Water cooling/silent computing

[RussSchultz]

Ok, my recent upgrade to E4300 with a cheap crappy heatsink (that is not quiet at all and has poor cooling) has got me with an itch to find some silent/quiet cooling.

I'm considering the ThermalTake 'Armor LCS' for a new case/cooling approach. Anybody have any other suggestions?

I've seen the P180 suggestions, and maybe pairing that with a watercooling kit or something?

 

[Mize]

Hey Russ.

It's expensive, but I've been very please with my Zalman Reserator 2 (oops, put 3 first) on my cpu and gpu. Silent (makes the PSU and HD seem LOUD), easy to install and cools better than my XP120 cooler did. There's a thread here somewhere from when I installed it back in November.

here's the thread:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=34685&highlight=reserator+2

 

[nutball]

Everything you need to know about silent computing (and more besides):

www.silentpcreview.com

I've had the silenting bug for a couple of years now. I've been the watercooling route, and to be honest it's a lot of hassle. Unless you're overclocking to the n'th degree it's not required for quiet or silent. These days there are lots of options for air-cooling which are quiet to inaudible for even pretty extreme setups.

 

[Mize]

I'd have to respectfully disagree with nutball.

I was running a Lian Li "quiet case" (with the door and padding and all that) and nothing but 120 mm "quiet" fans - including on the CPU - and I didn't consider my machine "quiet."

Even now with water cooling on the CPU and GPU I can hear the HDs and PSU quite well in my house. If it were an office with all the typical background it would certainly be considered "silent," but not at home.

 

[AlNom]

hm... what kind of watercooling kits are you guys using? I've used both of Corsair's before (COOL and Nautilus 500), and while they aren't dead silent, the motors seemed to be making the most noise; it's still better than the stock cooler (AMD or Intel) blowing full speed.

Russ, if you aren't planning on overclocking, perhaps you'd consider ThermalTake's Big Typhoon VX? It's a bit of a hassle to get it into a case, but if you're not overclocking it'd be trivial to remove the 120mm fan. Just make sure you have some sort of air flow in the case. I've got an A64 3500+ (Venice) @2.75Ghz and the heatpipes aren't warm at all with the fan on lowest speed. I'll have to see what happens when I disconnect the fan... I'm getting temps around 40C at that speed after playing games or leaving the comp on for more than a day.

 

[nutball]

hm... what kind of watercooling kits are you guys using?

I used a Zalman Reserator 1. I had a lot of trouble with the pump degrading (I mentioned this in another thread here, it was a big issue with the Res 1) but even when it was brand-new the whole caboodle was louder than my PSU + HD (which were literally inaudible from 30cm).

Anyway, I reiterate there's quiet and there's SPCR quiet. There's thread over there about silencing your mouse. Seriously. And a lot more expertise over there than there is here

 

[Ty]

Water cooling allowed me to drop the speed of other case fans, thus decreasing the noise level of my PC by quite a significant amount.

I think it's true that air cooling has come a long way in terms of lower noise levels but for me, water cooling was an easy and cheap method to reduce noise levels. I used the Coolermaster Aquagate which only cost me $30 and was extremely easy to set up. It's far from high end and probably ranks around a mediocre air cooling solution but it was cheap, easy, and as mentioned before, quiet.

Not familiar with the particulars of the ones you mentioned Russ, but I vaguely remembered one that had an integrated radiator built into the side panel/door. If that's the one, I thought it was an innovative idea.

 

[Mize]

I used a Zalman Reserator 1. I had a lot of trouble with the pump degrading (I mentioned this in another thread here, it was a big issue with the Res 1) but even when it was brand-new the whole caboodle was louder than my PSU + HD (which were literally inaudible from 30cm).

Anyway, I reiterate there's quiet and there's SPCR quiet. There's thread over there about silencing your mouse. Seriously. And a lot more expertise over there than there is here

What PSU & HDs are you using?
I cannot hear my Reserator 2 unless I put my ear up against the pump.
I can hear my Seagate barracuda and Maxtor whatever, as well as my OCZ PSU from across the room!

 

[RussSchultz]

The resorator 2 looks pretty good. Do you move your computer often? I'm wondering how much pain-in-the-arse it will be to tote the whole thing to a lan party.

