Grzmot's recent activity

  1. Comment on What I learned building my first custom water loop in ~comp

    Grzmot
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    Oh that's sick as fuck! I just went with a pump reservoir combo. No clue D5s were this strong. Personally I went with Alphacool, they seem to have a fine reputation, but I'll keep Koolance in mind...

    Oh that's sick as fuck! I just went with a pump reservoir combo. No clue D5s were this strong.

    Personally I went with Alphacool, they seem to have a fine reputation, but I'll keep Koolance in mind if I need more stuff.

    Hopefully at this point I don't though. I've spent so much money. đź’€

  2. Comment on What I learned building my first custom water loop in ~comp

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    This is very useful to me because since I need to pull apart my system anyway again to fix my GPU, I plan to put in 3 quick disconnects around the cpu and gpu to make future upgrades easier. I...

    If you’re using a D5 pump, you probably don’t need to worry about flow rate. They can push through five blocks and 20 quick disconnects at 70% power no problem, but I see a fair number of people worrying that even a single minor restriction in a normal one or two block loop might cause problems.

    This is very useful to me because since I need to pull apart my system anyway again to fix my GPU, I plan to put in 3 quick disconnects around the cpu and gpu to make future upgrades easier. I mean, with the rubber standoffs, my D5 pump can run at 100% no problem and it's still completely silent, so I don't mind much either way.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on What I learned building my first custom water loop in ~comp

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    Thank you! :3

    Thank you! :3

    1 vote
  4. Comment on What I learned building my first custom water loop in ~comp

  5. Comment on What I learned building my first custom water loop in ~comp

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    Sure! I haven't taken one in it's completely assembled state, but here it was nearly done and running: https://u.cubeupload.com/monarch/signal20260514174420.jpeg...

    Sure!

    I haven't taken one in it's completely assembled state, but here it was nearly done and running:

    https://u.cubeupload.com/monarch/signal20260514174420.jpeg

    https://u.cubeupload.com/monarch/d60signal20260514174420.jpeg

    Just imagine a big glass side panel and on the top a simple plastic covering. The case in question is the Fractal Torrent: https://www.fractal-design.com/app/uploads/2021/07/Torrent_Black_RGB_TGL_16-Left-Front-Above-810x810.jpg

    I guess my WIP pics actually show where I had to cut into the case to make the front rad fit! :D

    5 votes
  6. What I learned building my first custom water loop

    This weekend, I've fulfilled a long dream of mine and upgraded my computer to a fully custom waterloop. This is, for a number of a reasons, a complicated process, and outside of general advice,...

    This weekend, I've fulfilled a long dream of mine and upgraded my computer to a fully custom waterloop. This is, for a number of a reasons, a complicated process, and outside of general advice, it's difficult to provide an exact guide on how to do this. Custom waterloops are, well, custom. They depend mostly on what computer case you use, and what sort of reservoir and such you've bought. As such, my advice can also only be general.

    Plan ahead

    Check online for custom watercooling builds in your case. Use those as a guide for radiator and reservoir placement. Sketch ideas out on paper. Measure out the places inside of your case where you intend to place components. Check the your pc case manual, those very often contain info on where you can place radiators and reservoirs.

    Some cases are ill-suited for custom waterloops. Consider buying a new case rather than building in an old, ill-suited one. It will save you a lot of pain.

    Some cases require modifications. I had to cut into mine with a metal saw to make space for a radiator. Minimal material was removed from the frame, invisible after the case is put back together. I also had to drill into it to place the reservoir. The holes case manufacturers place for reservoirs are best-effort guesses. Unlike for fans, and thus radiators, there are no standards for reservoirs.

    Do not rush

    Expect a marathon, not a sprint. There will be setbacks. My process, setbacks and all, took me 3 days. And I still fucked up assembling my GPU. The die has bad contact and I'll have to drain the loop, pull it out, disassemble it and put it back together again. A lot of this was also spent waiting for next-day deliveries to show up because I'm dumb and was missing things.

