Is anyone using water cooling or liquid cooling for the GTX cards? I am looking into a water cooled system and would like some advice. My system with 2 GTX 570s is WAY too hot when I over clock the cards.

thx

What are your temps and fan speeds?

Everything is fine at stock speeds but when I over clock to about 940MHz on both cards, temps go to 82C with fans at max speed. I have 2 fans blowing at the cards but the ambient temps are increasing due to summer time. I can add a few more fans to the case and that might be my next step.

Water cooling is expensive. Water blocks are $120 each and the radiator and pump can exceed $300.

For $600, I can increase the performance of my existing cards by 25% or buy 2 more GTX 570s and increase it by 200%.

It could be a fun way to waste time and money but adding another card would also be a bit of a project.

thx

Next week, we will install a water cooling for our 3x580+1x590. I will report results.

And yes, it's expensive (especially for full cover water blocks), but temperatures of GPUs are about 45°C.

It would be great to learn from your project. What products did you buy? How did the installation go? Can you provide pictures of each step of the process? Did you use compression fittings or standard with a clamp? With that much heat, you must have used an external radiator - which one?

As you can see, many questions.....

Thanks for your help and good luck with the project. Keeping 570s and 580s cool is a chore and full coverage water blocks are the only way to go.

Water cooling is expensive. Water blocks are $120 each and the radiator and pump can exceed $300.

You should add some other safety components like water flow meters (and an emergency shut down system connected to it) if you use it 24/7, because if the water pump breaks down, your highly overclocked GPUs will fry in a very short time. The lager amount of heat the cooling solution can handle, the lager the problem when the cooling solution breaks down. Well known examples of this problem are the nuclear power plant accidents.

For $600, I can increase the performance of my existing cards by 25% or buy 2 more GTX 570s and increase it by 200%.

That's why water cooling is out of the question for crunching. Crunchers don't need their computing power concentrated in a single PC. Water, dry-ice, liquid nitrogen, heat pumps, oil tank, and other fancy cooling solutions are far more expensive and unreliable, than a new PC with one or two GPUs in it with air cooling. However, a better than standard air cooler is recommended.

However, a better than standard air cooler is recommended.

Yes. We have preset fan speed to maximum and most of fans are gone in 6 months. (MSI Lightning 580)

6 months!! that's quick. Maximum meaning 100% or like EVGA 570 where it only allows up to 85%? Just curious. Been looking at dabbling with aftermarket GPU coolers, haven't done GPU before, just CPU, so I'm somewhat hesitant.

Is installing say a Arctic Cooler that much harder?

We have preset fan speed to maximum and most of fans are gone in 6 months. (MSI Lightning 580)

I have two MSI GTX 480 TwinFrozr II, but their cooler are emitting a very annoying, very high pitch hissing noise, when I rev them up. So I removed this cooler after a day.
I'm using Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus on my every GTX 480s and 580. My GPU temps are 55-60-65°C depending on the WU, and the position of the GPU. In my two GPU systems, the one that close to the CPU is usually 10°C hotter than the other one. The 480s are running at 800MHz. Fan speed is at maximum (100% for GTX 480, 85% for GTX 580)
One fan on each of the two oldest are rattling sometimes, I guess their bearings are wearing out, lubricating didn't help. They are more than 18 months old.

I have two MSI GTX 480 TwinFrozr II, but their cooler are emitting a very annoying, very high pitch hissing noise, when I rev them up.

Same for 580, but we have all cards in server room so noise is not problem for us.

Is installing say a Arctic Cooler that much harder?

The hardest part is removing the original cooler's metal heat spreader's screws. They usually put some paint in the thread to lock the screws. The card loses most of its rigidity by removing the metal heat spreader, so you have to be careful when handling the card not to bend it too much.

I just saw this post. I learned the hard way, the environment around the machine is very important. I have a MainGear Shift Super Stock, i7-3930K HT six core, sealed water cooler, and twin GTX580's, sealed liquid cooler.

But, I had the thing under my desk, with only about 4" of head room. After less than one month, I burned out the coolant pump on the CPU.

