mike2668 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Welkom to my watercooling how too, here i will post some info on the project started and how it works. the Alienware that i bought came with a ATI 7350 GPU well we all know that it not a fast cards at all so an upgrade for a 6970m was the first thing i did, sadly the 6970m was a doa and never got too work. It was not long before i found a good 5850m ok it was not what i wanted but the story put me back 500 euro. when the 5850m worked i bought a 920xm as well together it was a good combination and soon i started overclocking the 5850m with core speeds of 850 and mem on 1100 it became pretty hot. temps of 87 degrees was a normal thing and i never feld really happy with that. 2 years past so a new update was nessesary it became a 7970m but again the temps where very high 80 degrees. I started thinking of a cooling Mod in the back of my mind that also the CPU became too slow and needed to be OC for better preformance. A visite at my mate gave me a idea on how i could make a usefull cooling mod, he showed me a AMD with hybridecooling , that was awesome that was wat i was looking for. So what is Hybridecooling? When you have 2 mixed systems that work together like Aircooling and watercooling they are hybride much like a Battery powered car with a engine. In my case it was watercooling but with the original fans still working. The benefits of watercooling and the movebility of the aircooling..... So what did i need first......this made my brain sqeek a bit, as i was not a watercooler modder or did i ever done that stuff before. Soon a few ideas came to mind and i started searching on the internet for some parts i could work with the first parts i ordered where heatsinks for the GPU and the CPU, i was not willing to test on my original parts and i found them on Ebay. I also found a backcover (the one under the laptop...cpu,gpu,harddisk and mem) because i had to make holes for the waterbloks and hoses. than i found some good waterbloks from Mips waterblock that are used for XXXXX they are small and made from copper. for the quickconnectors i found stuff from aquacool very ridgid and cool to see.......also very expensive....lol. All the fittings where found from the companie Barrows and the Radiator, pump and little parts from Aliexpress (my best friend these days). Next thing that came to mind was controling everything, not needed but hey i am a nerd and it looks cool as well . I found a fan controller that would work well for me it has fancontroll but it can also read temps witch was a very good plus i think. I connected the sensors on the heatsinks (CPU, GPU and MEM) still had one spare so choose to temp the cooling water as well. My idea was to make a cooling tower with big fans and a 240x120 radiator so i had to make a frame where everyting would fit on to including the pump with waterreservoir. And offcourse i would have silent fans with fan grills everything needed to work but also look cool............yes i really am a nerd. The laptopcooler needed to be adjusted so the waterblocks could fit and the connectors for the coolingfluid so i made some holes in the aluminium i also made some bigger holes for the aircooling. At same time the backcover also needed to be adjusted and because of the opening between the watercoolers and wires for the fancontrol i decided to make a rubber closing so no dust or other stuff is going in to the Alienware at that place. After reinforcing the laptopcooler it kinda looked cool and and it was time too test the watercooling on the GPU. As for connecting the waterblocks to the heatpipes that gave me a problem because the aluminium on the heatsinks is very delicate, i mean its soft and it bents really fast but i have to put a bit of pressure on the heatpipes. No real choice was left for me i had to dril holes in the heatsinks (3mm) and right next to the copper that goes directly on the GPU and CPU ., ok that made me sweat a little. With a press i pressed the waterbloks on the heatpipes so it would fit better and the cooling surface would be bigger. I used some long bolts 3 mm and added some springs witch should give the waterblocks some pressure on the heatpipes and that worked really good, offcourse i used coolingpaste between them for better heat transfer. Finally i also connected the sensors on the heatsinks....one next to the GPU, CPU and one on the Mem...Great work and happy about the result. Time for testing as i had some parts that could be used i decided that i make a testrun with GPU cooling only. The use of simple fittings and cheap hose made me realize that there was a cheaperway than the way i did it but hey it a hobby so who cares ....... my wife did....lol. Because it was a test run i thought i better use my old 5850m i new that this was a hot GPU so if the cooling would work it would show at once.....but only how much that i dint know. I started testing with full GPU load and with different GPU corespeeds.....check out the table below. 