overkill. Unless you appreciate the quietness of a water cooled system.

    So it does not seem very surprising that this case does not support the P4. Maybe later on, they will add the support, but right now they're catering to the AMD o/c-ers, who are far more numerous than on the Intel platform.

  • Exclusionary... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sinfamous ( 522772 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @02:50PM (#2600970) Homepage
    I still think the $250 price tag attached is to high...making it a niche market.

    They say they target Overclockers and Power Users. I think they meant "We target that geek who needs every new god damn toy for his computer no matter what the cost". That's someone who thinks Mhz is the most important part of the equation. NOT a Power User.

    I overclock, but I do it to get the most bang for my buck. The extra money I'd spend on this case would be better used on buying other improved system parts, not just pushing my Mhz that much higher. (think SCSI hard drive)

    • Re:Exclusionary... (Score:4, Informative)

      by evel aka matt ( 123728 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @03:03PM (#2601011)
      Er...the $250 price tag is actually pretty low, making it one of the primary reasons that people buy a Koolance. If you add up the costs of all the components in a watercooling system (waterblock, pump, radiator, tubing, etc) plus a decent case, you'd be hitting close to that price already. Plus, Koolance builds it all for you and gives you instructions and tech support on it. Also, the Koolance system is much quieter than a decently cooled aircooled system.

      And about your comment on who they're targeting...well, for starters, watercooling is nothing new, neither is Koolance or even Tom's review of the new(er) Koolance. And if it was for a "geek who needs every new god damn toy for his computer no matter what the cost" and that thinks that Mhz is of supreme importance, said geek would be running a P4, and probably would never have even heard of watercooling.

      You've also forgotten that all overclockers aren't doing it just to be thrifty. A lot of overclockers do it to get as much performance as possible. You can't buy a 2ghz+ AMD chip, but you can overclock to that. Now, I'm not saying that you would use a Koolance to get 2+ ghz, but watercooling is how you would do it, and you seem to be bashing watercooling all together.

      Please try to get your facts straight next time you talk.

      ---
      matt fury

      • Re:Exclusionary... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Sinfamous ( 522772 )
        Actually, I think watercooling is cool (no pun intended). I don't however think $250 for a case is low... "Koolance builds it all for you and gives you instructions and tech support on it"...haha..tech support on my case. and that ISN'T for the geek who "probably would never have even heard of watercooling"?
        • I didn't say $250 is LOW, but it's perfectly reasonable. Take a decent case -$80, a decent waterblock -$40, a heatercore -$20, tubing, clamps, -$30, and you're at $170 already without shipping, and whatever other incidentals. Plus, they have a nice temperture readout system and decent fan controls built in.

          Yes. Tech support for your case. If something breaks, they have a good track record of fixing it for you under warranty or helping you fix it.

          I never implied that it WAS for the geek who never heard of watercooling. I was just saying that those people you were talking about probably have never heard of watercooling.

          ---
          matt fury

      • $250 cheap ?? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
        In a world where the average pc price is under $1000, $250 seems quite steep. I know some of you reading this made it sucessfully in the corporate IT world and make 60k a year but I am in school and work part time as a store merchandiser to pay tuition. To me this is way too much and doesn't really offer me anything I want or need. The whole idea of overclocking does not make much sense.

        For all those math geeks reading this lets use a standard price/performance ratio. Lets compare prices for the state of the art athlon +1900 vs +1600. For a +1900 vs +1600, you spend an extra $200 more for a mere %8 performance gain. Now an overlocked +1900 would cost an another $250 for the price of the water-cooler to boost the megahertz speed. You would gain perhaps another %5-8. Remember that memory becomes the bottleneck at this speed and even ddram begins to slow things down quite a lot. Not to mention the pci bus speed and the bendwitch between the cpu and the agp card slows things down. So for $400 you would get a while %15 performance gain and have one hot(literally) system.

