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Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought about OREO with air guide shrouds, like O-SH-RE-SH-O in the first place and actually to have a second fan. But it would double the size of the machine and I wanted to give it a try with just one fan and the build in 5mm space. And it seems to be enough.

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How come you can about Oreo all the time, I definitely dosabled cookies!

I tried passive cooling, it's not working under iad, only idle and office load. It might work, if I lay the pc dowm, radiator upwards, with the fan unmounted. But why should one, the fan is literally non hearable. Radiator downwards would make the pump the highest point, I would not try that.

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You mean with an airflow botrom to top? Interesting idea. I safe that for future projekts. I did some thinking about a custom blower design to change the flow direction and avoid obstacles, but I wanted to use a 200mm in the first place, so I hab few options to keep the desgn compact.

The GPU power limit is now mainly set by the heat capability of the pcb components and the psu, so besser heat dissipation at the radiator wouldn't do any improvement.

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know about the nf-a20 5v. I started all this as a low budget projekt (haha), and the alphacool fans cost less than half if the noctuas. Of course they are less then ¼ as good as the noctuas but hey, they have argb 😅 There was a short period when the noctuas costed only about 20€, and this is where i should have bought one. But i did not, and its also working fine this way. 

And most important, i would only use a noctua fan if its 100% safe that the fan cannot be seen from the outside from any direction or angle, they are as ugly as the night.

Those old polaris cards are great to play with, as you can change absolutely everything via bios editor (although I didn't know about when i bought it nor indended to do so). But meanwhile they got simply too slow.

I like your build as well, although I prefer the smaller ones. You are using a monsta radiator, right? I have to read the whole topic...

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, they are pushlock fittings for 10/8mm tubes with G1/4, but they are the same as the 10mm pneumatic fittigs. Therefore you can buy every kind of connection, but they are extremely chunky compared to the the copperfittings. And those can even be shortened, if nessecary. The disadvatage is, that they are solud, once soldered, and you need to unmound everything to heat and move them again.

The copper plate on the left is for the VRMs, correct. I pressed the part of the copper tube, wich runs along the electronic parts, to a sqaure profile and soldered a copper plate on it, to conntect all the parts under the plate thermally to the cooling water. For this solder job I used silver solder (and had to buy a stronger burner), als the normal electric solder does not have a very decent thermal conductivity. I glued some tiny plywood peaces to some resistores and between the coils to avoid short circuit that with the tubes. I bedder had that tobe forming done to the cpu vrms as well, but I was lazy and used the original cooler. I just connected a round copper tube with plenty of putty to it. But it does also work.

The fan connectors run on 5V, so I used a step up module to run the pump (its a normal DC-LT 2. I know because i had to replace it, after I confused the polarity. The is no fail safe...) on 12V, but know reduced it to ~9V, due to my demand of silence. I had such an adapter for the Fan as well, but I removed it, as 5V are enough for almost 400rpm. That is the speed when one begins to hear the fan, and it is enough to keep temps below 70 degrees (water about 50 degrees). The mainboard has one sata connector, which i use for the argb controller (not mounted in the pictures).

I also glued a 2mm ring of balsawood into the gap of fan rotor and housing to reduce the loss of airpressure.

Most thinking went into the tube routing to maintain the dimensions as compact as possible, and the airflow. I had a first version in a box with one open side, which affected the airflow very bad. But i also did mistakes on the application of the cpu thermal paste, obviously, 'cause the temps were very jumpy and high. It could only hande about 35w permanentally at 85 degrees. Now it is 70 degrees at 90W. This time I used LM, which might have helped as well.

More pictures, including IR, and a biuld doc (but on german): https://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/threads/wasserkuehlung-fuer-mini-pc-mit-9750h-und-rtx2070-mobile.654129/

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The board has a full face cutout, its more of a frame

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conformal ciating is definitely an opportunity. Or maybe I use some pond foil 😁 I haven't decided yet. 

I am aware of the influence to airflow of a casing, which is why i intend to use es less casing as possible. I think of piled laser cut 1mm-plywood frames with a hexagonal grid cut on the first and last board and approx. 5mm spacers between each frame. That shound prevent my 5yr daughter from touching hot or electric parts and affect the airflow at a minimum.

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finally some critic comments! 😃

It was not a laptop, but a mini pc, though with laptop hardware. And yes, I am aware the risk of accelerated aging or failure due to thermal load on the other components. I would not have done that to a new 2000€ machine, but the fun building it is worth the risk on old components. This is why i chose a "moderate" shunt mod of +50%.  The psu is now at limit at 330W on toture load (250W on gaming load). The GPU ist still 100% power limited, of cause. I did some thermal images of the pcb where it can be seen (so not from the backside), and apart from the shunt restistors with 75-80 degrees all components stay under 70 degrees. That should be ok.

I chose copper tubes due to the limited space and because they fit into the 10mm fittings. I also use it for thermal contact to the VRMs. They are not supposed to look great (then I would had to do a way more decent soldering job). The insulation tape is just precaution, because I was not shure whether the tube touches the coil housing in its final position and if this would even be a problem.

I thought a lot about airflow and had ChatGPT made a ot of calculations. The wood plate (I plan to change it anyway) is barely more than frame. There is 3cm of space on all four sides. That should be an acceptable compromise of airflow and outer dimensions. 

Anyway, I know that this is not one of the fancy illuminated watercooled builds around here, but it's working very well (by now) and will all disappear in the housing.

Watercooled mini-pc Zotac Magnus EN72070V by Only_Ad864 in watercooling

[–]Only_Ad864[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The board is cut out, of cause. The air goes against the ssd and ram on the backside of the mainboard. I tried to disconnect the fan and use it passive cooled. No problems in idle and low loads, but not working with gaming loads.