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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Posts
    250
    Hello,

    I stumbled across this site http://www.koolance.com/ that offers water cooled cases for home pc's and rack-mounted servers. Now, I know a lot of you wouldn't like the idea of water flowing through your computer but I've had it setup on my home pc for months without a leak. You don't need to worry about condensation unless you are using peltiers either.

    It might be interesting to see how these would perform

    Just thought I would share

    Regards,

    Mike

  2. #2
    Considering the expense of cooling racks full of power-hungry processors, I'm just waiting for the day when "power, pipe and ping" becomes "power, pipe, ping, and water". Surely it would be cheaper for colocation providers to supply a constant stream of cool water rather than having to cool an entire room full of air?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
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    I think someone is overlooking Murphy's Law. Anything can work for a few months. Let it pass the test of time. I wouldn't want to be tied to a particular case either. I'm very particular on what I use.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Cerritos, California
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    86

    Talking Hardware Warranty issues

    Well, the stuff looks pretty neat. However, I do know this for sure...
    **If you send a HDD/CPU/Dimm/MB back to manufacturer because it burned up, you generally get a new one without any problems.
    ***If you send back any of those items, and they deem it to have been "water damaged", good luck getting a replacement.
    I think this design is a gamble on voiding the warranty on all your equipment. OH! And have you thought of the insurance for your colo? What if you happen to have the only technology-intelligent adjuster in your state? My gosh, they would go into contortions......
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    USA
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    1,269
    Wow... a liquid cooled CPU jacket... far out.

    There was (is?) a company called KryoTech ( http://www.kryotech.com ) that made cases with built-in refrigeration units. The idea was to cool down the processor so you could reliably overclock it. Now that 1.5GHz processers are available, I'm not sure if they're still offering it.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Posts
    250
    I think everybody is too scared to give it a shot because of the extreme hate our electronic components have towards water. However, IMHO water flowing through a system is no more dangerous than electricity flowing through a circuit board, if the water leaks out the circuits will fry... if too much current flows the circuits will fry. Both are fairly unlikely events, in fact I think that electric damage is more prone to happen than water damage.

    Were not talking water-peltier combos here that generate temps well below zero. If that were the case then yes, you would have a lot of problems unless you coat your board with a waterproof conformal coating and used dielectric grease in the sockets and such because there would be a great amount of condensation due to the temp differences. With straight water cooling you don't get condensation because the water doesn't get as cold.

    Water cooling can dissipate heat much better than air and doesn't suffer as much to diminishing returns as air cooling does... IE, stick 20 fans in a system and then remove 19 of them and put a watercooled setup in and the watercooled system will have the lower temps.

    The only disadvantage I can see is buildup of minerals in the water that could stop/hinder flow. One solutions is to use distilled water which would also greatly reduce the conductivity of the water in the event of a leak.

    I run a setup now with a liter of distilled water and 1oz of antifreeze and I did a test on an old 540mb hard drive. I dripped a couple tablespoons of the mix on the circuit board and it ran fine for hours until I finally cleaned it off.

    Just something to think about, who knows... when we start getting into the 2ghz and beyond water-cooling might be the norm

    Regards,

    Mike

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    USA
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    1,269
    Originally posted by Phiberop
    ...
    The only disadvantage I can see is buildup of minerals in the water that could stop/hinder flow. One solutions is to use distilled water which would also greatly reduce the conductivity of the water in the event of a leak.
    ...
    That's actually pretty interesting... you learn something new everyday.

  8. #8
    I consulted the house's resident chemistry professor about this, and he gave me the following advice:

    1. Water cooling systems have to use a single type of metal throughout. Mixing copper pipes with an aluminum water jacket (or other metals inside the water pump) is a recipe for disaster.

    2. As long as copper is used throughout, corrosion will not cause physical problems. It would take decades for pipes to be corroded away.

    3. Within a few hours of running de-ionized, de-oxygenated water through copper pipes, it will have picked up enough copper ions to be quite easily conductive.

    So, you still have to worry about leaks regardless of what sort of water you start with, but corrosion isn't a problem unless you do something stupid.

    He also mentioned that corrosion could be inhibited by creating a reverse potential, by placing some Mg outside the pipes (but electrically connected to them), but that this probably wouldn't be worth the trouble.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
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    Water is not much of a conductor of electricity. It is the minerals and other inmpurities in it that account for the conductivity.

    There would be no build up of minerals if none went in. The potential problem of algae growing is easily averted with chemicals (as simple as household chlorine). The web site does mention anti-algal chemicals are part of the system.

    Water is a faster dissipator of heat. It will carry it away 25 times faster than air. Some cars that once had air cooled engines, like the original VW Bettle, were unable to keep up with the increasing engine temperatures caused by the anti-emission equipment of the 1970s.

    Nevertheless, there are some deceptive items on the Koolance web site. They reproduce the results of independent tests on 17 coolers and then add their own. That is misleading, although they do link to the original article. They could hardly be considered objective and may not have tested their product under the same conditions as the other tests on the 17 coolers.

    Their product might very well perform as well as they say. Water is a superior conductor of heat. My concerns would be if the chip that regulates temperature fails, any of their 3 fans fail and the water is no longer circulated. Heat could build up rapidly then.

    Leakage could also be a problem. Plastic grows brittle with age. They claim that all tubing connections are permanently clamped and they tested their system for 10 minutes at 10 times the usual pressure. It's a well intentioned and cautious test, though as someone who knows a bit about pressurized items, it does not inspire confidence in me. I'd want to see longer term tests and redundancy of critical components. They lack both.
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Posts
    250
    Agreed,

    In a home situation, one can see if things are working ok and monitor things better. However, in a co-located situation unless you specify to the facility that they should monitor these things it probably won't get done. If they do monitor your likely to be charged a certain fee etc...

    Maybe isn't a good idea just yet for a server, but with time there may be other competitors who offer solutions that give the end user a little better peace of mind.

    Regards,

    Mike

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Moldavia
    Posts
    1,177
    Originally posted by Phiberop
    Now, I know a lot of you wouldn't like the idea of water flowing through your computer but I've had it setup on my home pc for months without a leak.
    I haven't been able to find the bathrooms in here either.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    Lowestoft, UK
    Posts
    58
    I really don't think water cooling a server would be worth it. On a home PC, yeah, but not miles away at your colocated premises . Condensation won't be an issue, so long as you keep CPU idle time to 0%. Run Distributed.net on it to keep it at 100% all the time.

    Air cooling is good enough for most PC's. Even a well overclocked system should be fine with air cooling unless you've pumped the voltage up too high. Athlons at over 1.5ghz are running on air cooling, and with 0.13 micron processors coming out this year(hopefully), more power can be had with the same heat.

    I wouldn't like to be the guy who offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee on a water cooled server . But so long as it's well made, and thouroughly tested to ensure no leaks are present , there's no reason not to use it. Apart from the cost of colocating your bucket, and getting it refilled with ice every couple of hours .

    Rich
    Inspa.net
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