[LemonSlice]

Long story short: Good performing but cheap and compact water cooling loop.

I just bought a CoolIt ECO from another member on OCN for a decent price for a brand new unused unit. I was thinking of modding the radiator to a 240. It's a thin black ice radiator, but it can't cool worse than the stock one because it's a 240 can it.. I made this thread with the intention of asking questions, and posting progress if anyone else cares to watch. I plan to change the tubing as well. If it turns out that I kill the ECO, I still have a Megahalems to fall back to

.

The 240 was left over from a year ago when I had a dedicated WC loop, but I abandoned it. Now I've just upgraded to an i7 930 system that I've been saving up for a long time for and I don't want a very tight crammed case so I'm trying to stick to something compact.

Expect this to start in about a week or so, when I get the cooler.

56k safe unless clicking the picture links.

I intend to also use the cooler stock for a few days to get the temperatures to compare to later. Otherwise, what's the basis of this experiment with nothing to compare to...

Progress:
Finding the perfect location for the radiator.
Disassembly, replacing the tubing, replacing the fluid
Stock temperatures and a picture
The actual point of the mod

 

[AuraNova]

I'm curious as to how this will turn out.

 

[LemonSlice]

Radiator to be used and it's perfect mounting location. It's thin so it won't interfere with anything, and won't look terrible either. Pic shows the lineup of the mounting holes.

 

[LemonSlice]

Disassembly, tubing replacement, and fluid flush/replacement. The tubing used on the ECO is 1/4" ID, and can be replaced by clear 1/4" ID tubing that you can find at Home Depot. I got 20' of it for $3.50.

Started off by cutting the tube and letting most of the fluid drain out on its own. The fluid being used is green... Colors in fluid are bad, most of us at OCN know that. I decided to flush it out and replace it with a stock of PC Pure I had. Colorless with antimicrobials already mixed in.

Then I cut two pieces of tubing about 12" each and attached them. They fit very well and stay on tight. It is actually pretty hard to get them off without wiggling them back and forth and edging them off little by little.

The radiator and pump barbs are both plastic.

I filled it by pumping the fluid in with a giant syringe just so the pump can then move water by itself.

After there was a decent amount of water inside, I put it in a container and filled it up past the radiator barbs when the radiator is placed upright inside the container. I ran the pump for about 10 minutes to get the bubbles out. Then I used a combination of the syringe and rotating the radiator while it was running to get the last bubbles out. I connected the last tubing piece to the barb while it was under the liquid so no air got in. There might be one tiny bubble left but that will stay in the reservoir of the radiator when mounted.

Control tests will be done with this setup next week when I get different fans to test. I will have the stock fan, a pair GT AP-15s, and a pair of panaflo 120x38 fans to test. Then it will be compared to the Black Ice Pro 240 radiator when the barbs I ordered arrive.

 

[LemonSlice]

Stock temperatures running 20 runs of LinX problem size 10000.

Lowest reported by Core Temp
42C
37C
39C
35C

Highest reported by Core Temp
71C
67C
65C
62C

At that point I could feel the radiator becoming saturated, it felt warm to the touch and that makes me feel good about how well this modification will perform as to help dissipate the heat better.

 

[tipsycoma]

What did you do to my ECO?!?

Looks great though man!

 

[LemonSlice]

Haha making it better

. I figured it would be a fun project and a good way for me to get into watercooling without getting a bunch of dedicated parts and cluttering up my case

.

 

[BinaryBummer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tipsycoma What did you do to my ECO?!?

Ohhh... I know the feeling your getting but after all you past the torch and this is OCN and this is what we do.

 

[Jolly-Swagman]

Nice job on the ECCO conversion, well done!

 

[bukva]

maybe you could add vga block to the loop to se how it cops with higher heat source

 

[LemonSlice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bukva maybe you could add vga block to the loop to se how it cops with higher heat source

It already doesn't cope with my i7 at load

. What i was trying to do was to see how a dual radiator effected temperatures. Unfortunately I'm currently plagued with a defective motherboard so modifiede temps will not come soon, but I do intend to proceed with the modification. I'll be forced to fall back to a celeron for a week or two

.

