Swiftech QPower Howto/Review

Cooling/Water Cooling by jmke @ 2002-05-14

A few weeks ago I received a box from Comtechnology. Curious as I am I just had to look inside :). I found a neat all-in-one watercooling system from Swiftech. Here you can read how I got it working and what I think of it!

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I'm bleeding

Watering the System:

With all the tubes connected it was time to fill the system with some water. Not your ordinary tap water, using distilled water in combination with antifreeze (optionally you can add redline water-wetter in the mix, together with the previous two)


Distilled water and some antifreeze will be cooling my CPU

Thanks to a very good explanation in the supplied manuals I had no major problems filling the tubes, although for one part of the instructions I suggest calling someone to help you out.
Using a "bleed" system, Qpower doesn't need a reservoir , they use sleek plastic valves to get all the air out of the system.


Valves position to fill the system


then the bleeding starts


finally you close the upper valves and the system is working without air in the tubes!

 

Using this theory I started off


my assistant started the "slurp until tubes are filled" ritual


We then started the pump and moved the case from side to side
to release all the air from the system

At first the pump made a lot of noise, but after awhile the water got into all the little corners of the system, and it quieted down ALOT. With only the pump running the system is silent. You barely hear it humming.
I let the system run for a good 30min checking for leaks. I turned the case around, and put it on it's back (to install mobo), that was the moment I noticed water laying on the table. At first I freaked out, checking all the tubes and connections for a leak. I couldn't find one, I toweled everything dry and waited for new water to "appear". Only then I realized that by putting the system on its side I made the valves used for the bleeding system lose the water that was still in there. Problem solved! Hey, we were all n00bs once! :)

With no worries left I prepared to install my system into the case...

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