Water Cooling Guide For Beginners

[Kelainefes]

It is possible that since your video card has a cooler that doesn't send the hot air out through the PCI bracket, but rather recirculates it inside the case, all the heat is sent through to the rad by the lower fan of the rad and the PSU.
It also seems from the pics that the radiator is really close to the back of the case, is there some kind of mount? Or did you secure it straight to the back of the case?
Have you tried measuring temps with the rad removed from the back of the case?
Have you checked for bubbles of air in the loop?
What Affiliate said makes sense too.

[Joopajoo111]

No, i havent tested taking the rad off from the case. And no, there are no bubbles, i did run the loop as instructed to get rid of em :P
But, im having the case open all the time so could it still suck the hot air through rad? The only problem is that i cant move the rad anywhere else, because the hoses are too short and i dont have any spare hosing and i failed draining the liquid out twice so im out of that too :S
well, i still have to test that out.

[Kelainefes]

I see that your rad is mounted with the barb side down, this could mean that some air bubbles are trapped in the upper chamber, you can check that by turning off the PC and unscrewing the rad from the case, then turning it upside down so any air would go up towards the barbs and you could see it in the tubing.
The fact that your case is open means less heat is going to the rad yes.
You can use some distilled water as liquid if you need any, and then ad some biocide solution since you use clear hoses.
Also, how much free space is there between rad and case?

[Joopajoo111]

im now running my pc upside down (yes, i know its hilarious ) but no air came out from the rad, so i suppose its ok. There is about 1cm at the top and about 2cm at the bottom end where the 12mm fan mount is.

[Kelainefes]

Ok, now that we can exclude air bubbles, you could unmount and remount the CPU block, after inspecting the old thermal paste to see if the CPU was making good contact.

[Joopajoo111]

Checked that already, contact wasnt so great, dont know if the silver paste is good (30% silver if i remember). just remember using mx2 paste with intel cpu and got fairly nice overclock with great low temps. well, ima buy better thermal paste if thats the problem, thought the rad is always super hot when playing so thermal conductivity seems good enough.

[Kelainefes]

MX2 is good, and it's easier to get good results compared to Arctic Silver 5 as it's easier to spread.
Since you need to buy a new paste, you could try MX3 or OCZ Freeze.

[Joopajoo111]

back in here. yeah, its not about the paste, im still getting sky high readings (50C after 30mins of bad company 2, radiator super hot at this point). any more suggestions for getting lower temps?

[Clunk]

Can you post the specs of your water cooling and what exactly you are cooling, and a photo of the set up if possible so I can see what's going on?

You'll need to use photobucket or something, the albums are disabled at the moment.

[Joopajoo111]

sure, here :
Radiator : NexXxoS Xtreme III Rev.2 with 3 12v 120mm fans sucking and 1 12v 120mm fan blowing trough.
Cpu block : Alphacool HF 14 livingstone s775/1156/1336 attached with Thermaltake am2/am3 H-type bracket.
Tubing : 8/11mm bright hosing
pump+res combo : Alphacool AGB-EHEIM 600 II 12

so only cpu (amd phenom II x4 965be c2) is being cooled by this set.

and here are the pics, hope they work :P watercooling pictures by joopajoo111 - Photobucket