        So the real question is what do you use the computer for and would overclocking with this tank system really benefit what your doing? Gamers started the whole overclocking movement. In the old days the speed of the processor was just as important as the video card if not more. If your a gamer today you could save money buying a state of the art Geforce3 and putting in a +1600 athlon and it will beat the crap out of a super overclocked system with an older geforece256. When your system becomes slow again buy a geforce4. You could save more money doing this in the long run. If your a hard core hacker then maybe you may want an overclocked machine. For me, doing programming homework on my pentiumIII700 takes only a few seconds to compile. I admit I have not written anything over 15k but that is how most small individual programming projects are. No one really write something that big by themselves. I have to admit it would take forever to compile something kde or a Freebsd "make world", but most people do this only occasionally. Its not worth $400 for me to compile something that big once every 6 months. Only the core kde members or freebsd developers would ever require something like this. I will happily wait an extra hour with my old PentiumIII 700 to compile kde. So basically must developers don't need these systems anyway. The last people I can think of who might want an overclocked system might be personal webserver admins or hobiest admins. I think a dual processor athlon +1200 would make a much better machine then an overclocked single +1900. They would be cheaper or close to the same price. The machine needs to stay on 24x7 and stability is important. You would not only get more performance with a dual +1200 but the system will be much more responsive if its under a heavy load. Hell even NT4 running IIS responds quickly with 2 processors. You all know that NT4 has bad thread handling. W2k and XP are alot better this.

        Anyway I would advise agaisn't any overclocking because they are not worth it and I wish vendors would not sell systems that burn at over 65C or 160F. MY pentiumIII700 is cool to the touch and if I pay over a grand for the motherboard and cpu then I expect that it better be good quality and run cool. If it gets really hot then its way overclocked in my book and shouldn't be sold for production use or even personal. I also once had a 486 macine which ran at an unspeakable 66mhz at the time when it came out. I went through 3 cpu's on my system because it would freeze and get too hot. I will never buy a fast overclocked system again.
        • Actually, that $250, for what it does, is pretty damn reasonable. A good case (not the $30 special...I'm talking well built case with a solid power supply) will run you at least $100 or so. Add to that a resevoir, pump, rad, tubing, water block, et al, and the cost gets up pretty quickly.

          To me this is way too much and doesn't really offer me anything I want or need. The whole idea of overclocking does not make much sense.

          Then for you, this case isn't the answer. But they're not trying to sell this case to everyone, they're selling it to the 2% or so of us who don't want to settle for the 1.4Ghz that our Athlon runs at. If I can spend a few extra bucks to squeeze every last bit of performance out of my box, then I will. You talk about an increase of 5% - 8% like that's something to sneeze at.
        • "if I pay over a grand for the motherboard and cpu then I expect that it better be good quality and run cool"
          I hope you really mean your whole computer. If you pay over US$300 for a motherboard and cpu you've paid too much.

          "MY pentium III 700 is cool to the touch"
          Of course your p3 700 is cool to the touch. The p3 is a low voltage chip, it runs default at what, 1.6v? I'm sitting at a p3 550 right now overclocked to 733 and wait, lemme take the side off the case, yep, heatsink (stock intel) is cool to the touch. This is @ 1.7v.

          Regardless of what tom's hardware says this system is not gonna cool like a homegrown watercooling system. I couldn't find specs on tom's or on koolance's site but the hose looks to be 1/4" O.D. Bah! That little pump looks sick too. Dunno about flow rate either, they don't list that or I couldn't find it.
          Koolance shows some graphs on their site, showing how their system fares against a conventional hs/f. An athlon 1.4 @ 1.6 goes up to 50 degrees celsius! Well one chart shows that at stock speed it goes over 50, overclocked it shows about 45 degrees Celsius. Confusing charts to say the least.
          I get edgy when my tbird hits those numbers, so edgy in fact that I have the motherboard set to sound an alarm at 40 degrees celsius. I rolled my own watercooling system for the AMD box, and I've yet to hear that alarm except during a test session of the alarm when I didn't have the pump on.