    Prefer soft tubing

    There are no performance benefits to hardline tubes, and they are a bitch to measure, bend and cut precisely. That 95° angle that was meant to be a 90° is going to be evident immediately, and forever. Soft tubes are forgiving, easy to put into the system and much more time efficient. They also do not require extra equipment dedicated solely to bending hardline tubes. Think about where your build is going to sit. On the floor? Who gives a shit how it looks?

    Custom waterloops are all about you, and if you insist, then you do you. Hardline tubes are the endboss of all pc builds. Be ready for a challenge.

    Tube sizes

    The standard soft tube is 13 mm outer diameter and 10 mm inner diameter, or 13/10. There's a ton of other sizes as well but remember even if the inner diameter is larger, liquid flow improvemets are going to be marginal. Different sizes also need different fittings.

    Respect the crink

    Soft tubing is a breeze to put into your system, but don't make those corners too tight or it'll crink and cut off flow. Check this especially when you close up the panels of your pc case. Tubing is cheap, comparatively. Don't be afraid to use more than you need.

    Money

    Custom water loops are pricey. Full copper radiators start at 100€, water blocks are usually hundreds as well, with the tubing, fittings and all it's normal for cooling equipment alone to account for a grand. You're bolting an aftermarket cooling system onto your PC that will turn it into a racecar. A lot of that is finely machined copper. It costs.

    Remember the extras

    Ya know how I said that I needed to order some extra things last-minute? Thank fuck for Amazon and their fast deliveries. If you live in a larger city, there's also a good chance a specialist computer store somewhere might have what you need.

    Leak tester

    Those are small air pumps with a pressure gauge. You close of all ports and then pump air into the system, 0.5 bar maximum (!!!), and wait 60 minutes. If the pressure is maintained, congratulations, your system is air- and thus watertight.

    Test your individual components before you put them into your case! This way, you know that the components themselves are tight, and you avoid having to pull out a radiator after screwing it in place because you forgot to tighten that one end cap you can now no longer reach. Ask me how I know.

    Also test our loop when it's fully assembled. Should you have a leak, divide your loop into two halves and leak test those. Repeat (divide into halves and test) until you have located the leak. If you have tested your comps individually before, it's going to be a radiator fitting you forgot to tighten or your reservoir top 99% of the time. Have a book or a podcast ready because this is a long process with lots of downtime.

    Motherboard 24-pin jumper plug

    These nifty little things are incredibly cheap and useful. After you wire everything up, you want to fill your reservoir and turn on the pump, but obviously you do not want to immediately electrify your entire system. So you pull the 24-pin motherboard cable of your motherboard and put the plug into it. It bridges specific pins, tricking your power supply into thinking a motherboard is connected. This way your pump turns on without the rest of your system. Once the water is circulating and not catastrophes have occured, you can turn off your power supply and plug the mobo back in.

    Common advice

    This is advice that's often repeated in watercooling circles for beginners. If you're seriously considering doing this, you will likely already have stumbled upon these. I'm adding these just for posterity.

    Do not mix aluminium and copper/brass

    Cheaper watercooling components are often out of aluminium while pricier ones are out of copper. You do not want both in your system as they eat each other through galvanic corrosion. If your cooling blocks for the GPU and CPU use copper (they very often do), the rest needs to be out of copper or brass as well, fittings included!

    Buy more fittings than you think you need

    Remember, per tube you'll need at least two! Check that they have O-rings, as those provide the seal.

    Put a drain port into your loop

    You should generally drain and flush the loop at least once a year. This will be a lot easier if on low points you have faucet you can attach a tube to and open to drain it. Pulling the loop back apart is generally the last thing people think off when building a custom loop for the first time, so it's useful to know.

    Consider quick disconnects

    Quick disconnects are special fittings you can put into a tube or attach directly to a port. You can then pull them apart with minimal or no leakage of your cooling fluid without having to drain your loop. Really useful for example the GPU, which tends to be the component that's swapped out most often.

    Use cooling fluids over distilled water

    Obviously no fucking tap water, ever! But lots of folks also gravitate to distilled water. Cooling fluids like what Alphacool or Aquacomputer make have extra stuff in them, like corrosion inhibitors and biocides that prevent algae build up. You can also mix these yourself if you can get the inhibitors and biocides concentrated but if you're on that level I don't think you need this guide anymore.

