A lot of people shy away from water cooling because they think it's dangerous and hard to install. Well, water cooling does have it's added dangers due to the cooling system being filled with water and if for some reason you spring a leak, you stand a good chance of killing a few of your high dollar componets. But installing a water cooling system isn't as hard as it looks if you get the right system (kit) and plan things out a little in advance.
For this install I'm using a kit from my favorite cooling company, Swiftech. They are know for making some of the top water cooling systems on the market and their kits are some of the most complete out there. They come with everything you need to install the kit except for the hand tools and distilled water.
So lets get on with the fun.................
First thing you need to do is to check the contents of the kit to make sure that everything is there, even the best company in the world makes mistakes and can forget or miss something.
The complete kit.
Next up I would recomend that you check and clean the internals of the components with distilled water. You can never be sure what may be hiding inside.
With that finished, it's time to get on with reading the instructions, yes, fully read and understand what the company says even if you've installed a water cooling system before, you never know, you might just learn something.
The Installation:
I’m going to be installing the complete kit according to Swiftechs recommended install instructions included with the kit. Remember that this is only one method of installing the kit and others will normally take more modifications to your case. With the Swiftech recommended install, the only modification required to your case will normally be the drilling of two 7/8 inch holes for the tubing to the radiator.
The first step is to “dry” mount the radiator assembly to the rear of your case over the rear exhaust fan opening and then marking the position for the water tubes through holes.
Dry fit and mark the hole location for drilling of the holes.
Just a little hint, if you have a 120mm opening that has mounting hole for different sized fans, use the smaller mount points as it will give you more adjustment of the radiator assembly to ensure it’s out of the way of the case side panel and video card connection. I used the mount points for a 90 mm fan, I found it worked out best.
Next remove the radiator assembly and drill the 7/8 holes and install the rubber grommets. Then you can reinstall the radiator assembly and run your tubing to the radiator.
Holes drilled and rubber gromets installed.
Radbox installed and ready for radiator mounting.
Radiator mounted and water tubes connected.
Side view.
Full view of radiator mounted.
Plenty of room to make all your IO connections.
After the radiator is installed, you need to select a location for the res. It's recomended that it be the highest component in the cooling loop for ease of filling and bleeding, but as long as it's higher than the pump, you should be fine.
Res installed in second from the top 5.25 drive bay.
Rear of res showing connecting barbs.
Next in the instructions is to install the Storm water block, I’m installing it on a Abit AV8 socket 939 mother board with a 3200 Winchester core CPU. This is pretty straight forward procedure, if you’ve ever installed a HSF before, you can install this block.
Here’s anther note for AMD A64 users, if you’ve had problems in the past with the mounting screws being to short with the plastic backing plate and having to use excessive force to get the screws to engage, this has been fixed. The screws are just long enough to catch a thread with very light pressure when using the plastic backing plate.
Here’s a sequence of pics showing the install of the Storm block on my board along with all the required hardware.
MoBo and water block with all mounting hardware for socket 939.
Stock HSF retaining bracket must be used.
Retaining hardware expanded.
Retaining hardware assembled.
Water block mounted, top view.
Water block mounted, side view showing proper hardware installation and spring compression.
Next in the instructions is to find a location for the pump, mine is just sitting on the case floor. Remember when you route your tubing to let a little extra slack in the tubing up by the reservoir so you have room to pull it out for filling and servicing. Also when you're routing the tubing, aviod making sharp bends and kinking the tubing, try and make nice smooth bends while keeping the tubing runs as short as possibe but long enough to service the system.
Run tubing with as smooth as bends as possible to help cut down on flow restriction.
Closer view.
Now it’s time to fill the system and perform a leak test, it’s a good idea to let it run for 24 hours before you start up your computer to be safe, but I know a lot of people will only run it for a few hours. I always let the system run a little longer just to be safe.
Res pulled to the front for filling.
Res returned to normal installed position.
System leak testing, I use a external PSU to run the cooling loop instead of the system PSU.
After you're sure that there aren't any leaks, it's time to fire the system up and enjoy your nice cool temps.............
Completed system ready to go.
One last little note;
I know that there has been a lot of worry about the radiator blocking the video out, but there is enough room to squeeze the plug onto the normal VGA connector if you want. I used the DVI adapter on the DVI port and it was much easier.
Plenty of room for IO connections.
