Water Cooling Newbie

[blasterfreak88]

I just wanted to have a couple opinions on my liquid cooling setup and how effective you feel that it is. Here is what I have
CPU AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
Aquagate Mini (pump and block and tank are all mounted right on the board)
I used new tubing custom fit to my case and have a thermaltake 120mm radiator cooling the liquid. Currently I have my CPU overclocked from 2.8GHz to 3.2GHz and with this setup I am seeing an idle temp of about 20C and after about an hour of prime 95 I am seeing temps that are stable at 42C. Are these safe temps to run at and with liquid cooling should I see lower temps than this? I am really new to liquid cooling. I got this Aquagate mini from a friend for 20 and thought I might as well try it out. ( I am a mechanical engineering student so experimenting with mechanical systems is what I love to do.) Is there anything you would recommend to me as it is my first water cooling that a newbie might forget about?
Thanks for the help or advise.

 

[dirkpitt45]

Meh seems like a waste TBH.

I've got my 940 at 3.6ghz (mostly stable, I don't do anything important really so not being %100 stable is fine with me, 3.5 is solid though) with a core contact. I idle 27c load 43c with my kaze on low, on high I'll idle ~24 and load 39-40, but it sounds like a jet sooo.

Nothing you can really do for more cooling. That aquagate mini is pretty much stuck the way it is. Your temps are fine though, only have to worry if your in the 50-60 range. Those mini water coolers aren't worth it compared to a solid heatsink, core contact, TRUE, megahalems, all of which are around the same price as closed loop water. You really have to go all out and make your own, which can end up being expensive and potentially harmful to your pc if you aren't careful.

 

[Burn]

Meh seems like a waste TBH.

I've got my 940 at 3.6ghz (mostly stable, I don't do anything important really so not being %100 stable is fine with me, 3.5 is solid though) with a core contact. I idle 27c load 43c with my kaze on low, on high I'll idle ~24 and load 39-40, but it sounds like a jet sooo.

Nothing you can really do for more cooling. That aquagate mini is pretty much stuck the way it is. Your temps are fine though, only have to worry if your in the 50-60 range. Those mini water coolers aren't worth it compared to a solid heatsink, core contact, TRUE, megahalems, all of which are around the same price as closed loop water. You really have to go all out and make your own, which can end up being expensive and potentially harmful to your pc if you aren't careful.

Well said

 

[blasterfreak88]

I had my 720 running mostly stable at 3.6 and the temps were in the high 40's under load which seemed ok but the only program I was having problems with was windows media center. It would keep crashing with it overclocked to 3.6 but if I go back to 3.2 it runs perfect. I dont use this computer for anything overly important either so thats why I like to just try stuff with it. I always have my trusty old laptop if something important needs to be done while this computer is down for any reason. Has anyone else had the problem of WIndows media center crashing during overclock?

 

[dirkpitt45]

Windows media centre crashes all the time for me I stopped using it, and windows media player, usually delete it, but with my new windows I'm having some ownership errors and its stuck there mocking me... TBH even on xp windows media player was a mess, same as adobe and excessive amounts of fonts. Just something that messes it up for some unexplained reason.

VLC is awesome, but everyone knows that.

 

[blasterfreak88]

I use VLC for watching movies and stuff but I have an ATI Tv wonder Dual Digital TC Tuner card so that I can watch tv on my computer which I use pretty much all of the time and I dont know if I can watch tv through VLC. If anyone knows how I would love to know because I hate windows media center. BTW I am using windows 7 ulitmate. Thanks