I understand, Gerwin :) Right now I'm listening to 4 fans-PSU, GF4, chipset, and CPU----ohhhhhhhhh do I understand. My parts are comming next week, and I'll be in your shoes. I'm using a big bucket until I can figure out the best way to passive cool- and copying you idea (if you don't mind?) has once again come to the top of my list. Anyway.

Watercooling a PSU seems a good idea to me. The pics you posted from low-noise.de look to be the best job I've seen done of it, but digitalexplosion has an article about it.

I'm with gmat. Building you own case is in my mind the best way to get the maximum convection cooling to everything that needs it. I don't really like it, but this guy did a pretty good job over at overclockers.com. From what I've seen around, Bladerunner just leaves his case totally open. No sides or anything at all, and I bet that works, but then you run into the loud Cuda HDs again.

I think it's about time someone put those thought into writing; for AMD to provide a stock HSF that produces 50db is simply crazy. Just bonkers. I think it's totally stupid that people who want to quiet down their computer are looked at funny, and have to go to GREAT lenghts to do so. Just little designing things, like a bigger CPU core, etc, would make it soooo much easier and better.

Okay, you want no fans? Take what you have now and watercool your PSU. Cut a vent on the top of the case (grille is more like it) to allow hot air out. Put heatsinks on every black&square component in your box, and pray. Seriously, an undervolted Panaflo L is inaudible, and being that you are using an insulated case, it would be foolhardy to cut out all fans. The reason is that you will be getting minimal heat transfer out of there. If heat is being generated faster than it can be released (I hope your chimney works), you will fry your PC.

Here is a wacky idea: Get yourself an 80W pelt and cut a hole in the lower area of the case (as near the bottom vents as you can). On each side attach a Zalman Flower cooler, one inside on the cold side, and one outside on the hot. Perhaps it would cool the inside enough to make this a viable solution. By keeping your flower away from the components inside, you would have negligible risk of condensation. Similarly, the cold air at the bottom would hopefully also help in terms of making your chimney more efficient. This would require no fans at all. The side containing the pelt element would need to have a good foot of open space on that side of the case.

That's the only other idea I have ATM. If your PSU is buff enough, you can just plug the pelt in as is. You will HAVE to watercool the thing to go silent, though.

Sorry to disappoint you, but i hadn't any recourse to prayer. An no extra heatsink.
So did BladeRunner. So did some guys in Germany. Zero fan, zero airflow, no extra precaution, just good convection (and watercooling).
And everyone runs just fine that way...

I know bladerunners setup, and seen some other zerofan setups, but most of them have completely open cases and such. My insulated case doesn't have very good convection. I'd have to get another case that's more 'open', but then I'd have to find another solution for my hdds. Would all become very, very expensive and I would waste the small fortune I've allready spent. Don't like that, but I bought the case without watercooling in mind. So probably I'll keep the case, go for the watercooled psu, and use one or two strategically placed fans and ultra low rpm (700rpm). Without the restriction of the psu parts and without the need to cool the psu, these fan(s) should be sufficient, and as long as I don't attach them hard against the case, but suspend them on rubber butts, I won't be able to hear it. What I will do though, is make/buy some electronics so that the fan(s) only cut in when casetemps are getting high. If convection is enough, no fans will be working.
Any more wacky ideas are still very welcome though. Pelt idea sounds very good!

LOL, finally someone else spotted that! The number of hard disk coolers I've seen that are just a plate that the disk fits on really amuses me.

I know what you mean Gerwin - I too am on a quest for silence. Until recently My machine really was virtually silent. Unless you stuck your head right next to my machine, you'd think it was off. I have 2 120mm Low flow Panaflows on the radiator in the front of my case and those were the only fans in there!

I had everything water-cooled 'till I broke my PSU by stripping the insulation off a fan-lead. Strangely enough, the thing died trying to force the case (grounded) up to 5v :rolleyes: I've upgraded my GFX card as well so that needs a new wb now too - all these fans are intollerable!

My machine isn't the ultimate silent setup by any stretch of the imagination. There's still room for improvement and if I did the whole thing again, I'd mount my radiator in the base of my case and move the fans further inside with a load of sound dampening to make things quieter.

My system is all internal to the case. You can find details of it all here. Hope some of that is of use to you?

Thanks for stopping by, G33K! That was an excellent article, and I'm looking forward to try to watercool my PSU array!

Now, to rebuild the drive cage for an HDD watercooler...

Looking back on it now, I can see that the hard disk cooler I built before was overkill. There's no need for the plates in the middle. Seeing some of these posts has had me thinking and I reckon it'd be easy to make some neater units which would be lighter (no plate between the drives) and possibly quieter too.

Glad I could help bigben - looking forward to seeing the results :)

Volenti has a nice and simple solution:
http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...5944#post55944

Hehe, quite impressive that he managed to solder copper to steel (or is that Alu)! It'd certainly do keep drives nice and cool in most cases. I'm not sure if that'd be enough to keep them cold with them encased in some foam (sound insulation) though?

