Is liquid cooling worth it

[janpec1000]

Hello guys,

I have few problems with getting heat of my R9 290x down. I am at moment runing them in computer case with very good ventilation (4x 10cm vents), however it looks like thats not gona work so i am gona first try with open comp. case and big went blowing into it. Can anyone confirm if that is good solution, i have seen few rigs with cards still being in omputer case and no problems with temperatures, what is so different on my side if ambient temperature is 15 degrees?

Also is liquid cooling worth it (only considering noise). I want to reduce my noise on GPU fans for 50% will liquid cooling do that?

[leetmodz]

First, having passive ventilation isn't good enough, you need intake/exhaust fans. Second, try using a good thermal paste like Arctic MX-4. If that doesn't drop the temps enough, I recommend finding a way to get more airflow to the card. I keep the side of my case off with a floor fan blowing at the gpu (a small desk fan would probably work alright too).

If that fails, watercooling is a great solution if you have the money and space for radiators, fans, pump, tubing, etc etc....

[janpec1000]

Oh didnt know there is thermal paste for GPUs as well as CPUs. I am not sure if i would know how and where to add it on. As for ventilation computer box has actually intake/exhaust ventilation sucking air at bottom and then exhausting it on upside creating airflow trough cards, but it doesnt help much since GPU temp goes straight to 95 on first minute of mining.

[seanmct]

seems rather high for just a minute of mining, I'd suggest getting decent case fans and check the target temperature for the GPU

[leetmodz]

Oh didnt know there is thermal paste for GPUs as well as CPUs. I am not sure if i would know how and where to add it on. As for ventilation computer box has actually intake/exhaust ventilation sucking air at bottom and then exhausting it on upside creating airflow trough cards, but it doesnt help much since GPU temp goes straight to 95 on first minute of mining.

Yep, both cpu's and gpu's have thermal paste on their chips.

You can use this to see how to take the card apart and clean/repaste it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvD1s83u_hQ

Then just go in reverse order to put it back together.

[janpec1000]

Thanks leetmodz for help.

seanmtc where can i set target temperature for GPU, GUIMiner does not have that option only CGminer has. Should i get rather CGminer?

[h3rlihy]

Water cooling is beautiful. It is so nice to sit next to a reasonably powerful rig while it's mining away without it making a racket

[seanmct]

Thanks leetmodz for help.

seanmtc where can i set target temperature for GPU, GUIMiner does not have that option only CGminer has. Should i get rather CGminer?

cgminer is supposed to have some autotemp settings, though I've never used this as many people say it is ineffective and decreases hash rate, with an older ATI card I had I could set it using the GPU overdrive I believe, you can manually control the GPU fan for some AMD cards within CCC although I'd imagine having it maxed out would cause the fans to fail prematurely, as well as being extremely noisy, so try and get a nice balance

[janpec1000]

Ye the balance is the real problem. I cant get it. I get 95 degrees on card if i set vent to 100%, i cant even think on current setup having it lower. Also i noticed that my computer did not shut of when temperature reached 96 degrees on card, it just completly froze, i noticed that CGminer does have settings to use max temperature, is there any way how i can set max temperature in other software? I havent noticed it in MSI Afterburner.

[Prayer]

Drop your ASICs in a tank of mineral oil.  Pump that oil through a radiator (heater core) with a blower to push air through the cooling fins.

You can put just about everything except HDDs in oil, even the PSU.  The CPU/GPU/PSU fans will help circulate the oil to aid in thermal dissipation.

Google it =D

[Spiffy_1]

As a hobby, watercooling is a blast.  Combining it with another hobby, altcoin mining is also a blast.  However, its fairly expensive to combine the two.  For every card you watercool add 100$ for the cooling block, then you have radiators, fittings, reservoirs and pumps.  But nothing compares to mining at 3Mhashes in near silence..

[kalus]

if you're just talking about 1 or 2 290x on your desktop give watercooling a shot.  remember to keep the stock cooling around in case you resell it. 

if you're building a farm for profit, a few box fans from the hardware store are more economical. 

[janpec1000]

Spiffy ok so you can confirm that water cooling is nearly silent?

Kalus does watercooling "fridge" spend so much electricity? What is its power in W of some default water cooler? Also does anyone has aprox estimate how much does it cost full water cooling setup for 2 cards?