    Also, colored liquid fucking sucks. Unless you want to pull apart your water blocks and clean them with a toothbrush, use clear liquids. If you want fun colors, put RGB into your case.

    120 mm of radiator length per 100 W of heat generation

    The two components generating the most heat in your PC are likely the CPU and GPU. Check the specs of those to see how much heat they generate. This number is generally known as the Thermal Design Point (TDP). Radiators come in many sizes fitted to fan sizes, mostly in multiples of 120 or 140 mm, but running this calculation gives you a baseline for how much radiators you need. More is always better! Fit in as many radiators as you can into your case, but if your case can't fit the number of this calculation then you need to look for a bigger case.

    Knowing the TDP is rarer for GPUs, you can also use board power or power draw as a substitute. We're doing napkin math here, no need to be precise.

    Example:

    CPU: 170 W

    GPU: 300 W

    -> round up to 500 W, which means 5 * 120 = 600. A 360 mm radiator fits 3 120 mm fans. You'd need 2 radiators with 3 fans each to cool your system adequately.

    Alternatively, a 280 mm radiator fits 2 140 mm fans. You'd need 3 of those to cool the system.

    Radiator thiccckness

    Radiators come in different thicknesses. Since what dictates a radiator's ability to dissipate heat is the total surface of it's fins, increasing the thickness improves cooling ability. However, most PC cases, even full towers, are practically limited to 45 cm rad height at most.

    Noise

    A big motivation for doing this was noise. Cooling everything with a custom loop means that I've lost the 2 fans on my CPU air cooler and the 3 fans on my GPU. What remains are the case fans only, 2x180 mm ones and 3x140 mm. Those can now run at dramatically lower speeds (10% fan speed at idle, ramping up much more slowly) for a nearly silent build even under full load. The pump and reservoir combo I've chosen are isolated from the pc case through rubber standoffs which means that the pump, even when at 100%, runs dead-silent.

    Chasing diminishing returns

    Switching to a custom loop alone is a massive bonus to the computer's ability to be cooled, because water is a much more efficient way to move heat than air. Case radiators also have much more volume than the heat sinks on your GPU and CPU right now, improving the cooling further.

    Once you step into this world, the choices open to you are staggering. Delidding the CPU. Using liquid metal instead of thermal paste, etc. etc. Unless you're planning on overclocking your system, there's no point to doing any of those things that are actively dangerous.

    Liquid metal buys you a couple of degrees °C at best, at the cost of being dangerous and difficult to apply and even a tiny escaped drop having the ability to short and fry your GPU for good.

    Delidding your CPU is only useful if you plan to overclock. I did it, but only because the company Thermal Grizzly sells delidded CPUs and a fitting water cooling block. If you're doing it at home, the investment is way too large to make sense. Delidding also requires liquid metal afterwards. See paragraph above for that.

    If you're in this just because you want a high performing system at less noise, then using a PTM material instead of thermal paste is going to be good enough.

    All of these improvements lower temperatures of your components. Delidding the CPU and cooling it directly buys you something like 20°C under load. But the thing is, a good water cooling loop can absolutely cope with a high performance CPU running at 100 per cent. With the IHS on it'll just push 80°C instead of 60°C.

    Functionally, there's no difference if the CPU runs at 60°C or 80°C. The only time it matters if if you're over clocking and through that causing the CPU to approach its thermal limit. Then dropping it by a few degrees makes sense.

    If not? Skip them.


    I hope these help people. Feel free to ask any questions!

    25 votes
  7. Comment on Xbox Game Pass and Discord to offer Game Pass Starter Edition to Discord Nitro subscribers in ~games

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    I doubt it. Microsoft already offered to buy Discord a while back for a staggering sum, and Discord said no. This is Microslop trying to promote Gamepass and Discord trying to promote Nitro.

    I doubt it. Microsoft already offered to buy Discord a while back for a staggering sum, and Discord said no.