 

[CLoNi]

I know this thread is quite "old" but I was wondering: what happened to your CoolIT ECO?

I see you are using a Megahalems now

 

[LemonSlice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CLoNi I know this thread is quite "old" but I was wondering: what happened to your CoolIT ECO? I see you are using a Megahalems now

Put off the mod because the tubing I used was porous. The stuff I ordered comes tomorrow, which = the continuation of this

.

 

[clownes]

Considering trying this mod with my eco alc, mounting the 240mm in the top of my CM Elite 430.

 

[LemonSlice]

Lack of update for a while, I know, but I had other issues to work out first. I received my parts today and managed to finish up. 1x Swiftech MCRES rev2, two 1/4" ID fittings, and some Tygon non-porous tubing.

Finding a location for the reservoir

After the tubing was cut and fitted, prepped for filling.

Filling was a little bit difficult. The ECO has a weak pump, so I basically had to gravity feed it while the reservoir wasn't sealed shut. Once I had the loop mostly filled with fluid, I filled the reservoir to the max and sealed it shut. Then I let it run for a few minutes. All the air was gone from the tubing and pump, but there were still pockets of it in the radiator because of the arrangement of fins. After about 5 minutes of rotating the radiator and allowing the bubbles to leave and enter the reservoir, the loop was completely air free.

I had to keep the reservoir upright in order to keep air from entering the tubing and getting stuck in the radiator while installing it. I think it turned out pretty good in the end. It now runs at a max of 73C during LinX on the hottest core, 62C on the lowest. During folding the numbers are 72 and 60 respectively. 60 is very low, it has to do with either the IHS being warped badly or between the core and IHS. I probably will lap it to get better temperatures across the cores rather than on one core. The radiator is a Black Ice Pro 240 with two Scythe GentleTyphoon AP-15s. It runs decently cooler than a Megahalems with a deafening Panaflo on it, which maxed out at 76C. Final result, quieter and cooler

.

The original unmodified ECO ran up to 76C with the i7 at STOCK. These other temperatures were all done at 4GHz.

 

[bukva]

hy whats the inner and outer diameter of your tubes in mm??

 

[MadOblivion]

Hi, Ive been tossing around some idea's for my eco alc.

Let me run this by you guys,

What if I toss the Rad completely. And run the line straight to a Large aquarium 4'x3'x2'.

If my theory is correct the aquarium will be able to dissipate any heat with the water surface area X volume.

I would mount the intake at the bottom of the aquarium and the output near the top. With the rad no longer restricting flow my temps should improve quite a bit.

it would no longer be a closed loop, but i imagine i wont have any problems with evaporation since i will be dealing with so much water.

 

[kingofyo1]

problem with that is that if its an open top aquarium, you'll have sediments and other crap entering the loop messing up the pump

 

[MadOblivion]

I could run a simple aquarium filter for that. Any sediment will settle on the bottom, we arent talking alot of flow with this pump, I can mount it a couple inches from the bottom and probably not have any issues.

Some aquarium filters would actually be large enough to mount a radiator inside the filter reservoir if i want the loop to remain closed. But i think the radiator would just hinder the flow and not provide as much cooling as a
LARGE reservoir would.

My main concern is keeping the tubing as short as possible.

Another option is buying a 1366 cpu water block, without a pump.

The reason for not having a pump would be to create a gravity fed water cooling system.

To do this i would have to drill a hole in the side/bottom of a medium size to large aquarium. The weight of the water would create LOTS of flow, better flow then any pump you would buy. and then simply feed the water back in the reservoir.

I am reluctant to do this with the aquarium i currently have, it is HUGE and drilling a hole would pretty much ruin it. I think this could work with an aquarium much smaller.

If i could actually perfect the design.. figure out how much water volume i need for cooling and pressure purposes if done correctly really would be awesome. Never have to worry about a pump dying.

 

[MadOblivion]

ITS ALIVE, forget about that whole aquarium thing lol. I have a question about your eco setup. Why did you not include the original 120mm rad in the loop? Was it a space issue? And do you think if you included into your loop with the 240 it would of improved temps any?