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Got a nice little scare last night as tendrils of smoke wafted out of the usb port connector on the back of the aquagate. I unplugged the USB port immediately, and kept an eye on everything to make sure the pumps kept going. I kept the power plugged into the system so I was hoping everything would keep going. I took the cover off the case, and unscrewed the controller board. Everything appeared to be fine, although one of the power transistors had a different discoloration on one side than the other. I’m not sure if it was heat related or not.

My guess is that the ESA controller melted, but I don’t have a good way to check it. I was never able to access the damn thing anyways. For now everything is continuing to work as expected.

The replacement has been ordered, along with a separate flow/temp sensor since I don’t have a good way to get readings out of my current controller. Hopefully everything will be here later in the week.

I took the 4870 back out of my machine tonight to get a closer look and the board and the discrepancy between it and the 4890. The components on my board are not missing any kind of heat sink material. They are fundamentally different from the four below them. So thats somewhat of a relief.

I also decided that even though having a cool CPU is nice… blowing large amounts of sub-zero air into my office was not. I went ahead and used the box the system came in, and made a nice fitting box for the fan set. I then reversed the top fan again, so the bottom sucks in cool air, then the top fan blows it back out. It raised the temps on the water system by about 10 degrees… but it also did the same for my office lol. I can live with mid 20’s idle, and low 40’s under load.

I’ve been going back and forth with Frozen CPU trying to see if I could get a return exchange on this block… we’ll see what happens. The good news it that they carry a block that looks like a perfect fit! If I can get a credit from them, I should be able to get it next week.

Also, I think I may have found a portion of my cooling issues on this card. If you take a look at these photos:

You can see on the right that two of the power supply transistors are missing their heat sinks. I never really thought about it until I saw a reference image for the 4890. I’ll have to see if I can get that corrected before tonights raids 🙂

FrozenCPU.com is the shit. They are responsive, helpful, and prompt. Always check them out first!!!

I moved my radiator to my window so it could draw in outside air, but I didn’t recheck the temps after I did it. It’s running below 24C now

It’s here… It’s working… It’s cool. The block came in today, and it was a pretty good fit. There was only a slight modification needed.

As you can see I had to grind out a place for the capacitor on the bottom. I also ground out a channel on the top of the block to fit around a coil. Something I took for granted though… the wire on the coil was NOT insulated, creating an interference issue when it touched the water block copper plate. When i powered up the modem the first time it errored out. I inserted a piece of plastic between them, fire it back up and all was good. I used thermal epoxy to attach the water block btw. There’s no good way to clamp it down effectively, and I have had good success in the past using it on north bridge/south bridge chips.

I punched a couple holes in the top of the dsl case like I planned, but unfortunately the block is just slightly too tall.

It looks ok… But I may end up just cutting a hole for the entire water block to poke through. Not too worried about it right now.

The modem now runs icy cold… just the way it should be. No more modem over heating for me!!!

Its been a busy afternoon. The parts came in today in boxes about 4x bigger than i expected. Little chance of this stuff getting broken in shipment.

I started by taking a complete inventory of all the kits and mapping out how everything would go together. I was happy to see the coolermaster kit came with USB pinouts and multiple temp sensors. I was troubled to see no driver discs or software instructions.

Hookups went well, although it would have been nice to have a funnel. I modified one of the bottles to let me fill without spilling water everywhere. The fittings that the kit came with are not as solid as i would have liked. they have a cheap feel to them, almost like they are chrome plated plastic. I may end up replacing them.

So far system temps are great, with CPU running around 38ºC with a 1 ghz over clock.

The water block for the ATI 4870 on the other hand was a failure. The card has some off-spec components that make it incompatible with the water block. It looks as though I will have to cool each part of the card individually…

Comming up… the water cooled DSL modem 🙂

After I connected up all my hoses and primed my lines I turned on the system, and was greeted by heavy fan noise I was not expecting. The Cooler Master controller was running the radiator fans at full speed, creating excessive noise. Since there are no controls on the box, I went ahead and looked on Cooler Master’s site for some kind of controller software. There was nothing. My work around for now has been hooking the fans up to my motherboard 4-pin connectors using extensions. They are temp controlled, so they only spin up as the system over heats. Its working well. From looking around, it appears the Cooler Master fan set points are only usable from an ESA motherboard. I’m still looking into it. Since it is USB, I imagine I should be able to find some way to tweak it myself.

I have the radiator setup in my window since its below freezing outside. I reversed the fans so they pull in the nice old outside air.

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.