Full Water Cooled Entertainment System

[Pankaikz]

Alright, y'all, I have a few ideas. I figured I might as well go ahead and type them out. Kind of just thinking out loud and sharing what I'm about to do. In my bedroom I have a home theater setup. Only large speakers (Floorstanding JBL's and Klipsch, Paradigm, Bose, and some others). Well needless to say, its loud. The amp runs pretty darn warm and because I have all my A/V and multimedia equipment in my closet, there is a relatively high amount of heat generated. I currently have all fan driven cooling. I'm about to make the leap to a fully water cooled setup. I'm not going to buy buy a pre-made water cooling system and modify it to suit my needs. I'll go ahead a jump into the details.

So, I'll start with the reservoir. I'm most likely going to purchase a plastic 5 gallon fish tank and modify it with fittings for the intakes and outputs. For the pumps I'm going to use 150+ gallon per hour submersible fish tank or fountain pumps. As far as the actual act of removing the heat from the equipment, I'm going to take the cover off of my AVR and drill 1/4" inch holes through the heatsink and run 3 or 4 copper pipes though them. From the pump it will be reach the heatsink, split into however many lines, run though the heatsink, then collect in a 1/2" pipe and run out of the AVR, and to a 1/2" tube. I'll do the same with the CPU heatsink in the computer and any other equipment that requires cooling. From equipment, I'll run the lines out and have them merge into a 1 to 2" line running into a radiator of some type with fans blowing air over it. from there the line will be carried back to reservoir. There will be thermostats controlling the pumps. By having a central radiator and multiple pumps, I'm likely to save on room.

This is far from necessary, but its a project to occupy my spare time until I start working on my trucks. I understand that it isn't completely reasonable. Just thought that I'd throw out my basic idea. I'm certain to change the idea around a decent bit. The plan is to spend under $200 for it all.

Y'all feel free to leave your input (and the expected criticism)

Thanks,
Michael

 

[ssddx]

i wouldn't suggest drilling holes in the cpu heatsink.. instead getting a cpu watercooling heatsink. just drilling holes and passing lines through isnt going to give you good cooling capability and cpus generate enough heat to warrant not doing this. as for the other heatsinks... you might be able to get by however i would still leave any fans included in your equipment set up as a backup.

there are certainly alot of things that can go wrong , but it would be interesting to see where this goes. just be aware of the risk.

 

[Hello man]

Alright, y'all, I have a few ideas. I figured I might as well go ahead and type them out. Kind of just thinking out loud and sharing what I'm about to do. In my bedroom I have a home theater setup. Only large speakers (Floorstanding JBL's and Klipsch, Paradigm, Bose, and some others). Well needless to say, its loud. The amp runs pretty darn warm and because I have all my A/V and multimedia equipment in my closet, there is a relatively high amount of heat generated. I currently have all fan driven cooling. I'm about to make the leap to a fully water cooled setup. I'm not going to buy buy a pre-made water cooling system and modify it to suit my needs. I'll go ahead a jump into the details.

So, I'll start with the reservoir. I'm most likely going to purchase a plastic 5 gallon fish tank and modify it with fittings for the intakes and outputs. For the pumps I'm going to use 150+ gallon per hour submersible fish tank or fountain pumps. As far as the actual act of removing the heat from the equipment, I'm going to take the cover off of my AVR and drill 1/4" inch holes through the heatsink and run 3 or 4 copper pipes though them. From the pump it will be reach the heatsink, split into however many lines, run though the heatsink, then collect in a 1/2" pipe and run out of the AVR, and to a 1/2" tube. I'll do the same with the CPU heatsink in the computer and any other equipment that requires cooling. From equipment, I'll run the lines out and have them merge into a 1 to 2" line running into a radiator of some type with fans blowing air over it. from there the line will be carried back to reservoir. There will be thermostats controlling the pumps. By having a central radiator and multiple pumps, I'm likely to save on room.

This is far from necessary, but its a project to occupy my spare time until I start working on my trucks. I understand that it isn't completely reasonable. Just thought that I'd throw out my basic idea. I'm certain to change the idea around a decent bit. The plan is to spend under $200 for it all.

Y'all feel free to leave your input (and the expected criticism)

Thanks,
Michael

Yeah, just get dedicated CPU and GPU water blocks. Also make sure the pump you choose has enough head pressure. Linus Tech Tips did a full room water-cooling project video log, which you should check out for ideas. They used Swiftech made pumps I do believe. Just search "full room water cooling" on youtube.

