My time with custom water cooling is over – and I don’t miss it (yet)
I’m currently repairing a PC with a full water-cooling loop. A year ago, I swore I’d never do this again. Now I’m reminiscing about past projects.
One minute, my mate and I are jumping around in co-op in Split Fiction. The next, his character just stops and starts firing non-stop at the ceiling. «Yo, what are you doing?» I ask. No answer. Two minutes later, my cell rings. «Sorry, short circuit! My PC smells burnt…» Damn.
My second playthrough of Split Fiction is off to a rocky start. A few weeks ago, the game brought my PC to its knees; now it’s done the same to my mate’s. So what happened?
I swore I’d never do this again…
A year ago, my mate took over my fully water-cooled PC. When he topped up the coolant recently, a fitting must have come loose. The liquid ran into the power supply, causing said short circuit. During our diagnosis a few days later, we found that only the power supply was damaged.
Source: Boris Sopowski
Since he’s never built a custom water loop, I’m taking care of the repair. And that’s after swearing I’d never wrestle with water cooling again.
My first project – double trouble
I only got into water cooling through my job at Digitec Galaxus. Before that, I’d stuck exclusively to air cooling. Then, in 2018, things changed. Together with my colleague Martin, we built not one but two water-cooled systems into a single PC case. Why did we dive in at the deep end? Well, it was a project we’d inherited from our colleagues in Category Management at the time.
As complete newbies, it was a real challenge. The huge Corsair case offered plenty of space, but the build was way over our heads. And as if two systems in one case wasn’t enough for our Category Management colleagues, they’d also planned for 24 RGB fans across three radiators in a push/pull configuration – and above all, hard tubes. That means no flexible hoses, and PMMA tubing instead. Sure, they look better than PETG, but they’re much harder to work with. Martin and I launched straight into the top league. We hardly bent any tubing, instead connecting the components with an armada of fittings. It looked cool and left us wanting more. But it didn’t feel like proper water cooling to me.
My first time cleaning
Before I can get my mate’s PC back up and running, I take a closer look at the individual parts. The hoses reveal that the loop has been in need of fresh coolant for a while now, as algae has built up. So the CPU and GPU blocks, the pump and the reservoir all need cleaning too.
Source: Boris Sopowski
I had to get to grips with cleaning early on in my custom water-cooling career. Shortly after the mega-PC build was finished, I got to enjoy yet another fully water-cooled build created by my Category Management colleagues. This time, they used coloured coolant. It clogged up the CPU and GPU blocks so badly that cooling performance suffered.
My first water-cooled PC of my own
For the current repair, I’m glad I’m dealing with soft tubing. I decide to replace the old tubes, which have yellowed and show signs of algae. Using them as a template, it’s easy to cut the new ones to the right length.
I took the easy route on my first solo project too. In late 2018, after years with a Mac, I treated myself to a gaming PC again. Drawing on my experience from the mega-PC, I built a custom loop for the CPU. Instead of PMMA hard tubes, I used PETG, which let me make some pretty cool bends.
But even this loop was a hassle. I’d gone with a very small reservoir. Bleeding the system became a real test of patience.
Feeding the habit with a retro project
The reservoir in my mate’s PC is small too – but there it actually makes sense. There’s not much room in the Mini-ITX case. The reservoir sits directly on the pump; otherwise, a custom loop simply wouldn’t fit.
For my third project, I wanted to do better. In mid-2019, I kicked off my sleeper PC project. I fitted new components into an old case. I wanted the centrepiece to be a complete water-cooling loop with custom parts designed by me. For cost reasons, I had to scale back and ended up cooling only the CPU with water again. Even so, «Sleepy» – as I called the PC – was a raging success for me. I learned a lot from designing my own parts, and I still love how it looks, even seven years on.
Finally cooling the GPU with water too
But I always wanted more: just like with the PC I’m repairing now, I wanted to bring not just the CPU but also the GPU into the cooling loop. Unlike the mega-PC with its three huge radiators and dozens of fans, a single radiator with two fans is enough.
As luck would have it, Corsair launched its own custom water-cooling components in 2019. At last, I got to plan and build a fully water-cooled system entirely from scratch myself.
Admittedly, cooling the RTX 2070 Super with water instead of air was overkill. But it was simply too tempting, especially since I later dressed up the build even further with a Stormtrooper on the glass panel. To this day, I think it’s the best-looking PC I’ve ever built.
Trying something different
With the PC I’m repairing, only the name is pretty: Meshlicious (a play on mesh and delicious). The case is functional, compact, and can house water cooling. Before I got hooked on small cases, I fitted copper tubing into a PC for my colleague Simon in late 2019.
During the 2020 lockdown, I discovered my love for small cases. The components now inside the Meshlicious were originally built into the even smaller Fractal Era. To fit everything in, I had to mill a new mount.
Even though I managed to squeeze a complete water-cooling loop for the CPU and GPU into the case, I was never happy with it. It involved too much fiddling about. When I was finally able to move the loop into the Meshlicious, I was thrilled.
I just don’t fancy it any more – at least not for the time being
I used that build every day for gaming and work for over four years – before selling it to my mate last year. I wanted to upgrade, and I’d had enough of water cooling.
The reason wasn’t – and isn’t – fear of leaking coolant, but the sheer effort involved. Building a PC with water cooling takes considerably longer, not to mention the planning involved. Once the loop is in place, swapping components is a hassle, and you still have to maintain the thing on top of that. On top of that, there’s the poor value for money. A custom loop costs a hell of a lot, and modern air and AIO coolers are more than enough for most components.
Still, I felt a bit wistful looking back over my past projects for this article. It was fun. But right now, I simply don’t have the patience for projects like that. Maybe again someday – once my kids are older and PC components are back to reasonable prices…
At least my most recent project is up and running again. The loop is filled and headed back to my mate – and hopefully, we’ll finally manage to finish Split Fiction.
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