DIY: How to flush / refill your radiator

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  • You're fuckin' crazy&#

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phunky.buddha

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DIY: How to flush and refill your radiator... on your computer


I finally shelled out the cash (and gift cards yay) to get a nice new DVD burner. It's a nifty Plextor 16x dual layer piece. Now I can finally organize all my files. Backing up onto CD really sucks when you're burning 150GB at a time. DVD > CD

comp_water_refill_med_01.jpg


While I was installing the drive, I figured I'd go ahead and clean out the case and change the fluids too. :eek:

Why write this up? I felt like it. :p


1. Cleaning!

Open your case:

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Get out your handy dandy can of compressed air so you can blow out all the dust in your case:

air_duster.gif


No, not that expensive can of crap, this:

comp_water_refill_med_03.jpg


15 gallons of air at 125psi ought to be enough.

Spray away!

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Make sure to spray through the radiator. You get TONS of dust buildup in the fins.

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If your case is as big and dusty as mine, you should be down to something like 25psi when you're finished. If you're buying expensive cans of R134 with straws sticking out of them, you'll be out a few hundred bucks.

comp_water_refill_med_07.jpg




2. Water prep

Unplug the power to your drives. I'll explain later.

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Gather the ingredients. Water Wetter + distilled water = best cooling solution. It works awesome in your car too- trust me- just don't go without anitfreeze when it's uh... freezing outside. :D

comp_water_refill_med_09.jpg


Measure out 6 ounces of Water Wetter:

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Dump out a bit of water from your gallon jug of distilled water, then add your 6 ounces of Water Wetter. Cap, shake and stir to mix.

comp_water_refill_med_11.jpg




3. Draining

Drag your computer into the bathroom, then flip it upside down.

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Remove the drain plug. Turning a standard issue quarter is a hell of lot better than the plastic Honda radiator plug!

comp_water_refill_med_13.jpg


Wow, there's a hole in the bottom of the computer!

comp_water_refill_med_14.jpg


Muscle your heavy ass box over the edge of your bathtub and delicately balance it while it pisses its lifeblood away. Shake after its done pissing. :lol: Old grungy apartment tubs are nasty. :(

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Remove the computer from the tub and flip it upside down again.



4. Flushing

Fill a measuring cup about halfway up with your coolant mixture. Remember to use the best measuring cup in the kitchen, because food that tastes like radiator gunk is awesome.

Use a rag or ex-company T-shirt to "line" the fill hole, then start pouring coolant into the computer.

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Keep going until you're over the coolant reservoir's fill line. The standard Koolance tower takes a little under 2 cups of "computer juice."

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Reinstall drain plug.

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Flip the computer back so its standing right side up.

Plug in the power cord.

Turn it on. Hopefully you unplugged all your drives- this way you won't be running your OS while you're getting all the air out of the system, and you won't have M$ bitching at you to run SCANDISK on your drives because you didn't "shut down properly." Nyaaaaaaa :p

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With any luck, you'll see a few bubbles creep out into your reservoir and then everything will flow smoothly without any air trapped in the system. If you have air pockets in your water lines or water blocks, start manhandling the computer as much as you can to shake all the bubbles loose. This is extremely fun with an 80 pound machine, especially while its running.

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Run the computer like this for about 5 minutes. If you're not lazy like me, you'll have used something a bit heavier duty- like radiator flush from an auto parts store- but I'm rebuilding the whole water system later anyway, so :p on you.

If you're even luckier, you won't have any water leaks anywhere in the case. If you do, maybe you should have thought about removing ALL your components from the case before playing around with your water cooling system. Wait- you were just following along and copying each step, then got water all over your expensive computer goodies? Aww... too bad. No soup for you!



5. Filling

Repeat step 4. Having fun yet? :lol:

If your coolant level dropped too much during the de-aerating phase, flip the computer over and top the reservoir off before you close things up.



6. Cleanup

Wipe up any spilled coolant.

Label your gallon jug "1337 p00t3r ju1c3" so nobody mistakes it for Kool-Aid and drinks themselves into a coma.

Slap the case back together and use a forklift to put it back in its normal place.

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You're done! Turn it on and watch the sparks fly.
 
I'm gonna have to give this one a badass vote.

I'm still stuck with that old school fan cooling technology.
 
