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Linus watercools

Joined
Mar 21, 2021
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Colorado, U.S.A.
System Name CyberPowerPC ET8070
Processor Intel Core i5-10400F
Motherboard Gigabyte B460M DS3H AC-Y1
Memory 2 x Crucial Ballistix 8GB DDR4-3000
Video Card(s) MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super
Storage Boot: Intel OPTANE SSD P1600X Series 118GB M.2 PCIE
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Power Supply EVGA 500W1 (modified to have two bridge rectifiers)
Software Windows 11 Home
Watch someone other than Linus.

Use good quality coolant and change it every year or two (per manufacturer's instructions) and never worry about anything.
 
I couldnt care less what this guy does. I dont even watch his videos, I thought were were talking about torvalds and his machine or something.

I have ran water since like 2009. No reason to belive some sensationalist BS about its effects.
 
My loop is going on 1 year with zero issues. I'd say it's reliable.
 
Once you get past the fill and no leaks, your golden. I usually have 1-2 and it's always a fitting that came lose when I was fiddling with tube during install. If I actually checked, it wouldnt be a problem. Plus you should always use a second PSU for the fill process and check. No chance of damage if leaks.
 
if you want custom loops, I recommend jayz2cents, he has some good videos on custom loops.

personally I would never do a custom loop. air is fine and safe. unless you are running a 14900k then yeah maybe do custom loop, everything else nah you good with a nice big thermalright air cooler for 40 bucks :D

@freeagent it's ok to hug all the thermalright heatsinks, it makes me happy inside too :love: don't let your wife tell you it's weird :laugh:
 
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I trust my loop

Me too, especially since I've been doing it longer than what AIO's have been out.

I once even filled the CPU socket with liquid coolant (think it was a soft tube error) and dried it out with a heat gun and the board still booted and works to this day.

And you thought not plugging in your GPU power was bad : )
 
Me too, especially since I've been doing it longer than what AIO's have been out.

I once even filled the CPU socket with liquid coolant (think it was a soft tube error) and dried it out with a heat gun and the board still booted and works to this day.

And you thought not plugging in your GPU power was bad : )

its fine if people like you do custom loops, but a lot of us here are idiots. including myself. case in point, my MSI B550 mobo is in the trash as of two weeks ago.

had a piece of red something (i think it was cloth or something I don't know though might have been metal) in the socket as i was cleaning everything. so I was like ok, this is easy blow, blow blow , nope it won't budge, alright np right? i will flush it out with 91% isopropyl alcohol, nope, made it worse, it went in deeper into the tiny little socket hole. so i was like ok i will flush it with the whole damn bottle of alcohol while turned upside down and squirting it up inside the socket, gravity right? thinking i am a smart guy.

nope. long story short i thought i could reach the little red thingy with a tooth pick, so i dig around very carefully trying to pin it and lift it up... but i got greedy, went in too far, and the toothpick snapped.

i tried tweezers and everything, i couldn't get the wood out.

so i got mad after 3 hours of trying, said fuck it and threw it away. luckily it was only a $99 mobo

but yeah, custom loops are great for normal people, but stupid fucks like me need to stay on air.

so measure how smart you are before you decide to go custom loops is my advice. LMAO
 
stupid fucks like me

Mate, my post was all about how stupid I was. Its only because I've been doing it for close to 20 year's (experience) have I got the gist of it now.

You got start somewhere mate and every time I made a mistake, I somehow got better at it. You "gota go backwards to go forwards" is one of my key sayings.
 
Well i guess I'm blessed, never had any mishap with watercooling :D

First time with custom watercooling in 2017
IMG-014bc0470616e5f0e42784346ea0d240-V.jpg


Second time in 2019
PC.jpg


Got tired of watercooling and back to Aircooling in 2022 :D.

PS: I used distilled water and the loop didn't need maintenance for 3-4 years (beside the annual dusting off the radiators using air compressor).
 
As always the title of the video is misleading.
Look at the description :

TRUST ME – you don’t need to water cool your next PC for a great gaming experience. But it might be too late for you, and we’re here to help you clean and maintain your loop to increase the longevity and performance of your pump, blocks and radiators. Whether it’s an AIO, a pre-blocked GPU or something totally custom – we have you covered in this video.

He could have been titled his video : How to clean a Watercooled system !
Said like this, it doesn't look interesting :)
 
its fine if people like you do custom loops, but a lot of us here are idiots. including myself. case in point, my MSI B550 mobo is in the trash as of two weeks ago.

