mcbeen.com

Alright.

I’m going with a Danger Den DFI Expert MAZE4 Chipset Water Block. The cost is good, I like the material, and it has a good water pathway. I’ll mount it to the chip with Arctic Alumina Adhesive (thermal epoxy) since there are no mount holes available.

For now I think I’m going to use cheap barb fittings to tap into my supply and return lines. A full set of compression fittings would run about 60 dollars.

I’ve been dealing with cooling issues for years in my home office. Air cooling works fine as long as the local room temp is cool, and relatively dust free. Thats fine in the winter… when the fireplace isn’t going. Obviously… thats a very narrow window here. My fans clog with dirt which makes everything even worse. I find myself doing full tear downs of my heat sinks once a month to keep things going.

To make things worse, I just about burned up another DSL modem. The damn things run too hot anyways, and my environment here makes it even worse.

Last week i decided to modify my cooling design and go with water cooling. It much simpler to vacuum out a single radiator than digging around in my case with an oversized static wand. Not to mention its much quieter than before.

What about my DSL modem? I stuck a couple ram heat sinks on the processor, but its still running way too hot for my comfort. I was thinking about going with a bigger heat sink… maybe with a fan on it but that create new problems. The case is already small, and a larger heat sink would mean cutting a hole in the top of the case. Ventilation isn’t the problem, as I currently have the case removed, and its still over heating.

Thats when the lightbulb came on. Why not water cool that as well? A small chipset water block looks like it would work well. The fittings would end up coming right out the top of the case, making hooks-up very simple and straight forward. I’m thinking a 1/4 feed would work perfectly. I’m working on a parts list, and will update as the project progresses.