Regretted of buying a Reserator ... :\

turtleman · Post by **turtleman** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:07 pm

With all the hypes and reviews talking about the Reserator, I took the plunge and bought one, it is only the first day im running it, but there is no improvement vs the SilentBoos hs/fan I had before, the noise is about the same, I do have to say that Researtor is is silent, but the problem is that my room was cool then with computer on and reserator running, my room temp is 30.8Cm, CUP temp at 48C , mobo temp at 32C, exactly the same as before when i have the air setup, and when i touch my reserator, it is warm-hot ........ and i think thats where the heat source coming from, I was hoping with a wc setup, my case temp would be lower and not hoping for a big improvement on the cpu temp but COME ON... this is terrible, no improvement at all, and it is making my room hot as hell... so i don't know wat know, but maybe return it and go back to air setup..

I have Antec Sonata
with 2 120mm silentX fan front and back , and a 80mm silenX fan below the front fan, 4 hds and 2dvdrom, amd barton 2500oc 3200, ati 9800pro

swiftynz · Post by **swiftynz** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:56 pm

The Reserator should be a hell of a lot quieter than the silent boost, if you're noticing no difference then there must be something else making noise.

Heat doesn't just come from nowhere. Unless the pump in the reserator is somehow pumping out 20 odd watts of heat, there will be no difference whatsoever to the temperature of your room. All you've done is moved the heat, so instead of being exhausted out the back of the case, it's on your desk beside the computer.

Motherboard sensors aren't accurate, and I'll bet your case temp has actually dropped. Actually it's impossible for it not to have dropped at least a bit!

It's unfortunate that you're not happy with it, everyone I know that has one loves it.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 7:29 pm

Remount the waterblock to see if the CPU temp drops.

1911user · Post by **1911user** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 9:16 pm

It sounds like the reserator is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It is not a "performance" watercooling system. It is a "quiet" water system with a stylish look.

The fact that it is keeping an overclocked Barton XP processor within 17C of room ambient sounds pretty good. You didn't say if that was loaded or idle temps. I'm not sure what the reviews promised, but I think your system is doing fine. As mentioned before, your room should be no hotter with the reserator than before with air cooling. The little pump just doesn't add that much heat.

turtleman · Post by **turtleman** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 12:17 am

well, with my air setup before, the idle temp is around 43-44C, now with WC, the idle temp is at 42C , and mb is at 28C right now, which is very similar to the air setup that i have before.

I did find out that my 4 hard drives were the one thats making the noise... 3 wd, 1 maxtor... or maybe the ps that came with the sonata.

but wat im whining about is not the performance, bc i already know this is not a performance wc setup but quiet, I knew that, but what I dont know is that when the reserator is working out the heat by the fanless alumn., the heat actually raise my room temp. i can feel my surrendering is a lot hotter than before , and yea, the reserator is quite warm itself too , so unless you are telling me that im tripping that the giantic blue thing is not emitting massive heat , then im very disappointed on reserator...

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 2:06 am

turtleman wrote:but wat im whining about is not the performance, bc i already know this is not a performance wc setup but quiet, I knew that, but what I dont know is that when the reserator is working out the heat by the fanless alumn., the heat actually raise my room temp. i can feel my surrendering is a lot hotter than before , and yea, the reserator is quite warm itself too , so unless you are telling me that im tripping that the giantic blue thing is not emitting massive heat , then im very disappointed on reserator...

Ummm... maybe you should read up on the laws of thermodynamics!

It's very simple! There is as much heat going into your room with the reserator as there was being blown out of the back of your case when you were air-cooling. You may not believe this, but it's true!

The reserator is *supposed* to get warm. How else do you think watercooling works?

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:58 am

Actually, I'd say that the Reserator is performing better than expected.

Your OC'd Barton is an 80watt+ heat producer. Given your 31Â° ambient temp, and your 48Â° CPU temp, that works out to a Â°C/W of only 0.20. That's substantially better than what I got in my review.

And as Nutball pointed out, the heat being released into your room is exactly the same as it was before. (The pump adds a negligible 5 watts of heat)

What you've really been a victim of is an ill-timed upgrade. You upgraded your CPU cooling to reduce noise, but your old CPU cooling solution wasn't where the noise was coming from in the first place.

That's not the Reserator's fault: its most likely your 1 loud Maxtor HDD, your 3 even louder WD HDD's, your loud 9800Pro HSF, your loud PSU, and your unnecessary case fans' fault.

Now that you've got the CPU cooling handled you can start working on those other problems.

turtleman · Post by **turtleman** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:21 pm

Hmm. i did think of the air cool and watercool would have emitting out around the same lvl of energy, but I was just thinking that because of reseravtors unique design, it probably would have heat than the air setup before. again.. i maybe very wrong..

as for the source of noise... did think about replacing the things you mentioned, Russ. But i couldn't hear the HSF on my video card at all, and still try to find a PSU that has the fan-connector only like the antec one, and why case fan is unncessary ? I thought even it is WCed, the system still need some air flow ?

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 6:57 pm

It needs some airflow, but you still have as much airflow as before, even after removing a major source of heat. Try unplugging ALL your harddrives, remove the front fan and stop the radeon9800 fan with your finger, then see how quiet that is. You will still have your PSU as a noise maker, but it should still be better than before. If you really want you can stop the PSU fan aswell, then consider buying a new one.

Gooserider · Post by **Gooserider** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:34 pm

Note that I do see a SLIGHT possibility that turtleman's room temps have actually gone up.... This is pure speculation, but if TM's old setup was fairly typical, he probably dumped most of his heat out the back of his PC, blowing against a wall under the desk. The desk would act to trap the heat under it, and depending on what it was made out of, the wall might well have dissipated a good bit of the heat (especially if it were an outside wall.... )

If this was the case, then going to a reserator would have been like going from an old fashioned fire place to a modern wood stove, which gets the same amount of heat out of a cord of wood, but dumps most of it into the room instead of sending it up the chimney!

The reserator would do the same, since it is now dumping the heat out in the middle of the room instead of dissipating it against a wall. The amount of heat being produced by TM's computer is the same, but it's being dissipated differently.

Gooserider

surfed · Post by **surfed** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:26 am

I have similar Setup. Sonata Case but only 1 120mm intake fan (silent) mounted after hd. CPU & GPU are cooled by Reserator. CPU is XP 2600 running at [email protected]. The only thing audible is the PSU Fan. Under load CPU is 46C and Case is 28C, ambient 20C. I closed of the sidepanel Antec holes and rear fan holes. Without this i get 30C case temp.
Also I only have 1 hd (seagate what else?).

araaran · Post by **araaran** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:32 am

I also have a similar setup. Its not Zalman, Im using an EHIEM pump combined with a Innovatek passive radiator rivited to the right side of a Lian-Li aluminium case.
The HDD is Seagate; PSU is QTechnology with a single 120mm fan. This is the *only* fan in the system. There are no full-time case fans at all and my ambient case temp rarely tops 30C.

This set up is as-near-as-dammit silent, but I do notice a gentle warming effect as I am sitting next to the radiator. I wonder if the apparent room warming being talked about has to do with the person feeling warmth actually being in line-of-sight of the heat source when previously the heat was actually being fired away from him.