In this day and age, it's not so much about being smart or stupid, but paying attention. There is a wealth of information on how to do things like this correctly to be found online, and you just need to pay attention to the details. Just about every big YT channel at this point has a video on how to setup an open loop and if you stick to the ones that aren't mostly entertainment channels (which I'd argue is the primary focus of LTT these days), you can find the correct information to get a functional, reliable loop made.

Much of the guesswork with doing something standard has been taken out of anything in regards to personal PCs, so you can just buy off of the shelf parts, follow along, and put together something that will be functional. You might not make the ultimate performer on your first outing, but you'll only learn so much without actually doing.

I'd argue that open loops aren't for most people as they're increased cost, complexity, and maintenance. A competently designed loop is still tops in performance/maintaining cooler temps over any of the alternatives. I made one for my current rig because I was going with higher heat primary components and wanted better thermal performance so I could push them further and I wanted the challenge of building it all. Anything I build for someone else, I always opt for air cooling unless they ask me otherwise, since it is simpler both in maintenance and in terms of what might go wrong. There's nothing wrong with either option and should be approached from the mindset of what best fits your goals.
 
Watercooling has been done pretty regularly in data centers for many years. Obviously they have much more riding on their gear and data versus Joe Gamer.

For consumer builds, watercooling is pretty dependent on the skill and care of the builder. There are more pitfalls (some very serious) for people who are sloppy, careless, ham fisted, or don't have good observational skills. It's not rocket science.

Remember that the ISS uses radiators for heat dissipation and so have most fossil-fuel powered motor vehicles for decades and decades.

A well planned and assembled custom PC cooling loop can last years without almost zero maintenance. I recently disassembled my custom loop after 2.5 years because I wanted to reconfigure the components. I think I topped up the coolant once in the first six months. After that I did nothing. Cooling performance stayed the same the entire time.

And as many have voiced, it is best to ignore Linus the YouTuber. He's a poor source of PC advice.

If you like to regularly reconfigure your build, using traditional thermal solutions is more convenient. Even something like changing a m.2 system drive is a big pain with a custom loop: very easy with most CPU AIOs. Today's bigger stock coolers on GPUs are pretty effective in handling heat.
 
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Its Linus anyways..
 
I still do not understand the hard tubing trend of today. Most impractical.

I tried it once (bought me a heat gun to bend the acrylic tubing). To me, the hard tubing is more of a challenge (hence a feeling of out-hobbying yourself), as well as looking cleaner (nice lines), and perhaps more aesthetically pleasing. It's a hobby after all, and hobbies are all about preference and personal choice.

Just my 2c.
 
I still do not understand the hard tubing trend of today. Most impractical.

Yeah, its a pita when you wana swap cpu's and gpu's over :ohwell:

I could always go hardline to pumps, rads, res etc then soft tube to cpu's and gpu's but I thought that would look silly...
 
Yeah, its a pita when you wana swap cpu's and gpu's over :ohwell:

I could always go hardline to pumps, rads, res etc then soft tube to cpu's and gpu's but I thought that would look silly...

Gotta have 2 PCs, one with watercooling and other air cooling ;). One to satisfy the urge for overclocking and one to satisfy the urge for upgrade
 
Gotta have 2 PCs, one with watercooling and other air cooling ;). One to satisfy the urge for overclocking and one to satisfy the urge for upgrade

Problem is Id wana water cool and upgrade both of them : )
 
for Linus no but for anyone with half a brain yes :) . i run custom loops for years and ive never had one as mucky as his mates.
 
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Linus is a showman, this is entertainment, not serious technical stuff.
 
Problem is Id wana water cool and upgrade both of them : )
All is belonging to the control electronics. There are fan controllers on the market which can drive a full custom loop including customized fan curves and also don't need to be connected to the PC. I.e. in my next rig i will integrate an AquaComputer Aquaero 6 pro, a AquaComputer Quadro and three AquaComputer farbwerk360. The configuration has to be made at a Windows system if one wants to have it more comfortable. But after configuration it runs self-sufficient. Because of the small display the configuration can be also done directly. But that's more a pain in the a**. Also one can display individual values in that display (i.E. water temp,...).

Oh i'm working on a linux workstation where the CPU, GPU, RAM and 3-4 SSD's are watercooled using 2 D5 Pumps, 2 Radiators and one distroplate. Also all of the RGB (If you want it or not. They deliver it for your buck) is controlled by the controllers.
 
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