Thanks!

Fans suck.

Water sucks.

Refrigeration is next on the list for me... infinite heat absorption capacity during phase change > *
 
/me makes his next case a college dorm room fridge :)
 
Not cold enough, and you have to worry about condensation. :p :lol:

It's still a damn good route to take though....

I've been thinking about building a computer and dumping the whole mess into a container of mineral oil to cool it. :)
 
You should get an external or removable tank, that would make chaing the coolant much easier. I was thinking of going with water cooling, but it gets really pricy when you have to buy 2 cpu water blocks :blink: :ph34r:
 
Originally posted by ktanaka+Jan 22 2005, 02:06 AM-->
You should get an external or removable tank, that would make chaing the coolant much easier. I was thinking of going with water cooling, but it gets really pricy when you have to buy 2 cpu water blocks :blink: :ph34r:
[post=449536]Quoted post[/post]​

I cheated on this case and bought something completely pre-built... and an external tank wasn't an option at the time. I don't change the water that often anyway, so it's not a big deal. Two CPU blocks isn't really that bad! You can swing the dough. :p

civicious
@Jan 22 2005, 02:08 AM
Mike....
what can i say....
wow....
:blink:
[post=449537]Quoted post[/post]​


Fun stuff huh? :lol:
 
are those all scsi drives???
I need to get another EIDE controller so I can have more hard disc
or I might just start a firewire chain I don't know I'm running out of room quick these days tho. can't wait for the .5TB toshiba coming out
 
Originally posted by senate_9427+Jan 22 2005, 06:19 AM-->
Hey mike, hows this case if i wanna end up building my computer. is it good? overpriced? or worth it?
http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info....products_id=168
looks badass to me
whoa damn, i just saw thats without the actual coolant kit
[post=449565]Quoted post[/post]​

Yeah, that's a newer version of what I have. You always have to buy all the water blocks separately.

Originally posted by CRX-YEM@Jan 22 2005, 08:16 AM
are those all scsi drives???
I need to get another EIDE controller so I can have more hard disc
or I might just start a firewire chain I don't know I'm running out of room quick these days tho. can't wait for the .5TB toshiba coming out
[post=449586]Quoted post[/post]​


Most of them are.

2x IDE hard drives
4x SCSI hard drives
2x IDE opticals
2x SCSI opticals

SCSI >>>>>>> IDE

I just hate that Plextor won't make stuff in SCSI much anymore.

When I start making more money again, all the main drives will be 15k SCSI again and I'll just run data storage on IDE or SATA. I really really really really hate the IDE interface.

BodyDroppedNikes
@Jan 22 2005, 11:46 AM
6 hard drives?? HOLY HELL!! :blink:
[post=449625]Quoted post[/post]​


I need a bigger case- I still have a few old SCSI drives sitting in the closet that need to be used. I need more storage space...
 
Originally posted by Calesta@Jan 22 2005, 02:04 PM
I need a bigger case- I still have a few old SCSI drives sitting in the closet that need to be used. I need more storage space...
[post=449656]Quoted post[/post]​


what... for? I have a 200gig harddrive and I'm barely using 1/4 of it.

how much space do you have? and how much are you using?
 
Originally posted by 2000Si+Jan 22 2005, 01:05 PM-->
@Jan 22 2005, 02:04 PM
I need a bigger case- I still have a few old SCSI drives sitting in the closet that need to be used. I need more storage space...
[post=449656]Quoted post[/post]​


what... for? I have a 200gig harddrive and I'm barely using 1/4 of it.

how much space do you have? and how much are you using?
[post=449657]Quoted post[/post]​


Right now I'm only running 250GB. I need to burn off about 150GB of it- that's why I bought the DVD burner. I move a LOT of data. What I really want is more hard drive speed, and distributed across several fast physical drives. I think all the hard core users out there can appreciate why I would want multiple speedy drives over just one of the same speed and total capacity. At the very minimum, I must have 2 physical drives to run the system.

I think the ideal setup for me (something I could actually put together and use too) would be:

2x 73GB 15k U360 SCSI drives to run the main system and applications
4x 250-300GB 7.2k SATA drives in a RAID5 array for data storage

That would give me about 150GB for the system, and 750-900GB of fail-safe data storage.
 
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