Magoo's Wise Words
Guide to Water Cooling

P
A
G
E

T
H
R
E
E

O
F

F
O
U
R

What you need (continued)

The Pump

To keep the water flowing between the water block and the radiator, you will need a pump. Pumps come in two kinds, submersible and inline. Submersible pumps sit inside a bath of water, where inline pumps just pump water in one side and out the other.

There aren’t pumps specifically designed for computers yet, so your best bet is pet fish suppliers. Ehiem makes the best pumps out there. They are strong and virtually silent. Unfortunately, they are also expensive. Since we are on a budget here, I bought a small submersible pond pump from a hardware store.

There are three things to look at when choosing a pump. The first is flow rate. Pumps are rated in gallons per hour. Most pumps will advertise there pump rate at 0 feet of lift, or 0" head. This is the rate the water would flow from the pump if it was pumping around a completely flat circle. In the real world, the pump always has to push the water uphill at least a little bit. Use the more realistic number of 1 ft of lift.

As far as flow rate goes, the faster the better. My pump gives me 80-90 gph @ about 1.5 ft of lift. This seems to be plenty for my Athlon64 3000, but it all depends on your processor, radiator, and fan.

The reservoir

With an inline pump, you could conceivably get away with not having a reservoir. That saves you a little bit of space, but you would loose out on a few things. First, a reservoir gives you extra water to absorb peaks and valleys in your heating system. The extra water gives you a much more stable temperature. With a submersible pump, you will have to have a reservoir for the pump to sit in. Usually, submersible pumps are slightly quieter, while inline pumps transfer less heat to the water.

Anything that holds water can work as a reservoir. I simply use a Rubbermaid pitcher. I wrapped the outside in carpet to help quiet the noise of my pump inside the pitcher. Of course, if your cooling system needs to fit inside your case, you will have to find something smaller. Any Tupperware container should do. You can also purchase specially made reservoirs that fit in drive bays and have connections for the tubing built in.

Tubing

Everything has to connect to together somehow. Premium tubing kinks less when going around corners, but can get pricey. I used clear tubing from my hardware store. It works great for me and costs only a few cents per foot. Most systems use either ½ in. or ¾ in. tubing. ¾ in. is preferable because you will get more water flowing with less resistance, but I use ½ and haven’t had any trouble with it

Next =>[Magoo's Water cooling Guide- Page 4, Other considerations]