This machine has the internals turned 90 degrees, so heat ventilates all vertically and out the generous top grills- right into the desk. The ambient temperature got over 100 deg F, and the pump on the CPU cooler burned out, shutting down the machine.

Suffice it to say, the machine is no longer under the desk.

I only lost 36 hours. MainGear is about 30 minutes from my house. They came down lickety-split, picked up the machine, had it repaired and tested over night.

BOINC has little to say about ambient conditions. I made a lot of noise about this on their forums, and hopefully saved some people from making the same mistake I did.

---

Please check out my blog
http://sciencesprings.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/sciencesprings

Rubbing a bunch of money on a problem hardly ever works as well as applying common sense and just a little money. However, if you have too much money in your bank account then water cooling is a good way to burn some of that money off quickly.

There are 2 simple rules for keeping the machines cool:

1) Don't vent hot exhaust from a CPU or GPU into a closed case. NEVER! Why? Because it increases the temp of the air in the case and you can't cool anything effectively by blowing hot air at it. Case fans are mostly worthless. If you can't figure out how to use scissors, cardboard and glue to build a simple duct to carry the hot air outside the case then for goodness sake remove the side of the case.

2) Don't vent hot air from the case into the room. NEVER! Vent it to the outside of the building or else be prepared to pay more for air conditioning or suffer a big decrease in the effectiveness of your cooling solution. Put a fan in the window and duct or direct the hot air from the case(s) into that fan's intake. At one time I had 5 machines all ducted into one window fan. A pair of scissors, some glue, $10 worth of materials, 10 minutes of thinking about it, 30 minutes to build it. The room stayed cool and so did all the machines.

I have a machine and welding shop and have been making water (actually glycol) cooled systems for years. All you need is a mill and surface plane to make high quality blocks and a Tig welder to attach the hose barbs. The rest of the parts are stock items if you know where to order from and you can find many of the items, like radiators, brand new in scrap bins if you know where to look and what to look for. I built water systems far better than anything you can find on the market for about $20 and not much labor, with huge radiators and pumps. But guess what, those systems don't work any better than a decent air system and a little common sense. I can't be bothered making them anymore and feel sorry for people who get sucked into buying them. They just aren't necessary.

Dagorath:

Thank you for the wise advice. After a few hours with scissors, a screw driver, electrical tape and a little temperature testing most of the problems appear to be solved. I let the computer run while I made the changes so I could monitor airflow and temps. I rerouted a few cables and taped over some mesh areas and reversed one of my case fans to force air where I need it and vent heat from hot spots.

Both boards are overclocked again with temps in the mid 70s. I need some warmer ambient temps for a real test but at least I don't see anything in the 80's - yet.

thx

You used the magic word... test. You've got the idea, test what you did and if it isn't giving what you want then improve on it.

In my last post I said case fans are largely ineffective. That's a bad choice of words, let me explain. You can mount several case fans and often find they don't improve your temp readings. The reason is that if fans aren't positioned correctly they create turbulence inside the case. Turbulence impedes flow of air into and out of the case. Hence my advice to just remove the side of the case and thereby eliminate the turbulence and air in/out issues completely at a cost of $0 to you. I can almost guarantee you'll gain 2 degrees that way. Position a 110 volt fan, on low (quiet) speed, to blow air into the case cavity and you'll probably gain another degree or 2. Cables inside the case will also cause turbulence so your tucking the cables away was a good move.

If ambient room temperature rises as summer progresses and your devices start running hot again, I have some low cost ideas that are guaranteed to help. Whether they work well enough depends to some extent on your location (how hot it gets outside), air conditioning and other obvious factors but they cost very little to try. And if they don't work then you can always try the expensive solutions.

Hey, Dagorath-

How are you? I appreciate your sentiments; but, you know, that's just not my skill set. You knew I was going to buy the Maingear machine. And, I am delighted with it.

The whole heat issue is not dealt with at all at BOINC or in their forums. So, actually, my situation was a good adventure. All of a sudden, people were coming out of the woodwork with heat problems, and getting good advice.

