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by Debora Pape
99 kilos of gaming power: modder converts Victorian radiator into a water cooling system
3.3.2026
Translation: machine translated
A British engineer crosses a 100-year-old cast iron radiator with state-of-the-art gaming hardware. The 99-kilogram steampunk monster runs surprisingly well despite massive rust problems inside.
Luckily there's the internet. Otherwise, wonderfully weird DIY projects like the following would never become known. The Brit Felix Ure - inventor and engineer according to his website - shows on YouTube how he spent three months almost full-time building a gaming PC with a very special water cooling system: a cast-iron radiator from Victorian times in which 18 litres of coolant circulate. When fully assembled, the computer weighs 99 kilograms.
Felix is the co-founder of Billet Labs, a company specialising in personalised PC cooling, which he runs with his school friend Sam Wood. The two take a critical look at traditional PC builds and want to create new, improved designs. Despite its attractive appearance, the radiator water cooling system cannot be described as a practical design. It serves as a kind of showcase project. However, the PC should still be practical and usable in the long term.
The idea: a functioning steampunk PC
There is a certain logic to a radiator as a water cooling system: gaming PCs produce so much heat under load that they can even pass as expensive heaters. So why not realise the obvious?
The 100-year-old radiator, together with analogue temperature and pressure gauges, is perfect for a PC with a steampunk look. In order to avoid destroying it with modern computer components, Felix mounts these largely invisibly on the underside of the radiator. Instead of the usual power switch, Felix mounts a metal lever on the side.
Source: Felix Ure
Felix states that his plan actually has advantages: The large thermal mass of 18 litres of water can absorb a lot of heat and radiators have the purpose of releasing as much of it as possible into the environment via their surface. As with a normal water cooling system, the pump circuit ensures that cool water dissipates the heat from the PC components into the heating system.
As an efficient heater, however, the Victorian monstrosity has had its day. After a good hour under full load, the water temperature in the radiator is only around 29 degrees. The PC also runs very quietly because the pump only starts up when the CPU temperature rises to over 50 degrees, i.e. only under load.
Planning and installation
As there is no data sheet for the radiator, Felix has to calculate the possible capacities himself. He assumes that the radiator can dissipate between 200 and 400 watts of heat. A graphics card the size of an Nvidia RTX 5090 cannot be cooled with this, says Felix, so he opts for an RTX 5080 in combination with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800 X3D processor, mounted on a mini-ITX mainboard. The components are powered by the 600-watt Flex ATX power supply unit.
Source: Felix Ure
Of course, the Victorian heating engineer has not planned any straight surfaces or drill holes for the subsequent installation of a gaming PC. That's why Felix uses a laser scan to create an exact 3D model of the underside of the radiator and designs a mounting frame on the computer using the open source software Blender and the CAD programme Fusion. The 3D printer takes 30 hours to create the object - but the effort is worth it: the frame fits perfectly on the iron base and can be attached there without any play.
A pump for water cooling is the centrepiece of the design. It is responsible for pumping the water, which removes the heat from the CPU and GPU, through the inside of the radiator. To connect the pump to the contents of the radiator, Felix uses copper tubes, which he welds airtight and which also go very well with the steampunk look. Because normal Wakü pumps are not designed for such a volume, Felix has to adapt them to the requirements himself.
Weeks of trouble shooting
The real problems start after installation. When filling the heating element, it turns out that although it is tight, bubbles and tiny copper particles keep getting into the pump. This leads to loud, rattling noises and reduced efficiency. In addition, the water circulates far too slowly, meaning that the cooling does not work properly.
Source: Felix Ure
The problem: The inside of the radiator was completely filthy and covered in rust before the project started. Despite thorough cleaning, residues remained. A tiny filter with a mesh size of 0.1 millimetres in front of the pump is supposed to retain dirt particles. And it does. Felix finds the filter completely dirty with «sludge» after just a short test run of the computer.
At this point, he says, he almost gave up on the whole project because it was almost impossible to clean the inside completely. He spends two weeks draining the water, partially disassembling the computer again, pouring in new water and still can't get a properly functioning circuit.
In the end, the only thing that helps is a 16 metre long hose, which Felix connects to the computer's water circuit, the house water connection and the drain. This allows him to flush the system if necessary.
A quiet clicking or bubbling noise when a metal particle or bubble floats through the pump is unavoidable. But in the end, the PC runs - and looks great. But he wouldn't build a computer like this again. There was probably too much frustration involved.
Header image: Felix Ure
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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