Ossi's water-cooled desktop computer

So here it is ... after many weeks of sawing, filing, drilling and soldering, I finally finished it (at the end of January 2005).

It is so utterly silent that you can hear the machine only if it is absolutely quiet in the room. Often a look at the LEDs is a more reliable way to tell whether it is running. :-)

The entire water cycle is running below 35 °C (at 20 °C room temperature). It includes the CPU (core temperature 42 °C under full load), the chipset (graphics on board), the hard drives and the power supply's power components.

The CPU is now overclocked to 2.8 GHz (2.4 GHz nominal) - with this cooling it does not even notice. :)

As the hard drives are now mounted between heavy metal blocks (as opposed to frames before), they have a slightly better seek performance. And are hardly audible, of course. :)

Update (somewhen in 2006)

I noticed severe corrosion of the solder due to it making a galvanic cell with the copper (I anticipated this effect, but wasn't sure how fast it would occur). Therefore I unsoldered everything, cleaned up the parts and glued them with J-B Weld ™ (most other epoxy glues will swell and disintegrate under the constantly submerged conditions). To accomodate the glue's way lower resilience to shearing forces, the radiator underwent a re-design (photos yet to be made).

2nd update (summer 2008)

In retrospect, I should not have truncated the radiator resp. made the new one bigger again - on really hot days the system runs up to almost 50 °C unter full load, which is definitely too much. I guess I should build a chimney to improve air convection.

3rd update (May 2010)

I finally upgraded the system ... to a decommissioned Core2 Duo 6600 from work. The motherboard has no overclocking options, so it runs at the nominal 2.4GHz. The only difference in the cooling system are different dimensions of the aluminium plates which hold the coolers.

4th update (somewhen in 2014)

Another upgrade to decommissioned hardware from work ... this time a Core2 Quad Q9300. The motherboard has no on-board graphics, so a reasonably low-powered NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 does the job. At the same time I took a new power supply into service. Due to the PSU's high efficiency, the internal cooling block could be reduced in size, with the removed part now serving as the GPU cooler.

HDD case. It holds the HDD block together only.

CPU cooler

Power supply

Relay for the pump and the non-heating apparatus outlet

Close-up of the power supply's secondary circuit power components

How it all looks like in the end. :-)

Another perspective

A view from the rear. You must admit, the radiator is art. :-)

Close-up of the mounted CPU cooler. Looks outright lordly, no? :)

CPU cooler from the side. Here you can see the closures of its water channels.

Rear side of the HDD pack. It must weight at least eight kilos.

And a side view of it ... sort of.

Water tank with submerged pump

For reference, my old water cooler.

HDD case. It holds the HDD block together only.	CPU cooler	Power supply	Relay for the pump and the non-heating apparatus outlet
Close-up of the power supply's secondary circuit power components	How it all looks like in the end. :-)	Another perspective	A view from the rear. You must admit, the radiator is art. :-)
Close-up of the mounted CPU cooler. Looks outright lordly, no? :)	CPU cooler from the side. Here you can see the closures of its water channels.	Rear side of the HDD pack. It must weight at least eight kilos.	And a side view of it ... sort of.
Water tank with submerged pump