          "I would advise against any overclocking"
          Great, I would advise against running NT4 and IIS.
          • "Great, I would advise against running NT4 and IIS." Wasn't my system. It was from an old job. I tired to run linux on it but my boss wouldn't let me. :-)



            As for the numbers with your AMD box, I think I will buy a pentium4 with the VIA ddram enabled chipset as my next system. Sure the pentium4 and probably the upcomming pentium5 may be crippled to make it clock faster but I like a cool and stable system. I believe AMD systems are already incredably overclocked. I have bad memories of 2 of my computers overheating. One with overclocked 486 chips and the other when a heat sink fell off a pentium1 during a move.

  • I would never want to OC a P4. If I fry it, it's more exepensive to replace. An AMD is cheap, it's easy to OC, and it's fast as hell.
  • I know everyone's needs are different. Me, I hate fan noise. I understand we're in the early days of watercooling, so maybe I'm dreaming, but I'd like to see someone make a case and powersupply that has NO fans. (I count 4 good-sized fans in the case and powersupply alone of the reviewed unit.)

    Top-mounted, well-ventilated radiators and an external power brick, anyone?

    Ahhhh! The noise! The noise!
    • ...G4 Cube.

      ---
      matt fury
      "Who knows, Torq..you might win a buck!"
    • The powersupply fan is always easy to replace with quiter ones. Its a matter of knowing how to wire in a new one, no? I remember when my powersupply fan flat out died, just bought a new one, opened 'er up and put in a new fan. Just a matter of knowing what you are doing...
    • OK, and I suppose all that heat will just dissipate all by itself, you know, since you don't want any fans blowing across the fins to facilitate the dissipation.

      Personally, I have 6 fans controlled with a baybus, yes, it is loud, yes, it is noisy, and yes, I maybe would like something quieter since I am getting annoyed by it. However, if you wish to overclock anything, fans, and usually multiple high output/high noise fans, are a necessity. It's just a matter of degree.
    • Go to pcpowercooling and check out [pcpowercooling.com] these silencer power-supplies. [pcpowercooling.com]

      Then buy an maxtor 7200 RPM drive which are %100 siloent by default. I believe IBMS are also silent but due to the press they have been recieving recently, I would stay way from IBM for awhile. I own one of the maxtor drives and I have to runx xosview jsut to see if its being used! Talk about quiet. Also the links above are rating highly from pcmag.com and maximumpc.com as the best powersupply and case around PERIOD! I have had fans and powersupplies brake before but the one's from pcpowercolling rock. I haven't tried the silencer series but If I was going to build a new computer tommorow I would deffinetly buy one. I hope this helps. I have my computer in my room so like yourself I like things quiet. I know many college students read slashdot and suffer the same because they live with their machines in there dorms.

  • Geez, how much noise do you think this thing would put out? The fan on my regular PC power supply is already starting to get annoying (since I had to remove the outside panel to accommodate another hard drive)

    And what does it sound like? who knows maybe it would be relaxing to have a computer that sounded like a babbling brook all the time :P
    • It dosen't really sound like anything. It's actually quieter than most well aircooled computers (depending on what fan mode you set the Koolance to).

      Water bongs on the other hand, DO sound like a babbling brook or waterfall. And can be quite unnerving. ;)

      ---
      matt fury
      "the Inquisition, what a show.."
    • The old design for the Koolance case was supposed to be extremely quiet. I would have bought one for that reason. The new design seems to be aimed at the overclocker, and noise appears to be a secondary consideration. For my needs, I think the new design is a failure.

      Something else that seems stupid about the new design is that there is no apparent air cooling for the main part of the case. The plastic divider prevents the fans from helping to cool the motherboard, hard drives, etc.
      • Something else that seems stupid about the new design is that there is no apparent air cooling for the main part of the case. The plastic divider prevents the fans from helping to cool the motherboard, hard drives, etc.

        The power supply fan will still blow into the case, like in most PCs
    • And what does it sound like? who knows maybe it would be relaxing to have a computer that sounded like a babbling brook all the time :P

      I guess I must be some sort of freak, but I like some degree of fan noise, it's nice auditory feedback, from it I know the machine is up and purring.

      There are limits of course, but people that bitch about fan noise like it's an air raid siren will forever confuse me.

