Awhile back, I posted in the "What retro activity did you get up to today?" thread about sticking an AIO I found on the side of the road into an old PC.

The premise was simple: Get an AIO and make it retro friendly.

The problem: It was a dumb idea, and I wanted to spend virtually no money doing it.

The story (picture heavy):

Years ago, while unashamedly looking for cool tech things in people's council waste collection piles (where people throw out furniture and other large, bulky items), we came across a Noctua cooler box. Sweet! Inside was a Corsair AIO. Boo.

I don't know why, but that was apparently worthy of keeping and was promptly forgotten.

One day, as explained in the original linked post, they came together and it turned out an AIO could be mounted to a Socket 7 system using some wire from a crap OEM heatsink.

Of course, I'd never tested this unit, but the thought of having a retro AIO amused me enough to apparently justify enough brain power to consider it further.

The first thing I did was completely dismantle the AIO. The 140mm radiator wasn't retro friendly, so it had to go.

Following that, the colour wasn't very retro friendly, so that had to change too.

Fantastic, now I had a beige AIO. I needed tubing, I needed a small radiator and I needed hose clamps.

Fast forward a month or so and they show up alongside a bunch of other stuff from China for my Dimension95 build.

I didn't know what tubing I wanted, so I got a lot of tubing. It was a whopping 30 cents per meter. Silicone, EPDM in different diameters.

Out of all of it, the grey was the most beautiful tubing I'd ever held. It felt like heaven to use. It slid right onto the barb. It didn't come off the barb at all.

In fact, it felt so good that I felt compelled to make a video to show a couple of people in the watercooling discord server.

It wasn't preheated, lubed or anything else. It was just a dream come true. It looked great too.

So with that settled, it was time to flush the cheap 80mm Chinese copper/brass radiator. The usual vinegar/distilled water mix will do the job.

Next up, the 3 pin fan cable wasn't very retro friendly or aesthetically pleasing either, so that had to go too.

Ground, 12V power, Tach (so... ground). Easy. One cut up Molex to 3pin fan cable and some soldering & heatshrink solves that problem, and gives an appropriately beautiful yellow and black cable hanging out the side of it.

Of course, no retro product is complete without retro graphics (which I didn't get to, because it DIDN'T WORK).

That was my design though. It felt appropriately cheesy. Who, outside of 1998-2002 would name their product CyberCooler? No offence to Stulz and their CyberCool line of refrigeration products. I'm sure they're fantastic. 🤣

Anyway, the moment of truth was here.

Some tubing was prepared. The unit was reassembled fully with impeller, o-ring and all screws.

The pump was primed and the tubing was kept under water.

It was plugged into a spare system, and success! It turned on, all the water came right out of the unit's outlet and... it took nothing back in.

It was dead.

Was it my fault? I don't know. I'd like to assume not, and instead assume it was in the garbage pile for a good reason.

All that aside, it was fun. The idea works. I can put an 80mm radiator on. I can paint in beige. I can give it 4 pin molex power. I can give it beautiful silicone grey tubing. I can mount it to Socket 7, 370 and all sorts of other systems.

You CAN make a retro AIO.

Maybe I'll just stick that tubing on the radiator, clamp it all down, put it inside a PC and see what could have been on the weekend. Maybe I'll throw it out and consider it a waste of $15.

Though, will I try again? Probably. It's what I tend to do. Whether I order an old CoolIT or Asetek unit from eBay/China that is known working and try again, or wait for another one to show up in the rubbish pile in front of somebody else's house, I'm not sure, but I've got everything ready to go for attempt number two when the opportunity presents itself, and next time I'll conquer the retro AIO and have the ugliest, yet most beautiful, retro compatible AIO around.

Thanks for reading!