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I will not spend time to do a review on Evercool WC-202 water cooling since there are many out there, but I will describe what kind of modifications I have made to achieve a better performance and lower noise.
Manufacturer's website:
http://www.evercool.com.tw/install/instal_wc202_1.htm
http://www.evercool.com.tw/install/instal_wc_nothbridge.htm
You can see some reviews here:
http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/cooling/Evercool_WC-202/index.html
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/evercoolwc202/index.php?file=1
http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/181/
My PC stays behind a closed door in my desk and the only place it gets air is from the back opening of the desk. The problem is when the PC runs for hours behind the closed door the air around it gets hot and the two noisy case fans suck hot air are not efficient. Also I had a very noisy CPU fan, chipset fan and video card fan. Since there was no air circulation on the front of the box (even with one of the case fans mounted on the front), my two hard drives were getting to hot. All that was causing the ambient temperature inside the case to be around 45°C and that was causing the components to overheat and not to cool properly. I was looking for a closed in the case solution that will carry the heat from the most heat generating elements to the back of the box and then blow it out with fans while in the same time use the same air flow to cool down the ambient temperature inside the case. I decided to go with Evercool WC-202 because of the price, the features of the control unit, and it is a complete solution - no need to hunt for parts here and there. It has a feature that I can set the threshold temperature and when the system is under that, it runs the fan on half speed (7V) and when it is reached - it runs full speed (12V). Also has an alarm if the pump or the fan is malfunctioning. Original EC-WC-202 kit comes with all you need for CPU & GPU water cooling. But I was willing to cool down my chipset and my hard drives as well. So I ordered in addition one North Bridge cooling block (EC-WC-NB) and two Hard Drive cooling blocks (EC-WC-HDD).
OK, let's move on. This kit has two radiators and two
fans. One is included in the central pump/radiator/controller unit and one is
on the secondary radiator that goes on the back of the case. So the secondary
radiator is perfect for me but what about the one that is in the central unit.
That one blows the heated air from the radiator inside the case. Also you have
to have empty bays above and below it in order to ensure enough airflow. Well,
but I have four 5.25" bays - one has a DVD drive, two will be taken by
the two HDD water blocks, and one will have the EC-202 unit. So there will be
no airflow at all. Also because of it's design and size probably, that internal
(white) fan is very noisy even on low speeds. Could be only mine but it makes
noise when it stays the way it should be and becomes very quiet if I tilt the
unit…I checked few times. It does not touch anything..this is just the
way it is. Therefore I decided to take the internal copper radiator out, to
install a very quiet 80mm fan on it to substitute the original one with the
same parameters. The problem was where to put it. There is a place only for
one fan on the back of my case. I did not want to put it in the front of the
case because the air from the radiator will be much hotter than the internal
ambient temperature of the case and by sucking it I did not want to warm the
air inside the case. So the only available place was on the internal side of
the power supply (I'm not sure shall I call it back or front). The size of the
copper radiator is about 12cm by 8cm and lays perfectly on the PSU. But there
were two problems. 1. The cable harness need to be moved aside and 2. To have
more holes on the PSU in order to ensure enough airflow. I dremelled new holes
and extended the existing ones, and moved the cables. I tried to make all modifications
as reversible as possible (except the holes on the PSU). I'm sorry for the shaky
picture.
Then I mounted the radiator and the fan.
I disconnected the noisy white fan and made an extension cord for the internal fan in order to have an external connector and replaced the short tube that was between the radiator and the reservoir with a long one.
Then I connected all the blocks and tubes outside the case, filled the system and run it for few hours to make sure there are no leaks. If you do not miss the red O rings, it is hard to imagine how it is going to leak ...but anyway…I used the antifreeze liquid that came with the kit. The instructions are to mix 1 part of it with 3.5 parts of distilled water and the one bottle mix was exactly the amount necessary to fill up the whole system with all the five blocks in my case. Some people have reported that the flow indicator that is on the tubes does not work. Pay attention to the small arrows on it. It is directional and you have 50% chance to put it the opposite way and then it will not work. I also have read that the unit does not keep the temperature settings for the LO/HI threshold. This is strange because my unit has a rechargeable battery and ones it is charged it keeps them along with showing the temperature even when the PC is off for a couple of days.
I put everything in the case and installed the water blocks. Because my original chipset heatsink was glued on the chip and did not have any place for brackets to mount, I had to make a special bracket to hold the north bridge water block. With everything installed in place I run it again for about 30 minutes using another power supply in order not to have any electricity in the box in event of leak. After that I switched WC-2002 to my original power supply and powered the PC.
It is amazingly quiet now. The fan of my PSU is also very quiet and it is controlled by a heat sensor within the PSU. The noisiest parts now are my hard drives and the DVD drive when there is a media in it. And behind the closed door of my desk it is hard to determine if the PC is on or off. During my initial noise test I found out that my new replacement fan for the copper radiator is much quieter then the one on the aluminum secondary radiator (the black one that comes with the kit) so I switched them. This way the 'noisier' (if you can consider it noisy at all) fan goes to the copper radiator and gets controlled by the knob on the WC-202 front panel (the one that turns from blue to purple). The other, more quite one, goes to the aluminum block and there is no difference in the noise between the LO & HI speed but if you put your hand you can fill the difference in the airflow. My CPU temperature use to be around 55°C - 65°C and now it is 45°C - 55°C behind closed door and 42°C - 45°C when the door of my desk is open. This is with 26°C room temperature. The ambient temperature of the case is in the low thirties. When I put my hand behind the PSU or the secondary radiator I feel the hot (not just worm but hot) air being sucked out of the box, which is great! Since there were many opinions that the pump of WC-202 is weak, I was planning to hook an external one. Especially because of the 5 water blocks instead of only 2. But after all the tests and during the process of removing the air bubbles I measured the speed of the water and it is about 4 inches per second which is good enough for the water to grab the heat from the water blocks and to dispense it at the radiators.
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