 

[Pankaikz]

I appreciate the input. The thing about the PC in question is that its a Celeron D. I have 2 of these computer's and I can't bring myself to spend any sort of real money on an obsolete computer. I was using the computer to run a DLNA server, but then I moved around a bunch of my stuff and left it unhooked and eventually stole the fans off both of them for other projects. I am now to the point that I have come to a temporary stopping point my current project and wish to transition to this one. I am saving up for stuff for my truck, so I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on this. I have done a test on the CPU cooler and did a shitty makeshift water cooling setup with fish tank air hose (of all things...) lodged in the fins and kept the temperature at a reasonable level at full load. I was debating between a single large pump (1500 GPH, plenty of head pressure... phaha) and a few moderate pumps. The issue with a single pump is plumbing in the valve system with a pressure release/bypass valve to prevent the pump from killing itself from the back pressure. With the smaller pumps, I could just run thermostats(for on off). Most of the cooling parts are going to be automotive(OEM oil coolers for radiators), along with the hoses. I don't really care if it looks pretty (form over function). More copper lines run though the heatsinks = more heat transfer. So, hell, I may end up doing 12 1/4" tubes in the AVR heatsink. The AVR is my main concern. I usually only run my receiver at 1/4 volume, which is plenty enough to shake the walls, and anything above that I start to worry about overheating issues (most likely not a real issue, but still). I originally just wanted to run liquid cooling on my AVR, the PC being an after-though. I can get a decent pump for about 50 dollars, oil cooler for probably 15 or 20, 20 feet of 1/4" copper pipe for about 17.50, a 5 gallon fish tank for free, uhh... I've been up around 30 hours and have been working on the property for about 10 of those hours, so I'm tired. I'll type the rest of the crap up later.

Oh, and the project I'm putting on hold is a nitrous injected go kart/buggy thing. Pha!

 

[Hello man]

I appreciate the input. The thing about the PC in question is that its a Celeron D. I have 2 of these computer's and I can't bring myself to spend any sort of real money on an obsolete computer. I was using the computer to run a DLNA server, but then I moved around a bunch of my stuff and left it unhooked and eventually stole the fans off both of them for other projects. I am now to the point that I have come to a temporary stopping point my current project and wish to transition to this one. I am saving up for stuff for my truck, so I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on this. I have done a test on the CPU cooler and did a shitty makeshift water cooling setup with fish tank air hose (of all things...) lodged in the fins and kept the temperature at a reasonable level at full load. I was debating between a single large pump (1500 GPH, plenty of head pressure... phaha) and a few moderate pumps. The issue with a single pump is plumbing in the valve system with a pressure release/bypass valve to prevent the pump from killing itself from the back pressure. With the smaller pumps, I could just run thermostats(for on off). Most of the cooling parts are going to be automotive(OEM oil coolers for radiators), along with the hoses. I don't really care if it looks pretty (form over function). More copper lines run though the heatsinks = more heat transfer. So, hell, I may end up doing 12 1/4" tubes in the AVR heatsink. The AVR is my main concern. I usually only run my receiver at 1/4 volume, which is plenty enough to shake the walls, and anything above that I start to worry about overheating issues (most likely not a real issue, but still). I originally just wanted to run liquid cooling on my AVR, the PC being an after-though. I can get a decent pump for about 50 dollars, oil cooler for probably 15 or 20, 20 feet of 1/4" copper pipe for about 17.50, a 5 gallon fish tank for free, uhh... I've been up around 30 hours and have been working on the property for about 10 of those hours, so I'm tired. I'll type the rest of the crap up later.

Oh, and the project I'm putting on hold is a nitrous injected go kart/buggy thing. Pha!

Nitrous go kart/buggy? Sounds dangerous. You should look at Roadkill's C4 Corvette Cart

I like this idea of cooling the receiver, I would do it with mine but its kinda vintage so nah. I just strapped a bunch of fans to mine.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Since the heatsinks in an AVR are not designed to be water cooled just running copper pipe through it will have so little contact area that the effect would be negligible and if there is any water leakage you can kiss that AVR goodbye.
Audio electronics are designed to run at a set temperature range (some very hot some cool) so running them at a different temperature can compromise the sound.
It doesn't sound as if you are running the receiver hard. If the receiver is not shutting down leave it alone. If you insist on cooling it stay out of the cabinet. If the heatsinks draw air from the bottom place your cooling under the receiver so cooler air can flow up into and out of the receiver.
Sounds like you got too much time on your hands right now.

 

[Hello man]

Since the heatsinks in an AVR are not designed to be water cooled just running copper pipe through it will have so little contact area that the effect would be negligible and if there is any water leakage you can kiss that AVR goodbye.
Audio electronics are designed to run at a set temperature range (some very hot some cool) so running them at a different temperature can compromise the sound.
It doesn't sound as if you are running the receiver hard. If the receiver is not shutting down leave it alone. If you insist on cooling it stay out of the cabinet. If the heatsinks draw air from the bottom place your cooling under the receiver so cooler air can flow up into and out of the receiver.
Sounds like you got too much time on your hands right now.

Don't we all? Maybe thats just me cause my back is broken, I can't ride mountain bikes and my rig is done and won't need fiddling.