    This is Microslop trying to promote Gamepass and Discord trying to promote Nitro.

    2 votes
  8. Comment on US Government UFO document release in ~society

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    This is a real Final Fantasy Tidus laugh moment.

    This is a real Final Fantasy Tidus laugh moment.

    11 votes
  9. Comment on Toyota built a $10 billion private utopia—what’s going on in there? in ~design

    Grzmot
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    Putting aside the concerns the article already notes (privacy nightmare is an understatement), I'm not sure if I like the solutions Woven City provides anyhow. Obviously this city is going to be...

    Putting aside the concerns the article already notes (privacy nightmare is an understatement), I'm not sure if I like the solutions Woven City provides anyhow. Obviously this city is going to be designed to solve the problems Toyota is best suited to solve, but I think in the process it also creates a problem that Toyota then sells you the solution for: the cars.

    For a 3-block experiment, there is no legitimate reason for there to be cars or buses at all, other than the fact that Toyota wants to sell you cars and your city government buses. The counter argument of this being a small experiment also showing off solutions if it scales to a larger area doesn't hold in my opinion, because then cars become a dogshit solution to the transporting people problem, an issue that is visible in every single city on the planet. The little autonomous buses that they use are still a compromise of the city to the road, and likely only really safe once you add in the surveilance hellscape this experiment proposes.

    The real solution to mass transit are trams, or ideally: metros. This compacts city to something walkable, which is the true solution for local transit, and leaves wide roads to their actual purpose: supplying businesses and grocery stores.

    18 votes
  10. Comment on Gothenburg promised to optimise school admissions with a piece of code. The resulting chaos showed how unaccountable systems are ruining lives. in ~tech

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    It's beside the point of the article but I do have to say that a "as the crow flies" implementation of this system is dogshit on a technical level. Kids don't fly to school, they walk, and digital...

    It's beside the point of the article but I do have to say that a "as the crow flies" implementation of this system is dogshit on a technical level. Kids don't fly to school, they walk, and digital maps and navigation even on foot has been a thing for at least a decade now. The state clearly knows where the schools and the kid's homes are to run this calculation, mapping out the roads and using that length instead would've maybe not been trivial, but certainly feasible.

    This is an utter failure by the city government and the fact that they're doubling down on it is truly insane. A straight line calculation would be insane anywhere, Gothenburg just showcases it much better.

    On a legal level, it's hard to know wherever the author's strategy was sensible:

    I argued that the algorithm’s design violated applicable legislation.

    But that's part of the point, isn't it? The city made a clearly erronous choice and the citizens have no way to fight it.

    10 votes
  11. Comment on The speculative ambitions of Logan Paul and Jeremy Padawer in ~society

    Grzmot
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    Not sure of ~society is the right home for this post, but ~arts didn't feel correct, and neider did ~games or ~book or ~comics. It touches all of those areas, but not because of the content, but...

    Not sure of ~society is the right home for this post, but ~arts didn't feel correct, and neider did ~games or ~book or ~comics. It touches all of those areas, but not because of the content, but because of the grift.

    3 votes
  12. Comment on In the foothills of Mount Fuji, the fight is on against unruly tourists (gifted link) in ~travel

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    Venice is a shell of a city. I've been there once, and I'm never going back again. It really is consumption tourism at its peak, and it pushed out everything else. It's so sad. If I journey to a...

    Venice is a shell of a city. I've been there once, and I'm never going back again. It really is consumption tourism at its peak, and it pushed out everything else. It's so sad.

    If I journey to a place it's to experience the local culture, food and customs. In overtouristed areas like Venice it's like walking onto a film set. It's all fake, catered to a crowd I detest but unfortunately still share some links to, because I too am a tourist. And because that film set is so profitable, it pushes out the locals. The hotels get more expensive, the food gets worse, life evaporates because there is no life on a film set.

    I lose the reason for being there, because I don't go somewhere just to take pictures, and the locals lose a place to live. It's parasitic. If you love a place the worst think you can do is post it on social media.

    15 votes
  13. Comment on Reddit reports 69% jump in revenue, topping analyst estimates in ~tech

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    You're totally fine and any time!