---

Please check out my blog
http://sciencesprings.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/sciencesprings

Hi Rich,

Good to hear from you again. At one time it wasn't my skill set either but I made it part of my skill set and you can too. That's not to say you *should*, just saying you can.

The reason heat issues aren't dealt with at BOINC is because most people Google "computer cooling" or similar terms and discuss the topic in forums dedicated to cooling issues. It was in one of those forums that I ran into an engineer who designs HVAC systems for buildings. (The same principles apply to a computer case just on a smaller scale.) I could tell he was the guy with the knowledge I needed because he didn't talk about what gear was the latest and greatest and magic pills, he talked down to earth physics and design.

Frankly I'm not surprised to hear that after you spent mega-bucks on liquid cooling you stuffed the unit into a tight space and fried the pump. I could see it coming from the way you were talking about it on the BOINC forum. It was obvious you knew nothing about what you were doing, didn't want to know, claimed it's not possible for you to ever know that stuff and that the guys at Maingear were the gods who would sell you the magic pill that would fix anything and everything for all time. I see it all the time and it makes me very sad... people peeing money down the toilet on expensive stuff they don't need and don't know how to use anyway. Glad you're delighted with what you have but you could have got twice the machine for less than what you spent.

In spite of what the people who make and sell them want you to believe, machines aren't magic. I mean machines in general not just computers. Machines are invented by men/women who are no more intelligent than you and I. If you put your mind to it and if you have the time you can master whatever skill set you need/want to do whatever you want with any machine you want. With the abundance of free info and discussion available on the net there are very few boundaries anymore.

Sometime I wonder if the main message you're trying to convey here is that you make so bleedin' much money you don't need to worry about throwing it away?

But that's all small potatoes. Far more important is the fact that you're here crunching and trying to make a better world. Happy crunching to you now and always!

Ah, you see? We are the perfect forum couple. I represent "Everyman", just a guy who likes science and wishes to participate. You represent the technical knowledge we need to succeed. Of, course, like everyman, I do not listen, I just go my own way.

But, I am not quiet about it and that is important. I have always felt that as a technically incompetent person, if I bare my faults and soul in these forums, others without the fortitude will find out what they need to know from folks, like you, with the knowledge they need.

Look, I am 71, I have done "O.K." and crunching is a passion. If it were not for my wife, I would call Maingear and order a duplicate machine today.

There are 295,000 crunchers active right now. Most are technically incompetent. If that is not true, then we have not reached out enough into the general population. I speak for those ordinary people.

BTW, if you want to see where I am competent, check out my blog, ScienceSprings.

---

Please check out my blog
http://sciencesprings.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/sciencesprings

I learned the hard way, the environment around the machine is very important. I have a MainGear Shift Super Stock, i7-3930K HT six core, sealed water cooler, and twin GTX580's, sealed liquid cooler.

But, I had the thing under my desk, with only about 4" of head room. After less than one month, I burned out the coolant pump on the CPU.

This machine has the internals turned 90 degrees, so heat ventilates all vertically and out the generous top grills- right into the desk. The ambient temperature got over 100 deg F, and the pump on the CPU cooler burned out, shutting down the machine.

Suffice it to say, the machine is no longer under the desk.

In case of PCs - no matter what is the primary coolant medium (water, liquid nitrogen, dry-ice, oil) - the heat is emitted into the air at the end of the cooling system (assuming that the whole system should be mobile to some extent). Therefore if the radiators of the water cooling system are placed in a badly ventilated area (inside the PC case, under a desk etc...), the efficiency of the water cooling system will badly suffer.

The point of water cooling is to remove the heat from the PC case as fast as possible, and radiate it to the environment with higher efficiency (=at lower temperature, and/or with lower noise) than it would be possible inside the case.
In exchange for using less space than the ones with external radiator, the sealed liquid coolers are less efficient, and therfore less suitable for 24/7 use.

If it were not for my wife, I would call Maingear and order a duplicate machine today.

There's your problem! Divorce her and marry me. We'll build a crunching machine soooo big we can live inside it comfortably with an indoor swimming pool heated with GPU heat. The case will be made of gingerbread with marshmallows and M&Ms dotting the eaves and gables ;)