A number of people have shown an interst in watercooling on the forum despite the fact that a good aftermarket air cooler will perform just as good as most watercooling set ups, and it will cost a tenth of the price or less, watercooling makes very little sense but it didn't stop me and i suspect it isn't going to stop you either if its what you want to do.

In europe smaller bore set ups using metric tubing is the norm where as in america larger bore imperial tubing is prefered, and of course britain being somwhere in between we have followers of both fashions, one thing you need to take into account is when you remove a conventional heat sink fan and replace it with a waterblock your cpu will be adequatly cooled but the rest of your motherboard may not be, waterblocks for northbridge, southbrige and the mosfets are available, as are blocks for memory, hard drives and graphics cards and the costs start to mount up the more you try to cool them, its far more sensible to watercool certain parts say the cpu and motherboard yet keep a good airflow going through your case to cool hard drives and any components not cooled by water, the fans can be set to run slower thus keeping noise down but eliminatting them completly isnt a good idea in my opinion.

Waterblocks come in a variety of shapes and suzes for differnent purposes, cpu blocks can normally be used on several different sockets and normally come with mountings for most popular socket types, n/b, s/b, vrm and graphics card blocks tend to be tailored to specific boards and cards, most are made of copper, brass, acetal or perspex, be very careful with blocks with perspex tops they look really fancy if you incororate lighting into your computer and its easy to spot air bubbles trapped in them but you can easily crack them if you overtighten them, virtually all blocks have threads cut into them so you can insert barbs or fittings of your choice, the block normally come with all the fittings you will need and are pretty much self explanatary, always try to plan the loop with the tube exiting towards the top of the block it will help when it comes to bleeding your system, the links below are for aqua computer but most waterblocks will fit in a similar manner.

YouTube - Tutorial - Installation CPU Watercooling - english

YouTube - Tutorial - Installation Chipset Watercooling - english

Theres a whole series of vids but not all are in english.

YouTube - ModMyMachine's Channel


Nickel plated brass/copper waterblock and a similar block with perspex top.

Barbs and fittings you will need to choose fitting that will suit the size of tubing you want to use in your set up, barbed fitting where the tubing is pushed over the barb and secured with jubilee clips or worm drive clips i believe they are called in america, compression fitting, and plug in fittings like those from alphacool and aqua where the tubing is much stiffer than normal tubing, a collar is pressed down, the tubing pushed in and a rubber o-ring creates a seal, most fitting have o-ring seals where they screw into the blocks but its well worth taking the time to use ptfe tape to ensure a water tight seal.


Fittings clockwise, alphacool push fit, compression fitting, std barb fitting.

Tubing must match the size ot the fitting you will be using, smaller bore metric tubing with an internal diameter of 8mm is much easier to route than larger tubing, there is little or no evidence to show either has a performance advantage over the other it tends to boil down to personal choice.


The more complicated the loop the harder it will be to bleed.

Pumps the two main pumps used in watercooling loops are the laing d5, a large powerful pump its probably the best there is if youve got the room, ddc again made by laing is available with a variety of perspex resevoirs that bolt to the pump, other pumps worth considering are the aqua computer which can be controlled via software, lcd displays t-balancers you name it, very good quality and a price to match, drive bay pumps work out cheaper than buying a res and a pump plus theyre quieter ideal if your pushed for space inside your case, thermaltake small, very cheap and pretty good quality, when planning your watercooling loop try and keep the pump as low down as possible so that when you start to fill the loop your pump will be primed with fluid.


Clockwise XSPC bay resevoir/pump, Laind D5, Laing DDC.

Resevoirs not strictly neccesary a fill port will do the job but i wouldnt advise you to leave it out of your loop, filling and bleeding a watercooling loop can be a pain with one never mind without.

Radiators probably the first thing you should consider when planning to watercool your computer, its no use buying the biggest and best if it wont fit in your case, normally copper or brass but check using an aluminium radiator with copper water blocks is a recipe for disaster, keep to metals that wont react with one another,set any fans you fit to the radiator to suck air rather than blow air through the radiator, there is little differece in performance but you will find it an awfull lot easier to keep dust from clogging up the fins of the radiator, and they will need cleaning on a regular basis.

The perfect loop, lot of people will argue what order the components should be placed in the loop, pump > block > rad > res , or pump > rad > block > res etc etc etc, bottom line is nobody has proved one method is better than another so if there all in there somwhere you wont go far wrong.
Fluid its called watercooling but the last thing you should use is tap water, you can use deionised water with a fungicide additive but personally i wouldn't use anything other than feiser one.

When you;ve decided what components your going to use its a straight forward process fitting them as long as they all fit in the case, then you will need to fill and bleed the loop, the last thing you want is to be running a computer with watercooling that hasn;t got any fluid in it, you can't put any power to the mother board till the loop has been bled and leak tested so you will have to run the pump while the computer is switched off, the easiest way to do this is if you've got a spare power supply put a jumper cable between the green power on and a black ground wire of the main 20/24 pin connector and plug your pump into one of the molexs, start to fill the loop trying to keep the pump filled with fluid if its pumping air it isnt pumping at all, as long as your loop isnt too complicated you should get most of the air out pretty quick, to get the remaining air out you will have to physically move the computer around to dislodge any air trapped inside the radiator and blocks, all the time you should be checking for leaks useing tissue paper, run it for at least a few hours to test for leaks, replace the power supply comnnebtions to the motherboard and its all done, if you do have any leaks don't panic as long as there is no power to the motherboard it wont do any damage, if youve used feiser one its non conductive use tissue paper to mop it up fix the leak and continue, take your time, don't try to force anything and you shouldn't have any problems, untill that is you see a fancy new block for your graphics card and you start all over again.

This might duplicate another post but it was already written, just been waiting for batteries to charge up.

why did you post this?

i have already made a thread for water cooling........

It was clearly stated:

popeye: This might duplicate another post but it was already written, just been waiting for batteries to charge up.

It was already written just been waiting for batteries to charge in my camera, and its all my own work.

Just out of curiosity who added the sticky to yours.

Who do you think popeye?

Think theyve created a monster, i did warn them, theres no need for either post to be stikied take them both off.

Or run a poll.

Actually they were both great posts, and i liked the way it was told frm two different veiw points. I think you both deserve a big ATTA BOY!

and my post is all my own work also, not that i am home i will post pictures.
of my system.