Water cooling , not as goods i thouht!!!!

i just set up my custom water cooler system , it was a pain in the ass to remove all the bubbles in the loop , but anyway , i was testing today and I’m not getting the temperatures that i expected , before (air cooled , cpu ,mini typhoon and the cooler that came with the video card) i was getting for the cpu idle : 35-36 c , and 45-46c under load , gtx 260 : 38-39c idle , 43-45 c under load , with the w/c system i'm getting , cpu : 35-36 idle , 41-43 under load and for the video card : 35-36 c idle , 41-42 under load ,ambient temp was almost the same for both cases , what i did wrong? do i need fan shrouds for my radiator? maybe there’s an air bubble in the loop? maybe the pump is not powerful enough? , maybe some of the parts that i bought are not that high performance? or this is the way it is? Please need advice!!!! Thanks in advance!




this is my rig :

asus A8N-SLI deluxe
AMD athlon 64 x2 4600
4 gb ram
EVGA GTX 260
psu ultra x3 850watt
2 dvd burner
2 hard drives
(i know there are much better motherboards and cpu's out there but that will be my 2009 project , with my new water cooling system of course)

this is the w/c system components:

pump : swiftech MPC-655-B
cpu block : Zalma ZMW-B5
n/b block : Koolance CHC-125
video card block : koolance VID-428
radiator : black ice 120 dual
2 120mm fan cooler master 110cfm 16 db
reservoir : thermaltake 207
1/2" tubing all around
(i bought this parts base on the reviews and what i can afford)


and the loop is :

RESERVOIR - PUMP - Y- , VIDEO CARD AND N/B -N/B TO CPU , CPU -Y- VIDEO CARD - RADIATOR.

it's my first w/c system so critics are welcome!

Well..

First off whats your ambient temp? The biggest advantage of water cooling of air cooling is not necessarily the idle temps, the biggest thing water offers is a lower delta (change) from your idle to load. Water still is affected by your ambient temperature.

Also AMD's run rather cool anyway so water isn't going to give you a huge advantage.

Now.. looking at your parts. ALL zalman water cooling stuff is absolute crap.. sorry but that's the honest truth. In addition most koolance stuff is crap, although they have slightly redeemed themselves as of late but there are better options out there. Thankfully both blocks you have are newer so they are copper vs aluminum.

Thankfully so is your CPU block... alu + a copper rad just spells trouble.

But you would benefit from a new CPU block.

You're pump is excellent, its one of the most popular watercooling pumps out there and one of the best available (without going overboard with an eheim or iwaki which get much more expensive).

Which model radiator do you have? There are like 3 black ice models available.

So honestly if I were to pick out one thing that is the culprit here it would either be
1) Your ambient temperature
2) Your CPU block

You also just have to remember, chips that run cooler in general won't benefit as much from water cooling as say a q6600 that is putting out a lot of heat.

I would argue that part of your reason for disappointment is that you had slightly unreal expectations (I don't mean to be rude, but it happens a lot)

thanks , for the comments , right now i'm going to keep my cpu block for now , the manufacter only take returns when they are defective , and take 20% of reestocking fee , maybe for my new rig i will change the block , what about the radiator shrouds , will that make any difference? oh by the way the radiaytor is a black ice gt stealth , and the ambient temp is : 75 f or 23 c , thanks again.

Ok well first off for the stealth you really don't need that high RPM fans.. it will help a bit but not all that much.

Honestly if you are going to keep the block then you really can't expect much else from your setup.

Maybe try remounting the CPU block?

Radiator shrouds can help, but it won't make a very noticeable difference, especially on fans like that on the rad you have.

You could also try temporarily running the loop without a GPU in it (Stick your gpu back on air) and see if that makes a difference.

That rad should be able to handle that setup, but GTX's do get awfully hot.

Where do you have your radiator mounted?

thanks again for your help!!! well the radiator it's on top on my computer, horizontal , i will try the GTX change on the weekend and see if something change , i was checking everything again and i notice that maybe i connected the CPU hose backward , the instructions were not very clear and i couldn't find any more information on the manufacturer website, maybe is that the problem? i will try to manufacturer a pair of shrouds this weekend , since my case is acrylic i wanted everything to be acrylic , so i made a small box where i put the rad the reservoir and the fill port , i will post some pictures later! ,i really appreciate your advices , again thanks for you help.

Ya no problem.

Let me know how the adjustments go, and yes post pictures

hi there! i did not ask you , which CPU water block do yo recommend for my specific setup? I've reading a lot since you told that my block is crap! lol ! and there is a lot of opinions on what is the better CPU block , a lot of them agree on one thing , it depends on what you have , the pump+ rad + how many blocks you have on the loop + tubing size , maybe you can guide me in the write direction , i bought all the pieces base on the reviews , but apparently i did not make my homework , lol , thanks again .

this is my rig :

asus A8N-SLI deluxe
AMD athlon 64 x2 4600
4 gb ram
EVGA GTX 260
psu ultra x3 850watt
2 dvd burner
2 hard drives
(i know there are much better motherboards and cpu's out there but that will be my 2009 project , with my new water cooling system of course)

this is the w/c system components:

pump : swiftech MPC-655-B
cpu block : Zalma ZMW-B5
n/b block : Koolance CHC-125
video card block : koolance VID-428
radiator : black ice 120 dual
2 120mm fan cooler master 110cfm 16 db
reservoir : thermaltake 207
1/2" tubing all around
(i bought this parts base on the reviews and what i can afford)


and the loop is :

RESERVOIR - PUMP - Y- , VIDEO CARD AND N/B -N/B TO CPU , CPU -Y- VIDEO CARD - RADIATOR.

Well a swiftech GTZ, Dtek Fuzion V2 and the EK supreme are all great blocks.

The EK Supreme is a bit more restrictive so I probably wouldn't suggest it for your 3 block loop.

As for the fuzion v2 and gtz you may have to do some research to see if there is even a 939 mount available.