  • I picked one up before they re-worked the case. It keeps my 1.4 ghz athlon at about 34 degrees C. Haven't had any problems with it.
  • One of the main reasons for watercooling is that if offers a much quieter alternative to the 60db Black label Deltas. However I don' quite understand this:

    Sound Level: Very Quiet With Athlon XP 1800+

    As far as the noise level is concerned, the new Koolance system is not quite as inconspicuous as the old one. At medium heat levels in the processor core, the three fans can produce quite a racket.

    the new Koolance system offers high cooling performance and a low noise level

    WTF? I don't no idea what he's saying!
  • this is not new at all. Come on, guys, don't make slashdot like old newspaper, when you can find "New speed!!! 800MHz Celeron!!!" or sort like this. This is thing is around for long time already. Tom will enjoy big hit from slashdot community, methinks -- he is heavy loaded with ads...

  • What's the market? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RainbowSix ( 105550 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @03:11PM (#2601037) Homepage
    I'm not sure I understad the market that this is shooting for.

    Back in the day, overclocking was all about getting the best performance out of a cheaper processor. For example, a $75 Celeron 366 overclocked to 550 would rival the performance of the $500 PII 550.

    Grassroots watercooling did the same thing. It allowed people to reap more benifits out of a processor using cheapo parts they bought at their local auto parts stores. A used radiator, fish tank pump, tubing, and some epoxy to affix some home made heat remover directly to the core would cost just a few bucks. Watercoolers used to be an elite group of self doers, but now adays you can buy premade kits for just about anything.

    Today, we've got $100 heat sinks, and $250 watercooled cases at a time where overclocking no longer yields significant percentages in processing power and where more than just the processor is a bottleneck.

    Spending $35 on a Duron 750 and watercooling it to a gig or more doesn't seem that appealing when you realize 1 gig T-birds are only about $70.

    Anyway, my conclusion is this: this product seems silly.
    • Why do people spend thousands of dollars to soup up with Hondas when they could just buy a fast car to begin with? It's just a hobby, as much as anything else is that we do. You're right, you can't overclock like 200% anymore, but you can acheieve speeds faster than commercially availible processors. Also, not everybody buys a $250 watercooled case. You can put one together for ~100, although it wouldn't be the best system. The Koolance appeals to a very specific market.. entry-level overclockers/modders. People who'd like to get into watercooling without personally engineering their own system. Also, I know of a few people who DO do their own watercooling, but have a couple of Koolance for servers since they're so quiet.

      If you think this is ridiculous, take a look into a VapoChill system. $750 for phase-change cooling. And people are still killing for those systems..

      ---
      matt fury
    • Today, we've got $100 heat sinks, and $250 watercooled cases at a time where overclocking no longer yields significant percentages in processing power and where more than just the processor is a bottleneck.

      Exactly. What has happened here is that the market has awakened to the fact that geeks are a demographic with lots of spending money, little imagination, and emptiness in their lives that they fill with expensive gadgets. With that in mind, it is easy to see why there is such a preponderance of overclocking kits despite the fact that overclocking is essentially pointless in this day and age.

    • I'm not sure I understad the market that this is shooting for.

      It's shooting for the 'I OC'd so my penis is naturally much larger than your's' market.

      No, I'm not joking. I don't mean to be crude but mindless dickwaving happens everywhere, even with computers.

    • Back then, water cooling was also kludgey looking, an inexact science, and prone to problems like leakage. This isn't a problem anymore, so you can also reap the benefits of improved thermals without the drawbacks, not to mention quieter operation than the typical air cooled system.
  • Why bother with a radiated system when a swiftech fan will keep your system just about as cold with about the same amount of noise. It's is one monster of a fan though.
    • Here is a link to the review.

  • Cool, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SumDeusExMachina ( 318037 )
    I remember them reviewing a case like this a while ago, and they absolutely hated it. But that's besides the point. What I really want to ask is:

    Is it really worth the risk?

    I mean, you are putting tubes full of running water right next to your expensive circuitry. This is a recipe for disaster. I know many people who have experimented with water cooling for overclocking, only to ruin their motherboard and processor when either:

    a. Something in the cooling system fails and stops cooling the hardware, frying it in the process.

