Yesterday, I order all the main water cooling parts and I’ve listed them below.

• Pump: Swiftech MCP655
• Radiator: Black Ice GTX Xtreme 360 Radiator
  w/ Panaflo 120×38mm Ultra High Speed FBA12G12U1BX (3)
• CPU Block: HEATKILLER® CPU Rev3.0
• Reservoir: Swiftech MCRES Micro Revision 2
• GPU Block: Enzotech VGA-IB Forged Copper VGA Waterblock
  w/ Swiftech Copper BGA RAMsinks and Aluminum MOSFET Heatsinks Set
• Tubing: Feser Tube Active UV Hose – 1/2″ ID (3/4″OD) Anti-Kink Tubing
• Fluid: Distilled Water w/ Silver KillCoils

This is my first time setting up a water cooled system, so I’m sure there are some minor things that I’ll need to purchase as well. Once all the main water cooling parts come in, I can start putting everything together and I can figure out where everything should go.

Once things start coming together, I’ll start posting pictures on here.

Make sure you watch for updates!

• Case = Corsair Obsidian Series 800D
• PSU = Corsair CMPSU-750HX 750W
• Motherboard = GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5
• CPU = AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz
• Memory = OCZ AMD Black Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB)
• Video Card = EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+
• Hard Drives = Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (2)

I also plan on setting it up for liquid cooling, but I haven’t ordered any of those parts yet. I still have some research to do for that part of it.

I will be posting updates on here as things unfold, so you should subscribe to get updated about new posts.

I’m so excited!

2TB Hitachi Internal 7200RPM Serial ATA Desktop Hard Drive $144

Dell SB has 2TB Hitachi Internal 7200RPM Serial ATA Desktop hard drive for $160 – 10% off coupon J1DRH2J?0D1143 = $144 with free shipping. Next best on Google Products is $190. Thanks Selma

In my computer, I have two 500GB SATA drives and I paid $84.99 for each of them on 5/19/2008. It’s only been about 17 months and now you can get drives four times that size for an extra $60. The rate at which technology grows is just amazing to me.

CORE COOLANT
Core Coolant is a mineral-oil-like substance that’s approximately 750 times denser than air and can store twice as much heat per unit of mass. In other words, Core Coolant has tremendous heat capacity—the maximum amount of heat containable in an entire air-cooled PC tower can be stored in 1 cubic inch of Core Coolant. Unlike water, Core Coolant is non-conductive and doesn’t harbor microorganisms. Fluids like Core Coolant have cooled electronics for decades in the transformer industry.

WHAT WE COOL AND HOW
Reactor’s active components are fully submerged in Core Coolant. Our Total Liquid Submersion technology cools in two ways: natural convection (described above) and forced convection (pumped coolant). Core Coolant circulates through Reactor’s radiator at 2.5 gallons per minute. Most internal components cool via natural convection, but these items get coolant pumped directly to them:

1. CPU (has a heat sink)
2. Northbridge (has a heat sink)
3. GPU (has a heat sink)
4. Power supplies

Reactor’s direct cooling plumbing track ends at the heat sinks, where the directed Core Coolant disperses and
integrates with the fluid in the tank.

For any heat sink to work effectively, thermal interface material performance is paramount. On Reactor, the thermal interface between the CPU and its heat sink is made of indium, which is simple to install and transfers heat extremely well.

Now, for the bad news:
Reactor Price: $3108.00
Reactor Pro Price: $3936.00
Reactor Extreme Price: $9167.00

The base price isn’t to bad, but I think the only problem is that everything is proprietary and there’s not much room for personal customizations. What do you think?

More Information:
Hardcore Computer
Gadget Pr0n Review
Maximum PC Review

Current Hardware Specs:
4 Computers
Keyboard w/ touchpad
Port Authority2 4-Port VGA/USB 2.0 and PS/2 KVM Switch
D-Link DES-1105 5-Port 10/100 Desktop Switch
NEC MultiSync LCD1550M

Read more and see more pictures

Instead, obtain a mechanical (or drafter’s) pencil. It should have a tiny metal tube for a tip, through which it admits the pencil lead. Remove the lead and, in most cases, the empty tube tip will be the perfect size to fit over a bent pin, allowing you to straighten it with precision. This trick also works for bent pins on motherboard headers, or hard-drive or optical-drive edge connectors.

Read all 75 PC-building tips

On 5/21, I installed two new 500Gb SATA hard drives in my machine. I reinstalled Windows XP and everything was going smooth. The drives were not only bigger than my old drives, but they were faster too. Once I got all my programs reinstalled, all was good and I was back to normal operations.

Around 6/17 (Firefox 3 download day), I started noticing a strange buzz/squeal/whine noise every once in a while. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but after some time, it started to get on my nerves. My first thought was that my primary hard drive had something wrong with it. I thought I had the issue figured out.

About a week ago, I realized that it was making the noise only when there was increased CPU activity. When my computer is idle, there’s no noise at all except for the fans. When the processor activity goes up, I hear the squealing noise (ie: screensaver starts, open program, move scrollbar in web browser). I know that CPU has no moving parts so this didn’t make any sense.

This past weekend, I took the side of the case off in hopes of determining where this annoying sound was coming from. When I put my ear near the side, I could only narrow it down to the area indicated below:

Yesterday, upon further investigation, I determined that the noise was coming from the bottom of the power supply. Then, when I pulled the computer away from the wall and put my ear to the rear power supply fan, it was very apparent that the power supply was the cause.

This morning, I sent an email to tech support at Ultra and their response was: “If the power supply is doing this, it needs to be replaced.”

So, it looks like I’m going to be ordering a new power supply today. That sucks!

X-Connect® 500W ATX PSU – Titanium
Purchased on 10/28/2006

Useful Link: Power Supply Calculator