    You're totally fine and any time!

    3 votes
  14. Comment on Interview with Lydia Love, one of Bryon Noem's regular camgirls in ~society

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    I think this interview, given its meandering pace and scope, does a good job at also bringing up sex positivity vs sex negativity, addiction, queerness etc. They at one point just go off and talk...

    I think this interview, given its meandering pace and scope, does a good job at also bringing up sex positivity vs sex negativity, addiction, queerness etc.

    They at one point just go off and talk about growing up in a small conservative town and such. I understand where you're coming from and I think that content and discussions pushing only negatives are around, but at least in this particular case they tackle it and it feels pretty positive. A lot of the interview is dedicated to her decision to reveal herself as one of his providers. She is mind you, not the person who leaked the photos initially.

    But again, I understand your apprehension on the topic, especially how the initial points of such a discussion can shift over time and go turn 180°.

    1 vote
  15. Comment on UN warns Denmark that the treatment of a Greenlandic mother whose newborn child was removed by authorities as a result of controversial parenting competency tests “may amount to ethnic discrimination” in ~society

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    That is so sad and horrifying. :(

    That is so sad and horrifying. :(

    8 votes
  16. Comment on UN warns Denmark that the treatment of a Greenlandic mother whose newborn child was removed by authorities as a result of controversial parenting competency tests “may amount to ethnic discrimination” in ~society

    Grzmot
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    Genuinely did not know that Denmark still separating kids at birth based on a "parental competency exam". That's insane. I found little information on what exactly the test is, but it apparently...

    Genuinely did not know that Denmark still separating kids at birth based on a "parental competency exam". That's insane. I found little information on what exactly the test is, but it apparently it consists of a series of psychological tests, including a Rorschach test. It's also always adminstered in Danish, which might not be a first language for Greenland natives. That's pretty terrifying.

    21 votes
  17. Comment on Interview with Lydia Love, one of Bryon Noem's regular camgirls in ~society

    Grzmot
    Link Parent
    That's absolutely a valid opinion to have. I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, it's a fucking joke how often this hipocrisy happens: someone denouncing a kink, a sexuality, a gender identity...

    That's absolutely a valid opinion to have. I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, it's a fucking joke how often this hipocrisy happens: someone denouncing a kink, a sexuality, a gender identity in public while being (into) it in private. The meme that Grindr crashes every time there's a Republican event somewhere is one for a reason.

    On the other hand, these people are actively making a lot of lives worse and while you're right, Noem's husband isn't a public figure at all and it's questionable how much this would personally impact her given that none of these people seem to live fulfilling loving marriages, it might at the very least impact her political career. A little bit. I guess the next grifting idiot while come around, or maybe MAGA won't care in the same way that they have not cared about their president's multiple marriages or JD Vance getting it on with Charlie Kirk's widow while her late husband's body was still warm.

    I don't know. This is a 90 min interview and a lot of other things come up, but Lydia Love is also asked why she decided to go public with this and she states that he is fair game. I think things like this will continue while people feel powerless to actually do something about the current US government.

    5 votes
  18. Comment on Interview with Lydia Love, one of Bryon Noem's regular camgirls in ~society

    Grzmot
    Link
    Some background info: Bryon Noem is the husband of Kristi Noem, who was the secretary of homeland security from 2025 to 2026. She's been rightfully criticized for overseeing the ongoing...

    Some background info:

    Bryon Noem is the husband of Kristi Noem, who was the secretary of homeland security from 2025 to 2026. She's been rightfully criticized for overseeing the ongoing facistification of ICE and its raids on American cities and arrests and deportations of legal and illegal immigrants and in some cases even US citizens because that's how bad things are nowadays.

    Turns out that her husband is really into wearing huge silicone knockers and being sissified. These photos leaked a while back and this is an interview with at least one of the callgirls that facilitated it.

    Disclaimer: I'm not really into US politics that much given it's a different continent and an incredible clusterfuck. This is my best summary of what she's done. I'm sure I've forgotten some things. She's horrible.

    5 votes