    OR...

    b. Something in the cooling system fails, causing massive coolant leakage right onto the motherboard, processor, and sometimes even expansion cards. Disaster is an understatement.

    Considering that there is nearly nothing on the market these days that would financially justify overclocking as opposed to just buying a faster processor, I would hardly consider buying a water cooling system due to the risk involved.

    • I know an equal number of people who have had powersupplys short out on them frying their mobo, and whatever else, and people who have had heatsinks and fans give up and die, also frying their mobo and cpu. Failures happen no matter what kind of hardware you're using. By going with the Koolance though, you're actually reducing your chances of watercooling meltdown, since everything arrives mostly preassembled. A novice putting together a watercooling system would have a better chance of fucking something up.

      ---
      matt fury
  • "Although the fans alter their speed in response to temperature changes, there's no fail-safe mechanism for the entire system. "

    I bet there's no failsafe for the cooling system either. Pumps can break just as easily as fans, and what happens when the water stops flowing? Or for that matter if the tubes get pinched by a geek in a hurry?

    Still, it is an interesting idea. Does anyone know if ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] is going to include this in their "tricked out" computer? Tubes with liquid flowing in a case with a flourecent light would be cool... How about some tiny sparkles in it too, or some substance to make it glow in the dark? :)
    • The case has a built-in temperature failsafe system: if the CPU gets above a certain critical core temp, it kills power to the MB. It may not save all your data, but it should save a $2000+ computer from losing some major components (CPU, M/b, etc.)
  • Heated Tropical Aquarium
  • I don't wanna sound like a troll but...

    let's spend 200$ more for a case that will make us overclock our CPU to the next one available for 200$ more...

    Before I used to get the drill of overclocking, I even did it myself with my BP6 overclocking dual 366mhz to 550mhz and stable, THAT was worth it because it would give me a 50% boost in frequency PER processors, and the celeron 550 weren't out at that time... but now, overclocking an 1.4ghz to what, 1.6 or 1.7?... is it really worth the trouble?

    I mean, don't get me wrong, overclocking can be fun, but practically, I'd be impressed only if there could be a system that would make my athlon XP1700+ (1.46ghz) go like a 2500+ for not too expensive, but right now, I don't see why it would be worth all the trouble to get 10 or 20% increase in frequency. (exept for looking cool in lan parties or making a website about it).

    Just my 0.02$
  • Tomshardware had this article up more than a month ago...

    I've heard of the print media being slow to break stories, but /.s getting ridiculous!
  • The cost of the Koolance system is between 200$ and 260$. The only (PC mass-produced) processor more expensive than that is PIV 2GHz [tcwo.com]

    Since overclocking can only give you a 10-20% performance increase (best-case scenario), I think it's more about adrenaline than performance. If so, using a koolance water-based system is like bungie jumping with a parachute.

    The Raven

  • I've never understood the hype for water-cooled cases, or even fans for that matter. I would be more excited if I heard of a P4 designed for PCs that runs without water, a fan, a heatsink larger than a novel, etc, etc. Cooling is all fun and games until the coolant dies from mechanical failure or otherwise. I'd feel more comfortable knowing that my system will never die from overheating rather than showing off my phat array of 71 fans in my case.
  • deja vu, all over again [slashdot.org]

    Well, anyway, you can buy it here for $199 [infotechnow.com].

  • Ummm.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beefstu01 ( 520880 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @03:30PM (#2601101)
    The real problem with water cooling is getting the H2O cooled fast enough to deliver cold water to the processor. I haven't read the article, but I was never a fan of water cooling, instead I use a refrigerator.