[Spiffy_1]

Compared to the fans spinning on your videocards, watercooling is near silent.  You will still have noise from the fans on your radiators but if you get good quality fans the noise tradeoff is perfectly acceptable... I have three videocards watercooled and one not, all 7950 msi twin frozr, and the one that isn't watercooled drowns out the rest of my computer. 

[BrewCrewFan]

Oh didnt know there is thermal paste for GPUs as well as CPUs. I am not sure if i would know how and where to add it on. As for ventilation computer box has actually intake/exhaust ventilation sucking air at bottom and then exhausting it on upside creating airflow trough cards, but it doesnt help much since GPU temp goes straight to 95 on first minute of mining.

Yep, both cpu's and gpu's have thermal paste on their chips.

You can use this to see how to take the card apart and clean/repaste it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvD1s83u_hQ

Then just go in reverse order to put it back together.

Not always on the GPU, he needs to be careful that they did not use a pad, unless they have changed that practice.

Also, try open case first OP...with a fan blowing on it or whatever. Unless your wanting total silence, try this first.

You also have to think about the extra power your using for the WC system. Many of us are living on the edge getting as much watts/amps out of a PSU... adding WC will only add to the load.

[BrewCrewFan]

Spiffy ok so you can confirm that water cooling is nearly silent?

Kalus does watercooling "fridge" spend so much electricity? What is its power in W of some default water cooler? Also does anyone has aprox estimate how much does it cost full water cooling setup for 2 cards?

Spiffy ok so you can confirm that water cooling is nearly silent?

Kalus does watercooling "fridge" spend so much electricity? What is its power in W of some default water cooler? Also does anyone has aprox estimate how much does it cost full water cooling setup for 2 cards?

Spiffy ok so you can confirm that water cooling is nearly silent?

Kalus does watercooling "fridge" spend so much electricity? What is its power in W of some default water cooler? Also does anyone has aprox estimate how much does it cost full water cooling setup for 2 cards?

It wont be cheap.  Your best bet is to look and build your own system which can get expensive. Few hundred low end once you factor in the blocks and the rad. The pre built all in one package's for watercooling are not that great.

I hesitate giving advice to you on this, because you still seem to be "green" with computer hardware.... WC is a little more complicated to put together and working without leaks and stuff.

[BrewCrewFan]

Drop your ASICs in a tank of mineral oil.  Pump that oil through a radiator (heater core) with a blower to push air through the cooling fins.

You can put just about everything except HDDs in oil, even the PSU.  The CPU/GPU/PSU fans will help circulate the oil to aid in thermal dissipation.

Google it =D

LOL forgot to add that he/she should only do that if they never plan on reselling said items LOL. I dont thank a person buying would be very happy getting a card dripping with oil!. Though that is one of my wishes before I die is to make a system like that.

[janpec1000]

Thank you guys very much for help so far. I have opened case, purchased table fan and its blowing right onto card. Temperatures on 50% GPU fan are now 75 degrees.


I dont want to open new topic so i am gona ask here do i need to create two workers if i am using two GPUs each with its own GUIMiner instance runing? Becouse now it looks like that on Litecoin pool all i am getting is read in KHahs only from 1 card, so i am guessing i need two workers.

Also do you guys think its ok to run 2 r9 290x GPUs at max + CPU I3 4130 (all three of them mining)? I am on 850W PSU.

[leetmodz]

Thank you guys very much for help so far. I have opened case, purchased table fan and its blowing right onto card. Temperatures on 50% GPU fan are now 75 degrees.


I dont want to open new topic so i am gona ask here do i need to create two workers if i am using two GPUs each with its own GUIMiner instance runing? Becouse now it looks like that on Litecoin pool all i am getting is read in KHahs only from 1 card, so i am guessing i need two workers.

Also do you guys think its ok to run 2 r9 290x GPUs at max + CPU I3 4130 (all three of them mining)? I am on 850W PSU.

I'm glad you got the temp problem fixed! As for the workers, I am not sure.

To your last Q, it depends if guiminer is already combining some of the cpu power like Cudaminer does on Nvidia cards. On Cudaminer, if you run a cpuminer as well, the gpu kh/s goes down more then cpu mining adds. You will have to test it and see. 850w gold, silver or bronze? I say gold and silver rating would probably be ok for that setup.

[TookDk]

Yeah, you can make two workers

just call cgminer two times using the -d switch:

cgminer.exe -c configfile0.conf -d 0
cgminer.exe -c configfile1.conf -d 1

Then is GPU 0 "OFF" in the first process, and GPU 1 is "OFF" in the other process.
This can be useful if you want separate worker for each card.