"What's this?" you ask. Well, it sure ain't arctic silver. Ceramique is a new, experimental heat transfer compound from the peope at Arctic Silver. Nevin sent me a test vile to see how it worked. It worked like a charm for me, to be honest. Ceramique is a white/cream colored compound that spreads on in a fashion similar to that of Arctic Silver. The other striking difference I noticed in contrast to Arctic Silver was its stickiness. Ceramique seemed much stickier than Arctic Silver to me. I applied it using the directions recommended for installing a cooler with Arctic Silver.

The other snag I hit was regarding the fill point hose. In order for the hose to not crimp, it was going to have to meet the main cooling line in the component chamber of the cube case. And in order for them to all meet over there without crimping, 90 degree hose couplings had to be used. Check out the next picture to see the complicated scene.

When I finally put everything together and wired it all up, here is what the final product looked like.

Of course, let us not forget the case window and blue cold cathode tube.

A couple aspects of that picture stick out immediately. First of all, that is an old KT7E motherboard with a Duron 650 in there. It's got a speedy Radeon VE and 128mb of RAM to supplement it. Why isn't there some crazy spec'd machine in there? Well, the first time I build massive cooling systems like this, I always like to use old components for a while in case it were to spring a leak or something like that. Eventually it will have a better system in it, but i decided that my "internet machine" would be good enough for testing. However, this new cooling system did speed this mcahine up. With an SK6 and moderately powerful fan, it was able to overclock to 850 mhz on the 100 mhz FSB. For whatever reason, it never liked the 133 mhz bus. Now, however, the CPU runs at 1 ghz on the 133 mhz FSB. Nice boost eh?

There isnt a temp sensor built into these old Durons so I dont have any accurate temperature measurements for you (I hope to have accurate readings once I add the peltier and such). In my informal testings, the hose coming out of the maze3 is rather warm, but not too hot. After the first radiator, I don't notice any heat in the hose line. However, that could be because the walls are so thick on the hose. The GEO heatercore is the first heatercore in the loop, and it is a bit warm, however, the Big Momma stays at room temperature. This leads me to believe that the first heatercore is doing its job so well that the second one isn't even needed. That's definitely motivation for me to add a high wattage peltier device.

As I leave this system in my Los Angeles home and return back to UCSD with my Chilli Pro based case, I feel very satisfied. I worked a long time with this case, never rushing the job. As a result, I incurred no major setbacks along the way. When I originally planned this system out, I wanted the focus to be on silence and cleanliness. By cleanliness, it was to be neatly organized and to have the H2O system invisible to the outside. Concealing two large heatercores and all the hardware to go with them was no easy task. Other than the closed up fill point on the top, I have accomplished my goal with flying colors.

Initially, I had reserved this last paragraph of the article to wow you all with what could be next when new elements are implemented in this system. However, Joe has helped me to realize that I really don't have time to make promises about new innovations on this project as my busy schedule just doesn't have room for SuperCooling these days. As I step back from ProCooling, this may or may not be the final revision of the project, but I hope you have all enjoyed it this far. Peace. Please e-mail me or post in the forums if you have any questions. I'll be around both. Late.

-Kev

If you have any comments or Questions please email me at Kevin@ProCooling.com