Perhaps the moral of the lesson here is ....

Set a conservative shutdown temp.

Totally agree with what sniper said. One mistake doesn't make one give up. One learns. I can bet that many of us WC users have learnt many mistakes which can be costly but we're still at it

Haha.. my casing oso last time banjir due to the leaks caused by improper sealing of the pump (nirox p2800 maa...). But watercooling really is a good hobby actually since it makes our brain thinks on how to improve the temp.. For me la.. hahahahha

The lowest shutdown temp I can set on the AV8 is 75C. I did set it at 75C but dunno y when I noticed the thing hang it was oredi showing 80C.

thermaltake product always stay at the point......the price is match with the procuct same with the water cooling kit....but as what i heard is......the good stuff only the high price stuff....like the water cooling kit.....over RM700 just a good water cooling kit...

what water cooling kit r u using??

wuts the temp before u install for idle and full load??
wuts the temp after u install it for idle and full load?

me2


see my sig

how do u know theres not much difference since u dunno ur temp b4 installation??

u can try to change the fan, use shorter loop....

Lookie what I found here. Can you guess what's that installed?

Who's Storm Mr Sargeant?

Sweet

Blardy tempting.

Em, i'm new to water cooling, so i really need something simple,and works well. Recently i have a bit of extra cash to spare, so i contemplated to buy either a CoolerMaster Mini Aquagate or Bigwater 12cm (i can only find non-SE model atm). Or i could also choose a Tt Big Typhoon (read about the great performance).

But i found one disturbing news from lyn, the Tt bigwater non-SE had a high RMA rate because of pump failure. The contrasting fact is many Bigwater users swear by bigwater. May i have a confirmation on this?

About Mini Aquagate 12cm model, i did google around, but all i could find is very biased reviews, most of which compares the performance of Aquagate to very outdated heatsinks or even stock heatsinks (who use stock anyway). The same case applies to Bigwater. And most importantly, i didn't find a review done by the more reputable websites (overclockers.com or tomshardware.com)

What is better, aquagate or bigwater? Since the price is so similar. Or should i not get a water cooling at all? I'm currently using CAK4-88t, i swapped the fan for 3 bladed Tt at very low fan speed for quieter pc. The temp i got is mere 37c web surfing and 42-43c full load. Before you complain my temp is inaccurate, please take note, i heavily underclocked my processor and it only throttle to full speed in heavy load conditions. Even at full speed the Vcore is only 1.375v-~40w max heat dissipation. Even the passively cooled CM NB cooler (Zalman clone) and my fancooled WD hdd is much hotter than the heatsink.

I really need a honest review, aside from the fanboyish review and the biased review of the unreputable websites. I'm sorry if i threaded on anyone's foot.

Please advise.

Welcome to the most rabid watercooling enthusiast thread about watercooling you will ever find. Let me start off firt in some way to guide you to the basic understanding of WC concepts. Personally and quite a few others, I don't really recommend that you get those pre-made WC sets developed by CM and Tt as they are indeed very mediocre in terms of performance desired. The reason why many of us use WC is to obtain great reductions in temps without the penalty of noise itself (Although in terms of complexity it increases) which many aircooling enthusist have to pay for. Those pre-made sets do not yield much of that desired effect and it is best that you do scout around for bits and bobs which comprises of a watercooling set. We have a few good bulkers who are doing these bulks for time to time (pepijat for the Dangerden products, dinster for swiftech products). We have already obtained a failry reasonable idea about the Tt sets and their biggest flaws are the inefficiencies of the block's design (good at abosrbing heat but waterflow is horrible), terrible radiator design (which is a tube and fin design, good for waterflow, poor for airflow. People usually use bar and fin designs), and the pump which is low in terms of flow rate (QMax) and head pressure (HMax) as well as weak in terms of surviving voltage fluctuations. That's what I've gathered so far about the Tt sets. CM sets you'd have to wait for the few CM WC set users here to give their feedback about it. Corsair sets too. You can always ask ianho about the Corsair sets as well. For a better guide to what you should consider when getting into the WC scene, read the WC guide which me and amok have created in the sticky's section

Cheers

But wasn't those premade kits designed for the ease of use and budget of beginners? I know i couldn't / wouldn't achieve great temps if i use those premade kits, but custom kits overwhelmed me. there's too many waterblocks to choose from, from the little that i know, i've gathered the likes of swiftech, dangerden, northcool or something like that. I understand that the price of the water block alone already could be used to buy a whole Tt Bigwater kit, complete with coolant.

