Building a water-cooled PC
How would you cool a PC with water? Wouldn't it fry the circuitry? That was my original impression upon hearing this concept, but I was proven wrong.
I built my PC when I was 14. It was great to use, but it was always so noisy, the fans. They keep running 24/7 to keep my PC working at a moderate temperature, and even that was not enough. It was at the time that I knew about water-cooling, an alternative.
Water-cooled PCs use pipes to send water from one place to the other, passing through metal conductors that transfer heat away from the processors. Besides, it looked awesome!
The first step to building anything is to, gather your materials.
Now, there are some important concepts. Water cooling PCs are mostly divided into two types. AIO or All In One, is a water-cooled solution that has everything built for you, the pumps, pipes and radiator is already connected and all you have to do is to plug it onto your CPU.
If it has any benefits, that would be the ease of use. It's a plug and play product.
The other type, is a custom loop, you are the one to connect the radiators, pump, and which components to be water cooled. Since I already have such a cool case, there is no reason why I shouldn't choose the latter. In addition, it offers a better experience than AIOs because of its versatility. A fully water-cooled PC really needs both its CPU and GPU to be water cooled, if you are doing the AIO solution, that would mean you need 2 pumps and 2 radiators that has nothing to do with each other. This is a waste of electricity and space. Use a custom loop, you can connect the CPU and the GPU together, sharing one radiator and pump in a single loop.
Pump → GPU → CPU → Radiator → Pump
This was the design I had, the pump is the one that keeps the water moving and the radiator disperses the heat. Without further ado, I began the difficult journey.
The first step was to ensure all the components are in place. In the picture, I have already attached the motherboard (the large board on the left), the CPU (the block with two golden-ringed holes on the left), the GPU (the horizontal glass block on the left), the pump (the tube on the right) and the radiator (the dark vertical block on the right) onto the case.
Now, arguably most difficult task, was to connect them by tubes. I would be using PETG tubes, which can be bent given reasonable temperature and is easy to cut by a scissor (unlike an acrylic tube which requires sawing). I even burnt my thumb while making one of those tubes.
It's also important to plan your tube layout, otherwise you'd end up like me!
I also spent a lot of time working on an RGB system. Essentially, to cover your computer with LEDs that can display any pattern of color, and I wanted it to be synchronized across the PC, which resulted in some wacky wire management…
However, the end result was rather impressive. RGB across the entire PC, unified and coordinated by one RGB controller than can be commanded remotely.
Of course, what remains is to connect the pipes, insert the actual liquid, and test it out.
This is the end result. I choose a clear water coolant so that it fits with whatever RGB pattern chosen. The PC has successfully operated for 4 years without any leakage!