    Explanation-
    What is overclocking good for? Really? What I've seen is that people OC their computer to save that all important dollar, but find out that the cost for upgrading the cooling system is more expensive than just dishing out the cash and buying the faster processor (EXCEPT for the case of the P4 1.9Ghz and 2 Ghz). What I did when I OC'ed my computer was just for the hell of it, whereas my roomate in college (and at camp) did it just to show that you could. What did we do? We went down to the local Salvation Army, bought one of those little chest freezers, cut a couple of holes for the cables, put some caulk around those holes for a seal, and there we had it, a frozen computer. I tell you, nothing impresses the girls more that reaching into the freezer to put in a music cd. In the freezer, we also put a whole slew of those silica gel packets just to make sure that there was no water to damage our computer if there was a period of time when the power cable was knocked out. This was really a non-issue though, because we kept the freezer below freezing, so all the H2O vapor was frozen (except for the subliminating water, but that really doesn't matter. This was just a show off machine, and in the end, we ruined the computer when we spilled a bottle of vodka over the processor (the vodka was "coolant", and Joe was getting rid of the excess stuff)
  • This doesn't seem like a breakthrough to me. Lots of fans are still used in the case. Why doesn't any case to date implement the obvious and use one side of the case as a big heatsink? If the liquid coolant were circulated through that, it would be a very effective radiator. You could then put waterblocks on all heat-generating spots in the case and connect them in series, thus making fans obsolete. Ah, a man can dream though, a man can dream ...
  • Ok i have update My case cos ddr ram is just to tall
    However i would like one that is quiet. I have been considering building a water cooled rig but the idea of the radiators and the pumps puts me off + the idea of a water in my PC bad. Pumps can / do fail and produce quiet a bit of noise. I have seen 1 and had 1 idea that would greatly improve this. ! using a powerstation style cooler (a condenser i think) and second using a gravity fed water to cool the CPU's. Simply put a parge tank at the top of PC and a large tank at the base
    Fill both with mineral oil (more heat conductive than water and does not conduct electrcity so no danger in case of leaks) have 2 level sensors in the upper tank 1 to turn pump on to pump from base tank and one to turn PC off in event of falure of the pump ie level is to low (This is also used to prevent power on unil a head has been built up) however i have not yet seen anything like this on the net.
  • If you think about it for a second, most J6P's would not consider this and neither would most hardcore overclockers either.

    J6P would not do this, ever. Hardcore or Extreem OC'rs either, because they would build their own quite frankly.

    This kit kind of hits the sweet spot (i.e. the "rest of us", perhaps) who are neither newbies nor extreemists.

    Some of the highlights that caught my attention:
    350W power supply is more than adequate, but considering that it is powering the board, chip, and pumps, it makes me take pause.
    This is not including high end grfx hardware, several drives and god knows what else...350 might not cut it for very long.

    The heat exchanger (radiator, essentially) is placed on top..good thermodynmics, but I did not see a lot of ventilation on the bottom of the unit in the pictures (think convection of the G4 cube)...not bad, per se, but *needed* I would think. (am I the only one who saw the Heat Exchanger and thought "they should have stuffed a few dead bugs and moths in it?" because it looks like a car radiator and what do they usually have in them?)
    The rear of the unit does have a fan grate and extra air holes, but not the bottom.
    Seeing as the fans on top "suck" the air...you have air "rushing" into the case from the back side and up and maybe from the front bottom and up but not from the bottom up.
    You have to keep the MB and chipsets and cards cool as well, correct?

    Overall it looks to be a very good value for the DIY crowd that does not have a machine shop handy but wants the "extra performance" without the "extra cost + time".

    {I wonder if the water tanks also come in "ruby" :) }
  • My bro bought one of these for $200. He runs a 1Ghz Athlon. I have an 850MHz Athlon. I have a $30 case with fan and a $15 Thermaltake fan/heatsink. Here's the catch, my computer and his computer make the same amount of noise. My cooling system can handle up to 1.3Ghz with no sound increase. Not only that but his is a ton heavier and the first one he got didn't work and he had to ship it back (Shipping costs ~$50) When the replacement arrived, it was missing the processor clamp. In short, my bro is mad and only marginally satisified with his case.
  • I looked through the article, but didn't notice if this was covered....

    Anyone know if it's feasible to use something like fluorinert (a totally non-conductive liquid) instead of water, to mitigate leakage damage? Or is fluorinert sufficiently different in physical terms (thicker, probably) than water to make it unlikely to work with the pumps and radiator in this?
    • One of the main reason for using water as the heat transfer agent, is that it has a very high specific heat (i.e it takes a relatively large amount of energy to raise a unit amount of water by 1 degree C.