I was wondering where this is for sale at? I am looking to buy one, as I have no space to work on such a detailed project. (Live in apartment)

Brian W

Utter silence is obtainable.
As mentioned previously, audiophiles demand it.
Recording studio's need it.

So, change your case.

You need it thick, and lined internally with noise absorbing foam.

You need it completely sealed, excpect for "S" bend ducts both into and out of the case, which are also foam lined.

Then have low speed fans on the interior of the S bends.

Water cooling for hot things an advantage here, to ensure no sound escapes the S's. The noiser it is inside, the easier for that noise to get outside.

So, big, heavy MDF box with lots of thick, ugly foam will do the trick.

No windows.

No accessible media devices.

But quiet.

Same reason I have to buy one instead of build one. Because watercooled psus with a construction like this are not allowed to sold in Europe, you have to mail him and order one. Nothing hush-hush, just legislation. He sells completely watercooled psu or he can modify your Enermax for you. His email address is: ct100@gmx.de

I wonder what would it cost to ship across the pond. Do they have the same PSU's in europe. I thougth they had different plugs/standards in europe.

Brian W

OK, *utter* silence is a bit hard to reach at temperatures above -273.15 degrees Celsius.
Normal people can´t hear anything below 20 dB (some people though hear Elvis on a daily basis). The 80 mm Papst 8412NGL fan is rated 19.4 CFM and 12 dB, meaning that 5 such fans gives a noise level of 19 dB (pretty close to dead silent) and almost 98 CFM of airflow.
Good enough for a chimney?
Mikael S.

Normal people can't hear anything at -273.15 Celsius:p

I have this fan, yes it's a very good one (...the best in 80mm i think), but i can hear the 'whoosh' 5m away (or all across the room).

I know, have such a fan on my psu at the moment, but then temp controlled. They can be silent at low rpm, but 12db standard? No way! Problem with them also is: after half a year in a hot psu, they get whining (so would I btw). Maybe I'll try a Verax. The only more silent than that might be a hiring a small man to wave with a banana leaf. Or maybe turning the outlet air into plasma and then magnetically accelerate it. Or would that be overkill?

Seal the computer inside an insulated, airtight enclosure, and connect it to a distant radiator.

To do this you would need active cooling, like a refrigerator in order to prevent eventual heat based failure. You can do this if you block ALL intake/exhaust ports and use the pelt trick I described earlier, basically turning your case into a pelt fridge. Put a ton of those silica packets in to absorb the moisture, fire up the pelt, and make sure your WC components are sealed at the hose entry/exit points. Doing this would allow you to build a fanless system, if your rad is big enough to go passive.

Hello all, first post! woot

Im on the quest for silence too, you dont pay this much money to watercool your computer to make it quiet, you pay that much to make your computer SILENT! At the moment im running 2 fans + the fan in my psu. Im planning on getting a new psu to convert for watercooling. How do you guys cool your water? I dont see how i could do it without at least one fan on your rad. I think i could live with that though.

For your hard drives, check this out and tell me what you think: http://www.wizarddesigns.co.uk/hddcoolers.htm

Also how about the noise of your pump? I do notice that my eheim although pretty quiet does make a faint buzz.

Being in uni now and having to live with my computer in the same room, the noise of it does get to me when im working sometimes, i would idealy like to have it quiet enough so i can leave it on when i sleep too.

At the moment its running a pretty standard wc setup but with the case side off, the temperatures benefit from this but the sound does not :(

Seal

Yes the aquadrive is well known here in EU (yet another cool aquacomputer product) but my grief against it is it's made out of aluminium. All my waterblocks are 100% copper... I don't want any battery effect.

About the pump: i managed to kill its (faint) noise with elastic suspension + insulation with foam.

Has anyone tried the chimney idea posted earlier but put their powersupply (probably de-cased, w/o fan) in the chimney to try and draw air flow?

Any pics? I isolated my vibration by hanging pump from my 3.5" drive cage with bicycle tubes. Works great. In my new system it will be on a plexi shelf, and I need some clean ideas for vibration isolation.

Brian W

The pump is no problem. Confusion about it is people think an Eheim can make noise. They don't, but they do vibrate. If this vibration gets transmitted to your case, it starts resonating, and your case gets noisy. So indeed, rubber bands are ideal to decouple it from the case. I put it on a couple of layers of soft plastic foam to insulate it from the case. Pump is inaudible with the case close.
About those aqua-computer hdd cases: I've read from several people that they're really good. Problem is indeed, they're aluminium, and although eloxated, one scratch in the elox is enough to start the slow decay of your coolers. You'd need to use aquacomputers additive to counter that. But such hdd cases exist in copper too: http://www.heatkiller.de/ and look in the shop for silent star hdbox.

Looks nice, looks even like the kind of HDD case + block i've been looking for... But since i don't speak a word of German (apart from "wasserkhuler"), and since Babelfish tells me that "the waterblock part is made out of *brass*", i'd like to know: brass or copper ?

I'm already saving money for it... I'll have to find 12mm barbs though, to fit in my current system.
Woohoo !