How to Build a DIY Liquid Cooling System for Your Computer

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Liquid cooling systems for computers allow for more precise temperature control of the Central Processing Unit or CPU. The ability to control the temperature more accurately as well as the ability to cool to temperatures not attainable through fans allows for greater room to overclock the CPU.

This article serves as a guide for building and installing a liquid cooling system in your computer.

Steps

1. 1
   Set your budget.

   
   
2. 2
   Look at what you may change in the near future and if you buy any parts for your system that work with the item, make sure what you buy will work.
3. 3
   Look at the available components for your build and list price them
4. 4
   Review the products you fancy.
5. 5
   Make sure all the components you want to buy have the same make-up, i.e don't mix copper blocks with aluminum if possible.
   • There are many ways you can approach the system, minimum requirement for a simple starter build would be...
   • A reservoir, a pump, or combined unit like the XSPC, a CPU waterblock, tubing, fixings and a radiator (these can be passive or active with a fan)
   • Moving up a stage you can then buy a waterblock for your GPU (graphics card)
   • Then cool your RAM.
   • Then cool your Northbridge, Southbridge and Mosfet chips.
6. 6
   When upgrading to liquid cooling on your graphics card beware!!! Overtightening can damage your graphics chip. Undertightening can cause waterblocks to swivel (if they only have two pins to mount them)
   • So far the best route for cooling seems to be reservoir -> RAM -> N/Bridge/Southbridge -> CPU -> GPU -> radiator -> reservoir.
7. 7
   Make sure a single reservoir system should split as follows using two radiators: Reservoir -> Split -> Split1 RAM -> Split1 CPU -> Radiator1 -> Join -> Reservoir
8. 8
   Same as above but Split2 -> N/bridge & S/bridge -> GPU -> Radiator2 -> Join -> Reservoir
9. 9
   Join tubing to barbs. Jubilee clips are great for joining tubing to barbs, but some of the plastic UV clips look better.
10. 10
    Remember to test your system first for leaks, and remember liquid expands under heat, so do not overfill your reservoir at the start.

    
    

Tips

• Take your time
• Make sure you put a splitter (T junction) in your system and a tap to allow for draining down for maintenance
• Check, recheck and check again making sure you have all your tubing, clamps, barbs, and enough spare molex adapters for your system

Warnings

• Do not test a pump without liquid in it.

Things You'll Need

• Flatblade screwdriver
• Phillips screwdriver
• Plan/diagram

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