      I don't know what the specific heat of flourinert is but I waould guess that it is significantly lower than good old H20.

    • What you want is a good conductor of heat vs an insulator. I don't know the properties of Fluorinert, but any material can be compared based on the known values.
      As for the average vs water-cooled CPU, water is vastly superior for cooling.
      We normally don't think of water and air in terms of insulating/conducting, but air is essentially an insulator whereas water is a conductor.
      The best example of this is hypothermia when you fall into water. Your body's "heat engine" is sufficent to maintain body temp in relatively insulating air; in water you lose heat at a rate of 20x that of air. This is why water at 50 degrees F can trigger hypothermia in clothed individuals whereas a dry cotton shirt and pants at the same temp in air are sufficent to maintain body temp.
      Other good conductors are aluminim and gasoline. Welders can work on a properly prepared FULL tanker of gas because the heat from welding (at least 800 degrees and easily double that depending on technique) is dissapated quickly and evenly through the volume of fuel; the fuel temp raises hardly at all. Compare that to an air/fuel mixture: heat enters the gaseous mix and stays there, raising temperatures almost instantly. This is due in large part to air's inability to dissapate heat (and the resulting explosion is due to air's volatility, air, not gasoline, is the true explosive in the mix).
      • Well, fluorinert is designed as a cooling fluid for electronic devices. There's a lot of varieties, all hellishly expensive.

        My concern was more if it would have a bad reaction to the valves in the pumps, causing them to degrade and fall apart, that sort of thing. :)
    • http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/s ubmersion/submersion.html

    • First, if your coolant leaks out, you aren't going to worry much about it since your CPU would overheat and die very quickly without sufficient coolant in the tubes.

      Second, 100% distilled water supposedly doesn't conduct electricity, so you're probably fine if a little bit gets out as long as you aren't using tap water. (A bad idea in any event since minerals, et al would eventually form on the CPU cooling element, the pumps, and heat exchanger.)
  • I really like it. I got the first case from them, after the obligatory 10 week wait -- They first said 3 weeks, but after I called 4 weeks later, they informed me that they were redesigning the system. After I received my unit and installed all the components, my 1GHz K7 was reaching 160F in 45 seconds. Koolance didn't believe me when I told them the unit wasn't circulating water. I put a normal TT heatsink on the proc and there was no problem. I sent the case back for repair. 4 weeks and many, many phone calls later, the replacement case arrived. It has worked flawlessly and quietly. I really am impressed with the low noise.
    I didn't buy this to overclock, but to run quietly, which is really important when I use the box for audio recording (on location -- yes, it's heavy) and editing.
    All in all, I love the case. The support from Koolance is decent, but they're slow. You decide . . .

  • Dual Watercooling? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by d_force ( 249909 )
    Lian Li PC-78 case + Koolance watercooling system = impossible?

    Pricey, but I'd love to see Koolance come out with something to cool dual proc systems.

    - dforce
  • Someone has been saying that they are only getting the 10%-20% preformance increase on their CPU. This is so wrong i have an Athlon 900 one of the harder Chips to OC and I currently have it running stable @ 1168Mhz, that's about 30%. I can't go any higher on the FSB because for the short term I'm stuck with -75 Micron Ram which runs about 140Mhz or so but the -7E Micron does 155Mhz [merkleyheadgear.com] no problem. that would be 1240Mhz that's a 37% increase and that is with a Multiplier of 8 with the CPU unlocked like it is the road is endless, and with a relitively cheap water cooling solution it is right up my alley. probably go for a kit from Bigfoot [bigfootcomputers.com] though

  • Why not make chips run cooler? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tryfen ( 216209 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @05:22PM (#2601549) Homepage
    Many moons ago, computers were huge blocks that had to be kept in hermatically sealed, air conditioned rooms.

    Today computers are small blocks that people want to put in mini-fridges.

    Shouldn't we be concentrating on making chips run cooler WITHOUT adding extra fans/heat-sinks/water coolers/dusky maidens with palm leaves?

