Moving from Air Cooling 92mm to water cooling

[enb141]

Hi I would like to have a really quiet computer it's almost done when quiet but when loaded it is a little bit noisy so I would like to see if going water cooling this will be fixed

Here is my current rig:

P4 3.4 GHz (650)
Intel D945GNTL motherboard
Antec P180 Case
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 (CPU FAN)
eVGA 7900 GT CO.

The water cooling kits I was looking are this ones:

CoolIT Eliminator, Freezone
Koolance Aquian ICM-510
Coolermaster AQUAGATE Mini R120

[Brians256]

I don't have much experience with those kits. I know that people have said good things about the PA160 radiator with Laing DDC pump, and others have enjoyed the Swiftech kit. Bruce at Cooltechnica and the guys over at Dangerden also make some very good equipment too. I've used equipment from all of them and I was able to get some great overclocks using their stuff.

But.... I personally found my DDC pump to be noisy compared to a scythe heatsink with a 5V nexus fan. On the other hand, I don't run a high powered CPU anymore.

[HammerSandwich]

enb, what PSU are you running? Have you tried stopping the 7900's fan briefly to see how loud it is? Do your case fans run at a fixed speed? So much we don't know here...

Also, you might have better luck at SPCR.

[enb141]

This is what I have:

- Antec P180 case
- Two 120x120x25.4mm fans both runing at 900-1000 RPM
- CPU FAN = Arctic 7 Pro Runing at (600 - 800 IDLE) and (2300 - 2500 Full Load) 95mm
- Antec Neo Power 480 W

now respecting the GPU when it is not loaded is fine but when I play a game it gets a loud and when the computer is turning on it really gets loud.
- One 120x120x38 mm fan running at 1200 RPM.

Thanks HammerSandwich and Brians256 for your posts

[Brians256]

OK, quick project planning.

First, your objectives:
- Make machine quieter
- Use existing computer parts
- Upgrade cooling

Next, we see what is your problem:
- Too loud
- Key fact: GPU fan is causing most of the noise when it is fully loaded

Possible suggested solutions:
- Water cooling
- Change type of aircooling

I would recommend you look at changing your air cooling at this point. Unless you are planning to do some extreme overclocking, the current air-cooling solutions are really quite good. Your real problem is that you have some low-end cooling components.

Recommendations:
- Replace cooling on your GPU card with 3rd party "VGA" cooler (NV Silencer 5 Rev 3 if you slice off some plastic might work, or the Zalman VF900 works well)
- Use fan control to make the new GPU cooler's fan quiet enough for you
- Think about removing one of your 120mm fans and/or using Yate-Loon fans at lower than 12 volts
- Think about using a Scythe Ninja heatsink right by the 120mm exhaust fan below

[HammerSandwich]

Brian just nailed it! Good post. (And I'm glad I never promised that the DDC would be silent...)

There is a world of difference between your current fans & YL120s running under 1000rpm. And Loons are cheap, so you should try a few of them before thinking about water.

Just be warned that silencing can be addictive.

[enb141]

Originally Posted by Brians256

OK, quick project planning.

First, your objectives:
- Make machine quieter
- Use existing computer parts
- Upgrade cooling

Next, we see what is your problem:
- Too loud
- Key fact: GPU fan is causing most of the noise when it is fully loaded

Possible suggested solutions:
- Water cooling
- Change type of aircooling

I would recommend you look at changing your air cooling at this point. Unless you are planning to do some extreme overclocking, the current air-cooling solutions are really quite good. Your real problem is that you have some low-end cooling components.

Recommendations:
- Replace cooling on your GPU card with 3rd party "VGA" cooler (NV Silencer 5 Rev 3 if you slice off some plastic might work, or the Zalman VF900 works well)
- Use fan control to make the new GPU cooler's fan quiet enough for you
- Think about removing one of your 120mm fans and/or using Yate-Loon fans at lower than 12 volts
- Think about using a Scythe Ninja heatsink right by the 120mm exhaust fan below

- Replacing the VGA cooler the problem is that I have plans for upgrading to an 8800 in a few months so I'm going to need a more universal GPU cooler.

- I will replace those TriCool FANs for some Yate-Loon or Noctua NF-S12-1200

- The reason why I'm not using a Scythe Ninja is because is too huge and also too heavy, it could break the motherboard.

HammerSandwich thanks for the link of Yate-Loon, do you know if a Noctua or Yate-Loon which one is better?

[HammerSandwich]

If you don't like the Ninja, you might consider another of the high-end coolers. Thermalright's Ultra 120 sounds like a good fit.

I've never actually used a Noctua, but they're supposed to be very, very close to the Nexus fans. You can find a comparison at SPCR. The Nexus is a lower-speed YL, possibly with a little more quality control. IMO, the YL wins, because it's about 1/4 the price. Buy a bunch and cherry pick your own. Plus, silencing tends to be an incremental process, and the YLs are plenty good enough to start out.

[Brians256]

- Check whether the Zalman VF900 can fit on the 8800. Can it?
- The Scythe is heavy, but the majority of the weight is close to the CPU. If you don't put a fan on the scythe, the lever action is minimalized. The air movement can be provided by an in-blowing fan right behind the CPU (which DOES work in a P180, as I have one to test it upon).
- You could use another CPU fan such as the Ultra-120 like HammerSandwich suggests. I have used that one too and it works very well.

[Brians256]

Originally Posted by HammerSandwich

Brian just nailed it! Good post. (And I'm glad I never promised that the DDC would be silent...)

We're not all dead. I'm just slower.

Originally Posted by HammerSandwich

There is a world of difference between your current fans & YL120s running under 1000rpm. And Loons are cheap, so you should try a few of them before thinking about water.

Um, YES. The fans make a huge difference. With good cooling techniques, fast loud fans are just useless noise producers.

Originally Posted by HammerSandwich

Just be warned that silencing can be addictive.

Which is why my HTPC isn't water-cooled. The best solution I ever came up with (DDC, 2 120mm Yate-Loons), wasn't quieter than really good air-cooling simply because of the pump.

[Brians256]

Remember that what I'm suggesting doesn't work well for a file server. I tried that, and it didn't work.

Four or more hard disks require quite a bit of air movement.

[enb141]

Thanks again guys, I'll start using changing the two 120 mm fans and see how they work, I was looking for a 4 pin PWM fan solution and the only one that I found was the Freezer Pro 7, now there's an Asus one but I nerver heard about a 120mm 4 pin PWM, do you know why?.

Brians256 you mean that using water cooling is more noisy than what I'm currently having all this due to the pump?

I think I will have to wait for GPU fans until appear 8600/ 8500 because the ones used in 8800 can't be used on 7XXX and 6XXX due to the GPU size at least that's what thermalright says

[Brians256]

Originally Posted by enb141

Brians256 you mean that using water cooling is more noisy than what I'm currently having all this due to the pump?

No. I'm saying that my water cooling was noisier than my air cooling, and I was using pretty good water cooling components.