5850m GPU/mem 650/1000 FPS 25,9 Watts 108 Temp 50 (78) GPU/Mem 700/1000p FPS 27,3 Watts 112 Temp 51 (84) GPU/Mem 750/1000 FPS 28,5 Watts 115 Temp 53 (85) GPU/Mem 800/1000 FPS 30,3 Watts 120 Temp 54 (87) a video on the temp drop of the cooling. The testing was a succes temp got lowerd 30 degrees so now i could start building the real setup as was planned. Not every thing i needed was arrived yet ....damn i hate waiting.....so i decided that i will test all the stuff i did had , first the fittings and the hoses.........Crapp...different size.....seems that the fittings from Barrows where different from the Aquacool so i needed to order new one's. Finally i decided to buy everything from Aquacool because the are easy to get in the Netherlands and they looked a lot like the Barrows so i could mix them. after a few weeks everthing arrived and i could start putting it al together for me the fun parts except that my 7970m died seems i used the wrong thermal pads and now the mem stopt working because they became too hot, the screen got some green and red blocks and on stock win drivers it worked but the CCC drivers dint anymore.............damn that was a set back.......maybe time for a new card than i did hear good reviews on the GTX 970m......damn wat a nightmare i had to buy the best card availible for the M15X.........Yep i really dint like that.......smile. More to come......... http://youtu.be/3-59FXhehm4 - - - Updated - - - (for future post and updates) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
migualo Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 That looks damn fuckin class! How the heck did you do it?????Also, what did you have to do to get the 970m running? Do you get any throttling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 as soon as there is time i will post a little story on how i made it and what i did use to make it running ok. The card was really plug an play, just make sure the thermal pads are the right ones and fit everything like Original..throtteling i had before the CPU was overclocked after overclocking it went away......so i think it was lack of power from my CPU. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khenglish Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Ha nice. So can you run a 920xm at 4ghz now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 for now all the cores at 27 is max.......higher than that is BSOD......voltage problem maybe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegh0sts Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 wait? still kinda confused about how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 In a sense i just put some waterblocks on top of the heatpipes en connect them with quickrelease connectors on a laptop cooler frame. so i can disconnect the watercooling without leaking and the waterblocks stay filled with water, but when there is no pump cooling the water the stockfans (witch are still fully operational) do there work..........does that make sense??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegh0sts Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 So you still modded the laptop case to make use of the cooling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chap Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 impresssive work, there was a time i had thee same idea like u but i wanted to go with motherborad mosfet coolers and special small watercoolers maybe i think about this again, as my 3920xm now need +50mv for 4.2ghz, when it was new he made the 4.2 with stock voltage it runs quite hot when i go to 4.4 or 4.6ghz, but games dont need that much power so tehre is not really a reason to do that also my 7970 did onmy 50mhz more with +50mv which resulted in a lot of heat so i decided its senseless to ov the gpu ill see how the 980m in my p170em will behave p.s add some more pictures pls. some of the heatsinks instaled and generally more pictures, its too interesting 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 Just the cover of the GPU, CPU and disk...Iam working on a write up so please be patient......smile. So you still modded the laptop case to make use of the cooling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegh0sts Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 OK cos it wouldn't make sense if the venting grills were in the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 Little update first post....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chap Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 can u upload some pictures of the heatsink installed and watercooled while runningcurious how it will lookcheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Brian Posted January 12, 2015 Founder Share Posted January 12, 2015 Hey great job w/the mod, that's the kinda out of the box thinking we like to see around here. Hope to see more details on it in your follow-up posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 12, 2015 Author Share Posted January 12, 2015 again a few updates..... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genetics Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chap Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 really nice,how did you get screw holes into the heatsink?cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2668 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Just drilled 3mm ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.