    Terry
    (probably talking nonsence again)

    • Thats why we have the via c3 [via.com.tw].


      It is supposed to run cool with no hsf.


      "The VIA C3(TM)is the coolest processor on the market, saving energy and maximizing notebook battery life through its ultra low power consumption. The processor runs so cool that it can operate without a fan, making it an ideal solution for ergonomic Silent PC designs. "

  • Looking into one of these for when I move into a dorm room at University. I'm sorta dissapointed by the fact that it got louder, because I'm not looking into overclocking, just a desktop that is fanless.

    Does anybody have any experience in this sort of a situation? If I'm going to have a 10-sq.foot room, I can't have a noisy tower.
    • How about these. [pcpowercooling.com]



      They rock. best power supply company around.

    • No need to switch to water cooling. I leave my computer on 24/7, and me and my roommate are so used to the sound (slight as it is) that it doesn't even bother us. Come to think of it, it'd bother us if it wasn't noisy.

      Also, why exactly are you worried about your computer causing too much noise in a college dorm? It's not exactly the library with "quiet please" signs posted everywhere. If there's anyone like me (bass player with a 200 watt amp) or my neighbor (huge sound system with a monstrous subwoofer) in your dorm, your computer is the LEAST of your noise concerns. If the noise bothers you that much, better to look into a) industrial-grade earplugs, or b) apartments.

      • Thanks for the help. This is naive me in H.S. not knowing what it's going to be like. Sigh, might as well look into one of those funky HSF's .
        • It's really not that bad. I actually really like it, the whole community aspect of the situation. Of course, I live one one of the liveliest floors in the hall. There are engineering floors (Which I was supposed to be on and somehow didn't end up there, thankfully) that are as quiet and boring as dirt. Well, most of the time, anyway. I'm sure they get their share of inebriated 3:00 AM people :).

          Don't let me scare you away from the dorms - they're really great, if you like people. If you like quiet and solitude, though, they're NOT the place for you.
  • Is there any problem with making the tubing longer and extending the radiator and pump out into a closet or other room? (as long as the air in said place is cool)

    There's no point in overclocking these days except for the fun of it, and I haven't got time for that. But liquid cooling for purposes of making a silent system...now that's where it's at.

    Imagine no CPU fan, no case fans, a quiet power supply fan and Segate's new silent 7200RPM HD's. Mmmm....

  • actual case manufacture... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The-Zaphod ( 306293 ) on Thursday November 22, 2001 @06:12PM (#2601694)
    In case anyone wants to read a little more on the actual case used for this, here is a link to the actual manufacture of the case Click here [futurepowerusa.com] it is made by Future Power, and I have to say, they do make a excellant case. (being a distributor for them I am a little biased though) I have this exact same case without the watercooling. Nice setup from them and a nice case. Think they did i great job
  • Unfortunately, it only works with Athlon, Duron, and Pentium IIIs. The P4 socket isn't compatible with it

    What do you mean Unfortunately? Surely you wouldnt be seen dead with a Intel?

  • One can't help but wonder if Nitrous Oxide Injection, headers and gas filled shocks are coming soon. Bikini Clad models posed provocatively with the box, racing stripes, and GT models. Now that I think about it why not?

    With all the case mods, like colored lights, windows, aluminum cases, superfans, heat sinks, and rounded cables, and now watercooled cases. It seems like it is already on the way. (bedsides we could use a few more bikinis in computer ads.) And how about 0% financing...and rebates, yeah that's the ticket, rebates....

    Colors to match automobile colors (remember Malibu Blue?) Designer cases! Versace, Donna Loren, Tommy, Calvin Klein, Wow the possibilites are endless. Perhaps less time spent on getting them to work better, and more time on the superficial looks we could actually get people interested in our computing. Apple has already proven it doesn't have to be a bub (Big Ugly Box). Time to take it to the next step.
  • Sure would be nice if they would tell us what they got the chip OC to???
  • I would you radiator fuild instead of water. It would then keep the system and rad free of deposits. Same as a vehicle......

    It has a nice colour to it. You can even get red,like blood.

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