Depends my friend, if a high end block like the Storm G4, DD RBX and so forth, I can't help agree with you. But there's always the lower range versions like Swiftech's MCW6000 series, Dangerden's TDX and Maze 4 series which are still cheap. Comaparatively speaking, my first set of WC parts totalled up about RM500which compirised of a DD Maze 4, Black Ice Pro radiator, Tygon tubings, Nirox P2800 pump, custom made reservoir, and a Everflow 90cfm LED fan. Which is still a very good base which allows easy upgrade routes and experimentations. Something that pre-made kits rarely if do offer. Not to mention all these custom made systems are of 1/2 OD/ID which is still the recommended size compared to Tt's 3/8"

but what is the reliability of these custom watercooling kits? the last thing anyone would want to do is to splash their coolant onto their several grand system. What can we do if it really happened? can we rma the mainboard? or what if the pump fails while we're busy pumping lead onto the half-life 2 alien?
I've even read about the Tt Rocket's puny design, where the pump leaked after the water is heated slightly, resulting in terrible consequences. If this could happen to those pre-made kits, what are the chances it won't happen to a custom kit?
anyone ever actually suffered a leaking system? what can be done to prevent this from happening? (forget about non conductive fluid, it's too expensive to speak of)

RM500 for a starters' system is, IMHO, quite expensive. Forgive me, i know of people who would spend 3k for a cyrogenic cooler, but i'm not one of them. I know I'm cheap. The cheaper alternative is premade kits, but upgrading is not an option. But, what if all we need is a simple kit, which performs like the first day we installed it, year in year out?

Is there such a kit? Or is there a custom kit designed to require little or no attention?

That's why the most important mantra when assembling ANY WC kit pre-made or not is to leak test it for at LEAST 24 hours. Trust me, we all do that. And so far I've never have to face any problems with leaks or similiar tragedy's. And as for pump failure's, prevention is always better then cure. I as a rule always set my warning temps 5C above my load temps and shutdown temps 10C above load temps.

I never said that watercooling was a cheap affair but at the base price I quoted, you'd get something that is at least worth the crossover to WC'ing. Anything below that so far (besides allngaps' kit which we have yet to have the time nor the oppurtunity to test it) has been a failure in our personal opinion. Temps worse then even a decent air cooling solution, hardware being suspect and sheer complications worse then when starting with a DIY kit are the common things we've seen so far.

If you're still not convinced and adamant on using the CM and Tt kits, my only suggestion is this, stick to air cooling solutions as WC'ing is never for the faint hearted but those who dare will reap the benefits.

Simply said....you should consider just air cooling instead.

Cos....

1) ~$200 for a super high-end heatsinkfan combo is cheaper and in most cases BETTER than an almost $400 water cooling combo. So bang for buck is there.

2) If a person screws up mounting a heatsink properly, he/she's hell gonna screw up mounting a waterblock.

3) Aircooling is idiot-proof so you don't have to leaktest or worry about anything or even read up anything. Just make sure ya hook up the fan and it'll go.

4) In the likely event that ya feel that the combo kit not enough oomp.... the cost is even higher.

For example...
weak pump--> Change
bad block --> Change
Rad tak cukup --> change
even tubing too restrictive --> change

Results = RM400 worth of LED laden stuff down the drain + >RM500 for a new set of stuffs.

5) The only thing maintenance free is a piece of ROCK...hahaha...everything mechanical also will require some sort of maintenance right?

Expensive l337 stuff may fail, chances of some cut-price kit failing even higher.

Even one of our member had his l337 Corsair kit failing and nearly killing everything.

So...like almostthere said...set a proper shut down temp... do your maintenance (apply to air and water also) or just buy a Dell.... dun care if it dies...onsite warranty

Haha. Ask ianho bout his nightmare!

Few thousand $$$$ nearly went up in steam. Thank god my rig survived without any probs. Mebe using pure distilled, deionised water n keeping my rig as dust free as humanly possible helped save it. I've read that even if u use deionised fluid or those expensive non conducting fluids, it's the dust that conducts electricity when the liquid spills onto the dusty parts. Phew! Luckily I'm 1 hell of an obsessive person when it comes to a dust free rig. Anyway, I was just very unlucky to get a defective pump which is supposed to b really reliable n solid.



The TT Airbesar is not even running 3/8 ID hose man. The hose is thin like a pencil.

BTW, I just wanna ask u guys, r the Eheim 1046 n 1048 pumps any good? They're priced at rm250 n rm300 respectively. The 1250 is massively priced at rm500. Saw them at Ikano Pet World. The Eheim pumps r built like tanks. Really nice quality. Will the 1046 n 1048 flow enuf for my CPU, GPU, rad, reservoir loop? I saw the famous Hydor L20 at the PC fair n it was a really puny pump compared to the Eheim 1046 n 1048.

I'm waiting to c what pump I get from the RMA 1st. Coz the new MCP350 comes with a mobo rpm sensor wire so I can hook that up to shut down immediately if the pump dies n not wait for the temps to reach harakiri levels like previously. Hahaha. I may still buy the Eheim pump even with the new type MCP350 if it flows better. What u swimming gurus think?



Edit: Just did sum research n looks like the Eheim 1048 is very highly regarded by the kuai lows. 600lph n 5 foot head pump. N it's also quite affordable at only rm298. I've read that it's got a lifetime warranty, very very quiet n very reliable n more than enuf flow at 600lph. Anybody here tried the Eheim 1048?

This post has been edited by ianho: Aug 13 2005, 06:27 PM