 

[Mize]

The resorator 2 looks pretty good. Do you move your computer often? I'm wondering how much pain-in-the-arse it will be to tote the whole thing to a lan party.

Theoretically the quick disconnects should make moving the computer relatively painless.

I, however, have never disconnected them!

I'd wager they'd get some air in the system (a bubble or few) so you'd want to periodically remove these if you're moving the computer around much (that consists of tilting the cpu to get bubbles out of the cpu block and, less often, tilting the radiator to do the same).

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I had Watercooling a while back, didnt really work that good. Well, partially that was due to me being stupid but he. But isnt passive cooling a option? I dont know what system you have but a friend of mine has a 3Ghz coreduo and he's using a passive heatsink and the temperature never goes above 60degrees celcius.

 

[nutball]

What PSU & HDs are you using?

Was a fan-flipped and ducted Seasonic PSU -- fan flipped to pull cold air in through rear and blow out though the bottom, then ducted out the rear of the case. The PSU never saw warm air, so the fan never spun up. HD was a Samsung SP1614C suspended using rubber cord (de-coupled from the case, reduces the noise a lot).

I cannot hear my Reserator 2 unless I put my ear up against the pump.

I can well believe that the Res 2 and Res 3 are better than the Res 1. But I got bitten by the Res 1, and once bitten thrice shy as they say.

I can hear my Seagate barracuda and Maxtor whatever, as well as my OCZ PSU from across the room!

That I can well believe. Maxtors aren't quiet at all. Neither are certain flavours of Barracuda. OCZ don't have a good rep for quiet uber alles either.

 

[RussSchultz]

I had Watercooling a while back, didnt really work that good. Well, partially that was due to me being stupid but he. But isnt passive cooling a option? I dont know what system you have but a friend of mine has a 3Ghz coreduo and he's using a passive heatsink and the temperature never goes above 60degrees celcius.

My C2D 4300@2.7Ghz approaches 75deg celcius, so I need something better than what I have now.

 

[RussSchultz]

Theoretically the quick disconnects should make moving the computer relatively painless.

I, however, have never disconnected them!

I'd wager they'd get some air in the system (a bubble or few) so you'd want to periodically remove these if you're moving the computer around much (that consists of tilting the cpu to get bubbles out of the cpu block and, less often, tilting the radiator to do the same).

Definitely leaning toward the reserator thing. I like the idea of being able to use whatever case I want and not having to worry about things fitting. I also like that it includes CPU & VGA blocks for that price(though slightly high).

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

My C2D 4300@2.7Ghz approaches 75deg celcius, so I need something better than what I have now.

So would passive cooling be a option or? If you use a bad heatsink its no wonder your cpu gets up to 75deg. Watercooling is great if you want to overclock alot but otherwise I think looking at passive cooling might be a better solution. Its not only cheaper but also less of a hastle and if I look at my friends pc it gets you decent performance too.

 

[RussSchultz]

So would passive cooling be a option or? If you use a bad heatsink its no wonder your cpu gets up to 75deg. Watercooling is great if you want to overclock alot but otherwise I think looking at passive cooling might be a better solution. Its not only cheaper but also less of a hastle and if I look at my friends pc it gets you decent performance too.

My GPU is passively cooled, but those are hard to come by and expensive. I need to upgrade it soon (I have an x800xl), and this watercooling thing makes sure I don't have an issue with that.

But yes, passively cooled would be an option. Do you know the brand/model your friend has?

 

[Mize]

You cannot go 100% passive without buying one of those hiddeously expensive passive cases (see Zalman's site). You can go reasonably quiet with something like the Skythe Ninja or the new Thermalright Ultra-120, but you need a large enough case and case fans to move the air.

If you can get good, quiet case fans and put those Ultra-120-ish HSFs on the cpu, nb and gpu you might have good luck, but those "passive" hsfs need good flow through the case and over their fins to work.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Ofcourse you need some fans in your case, but you'll still need that with watercooling too. If you have a heavy system you'll need one for the radiator and you need one or two anyway to get to hot air out of your case caused by all other parts (and you'll probably want a fan infront of your hdd too). In the case of my friend he has 2 120mm silent fans in his case as the only fans. The outtake fan is right behind his passive cpu cooler so that probably helps a bit.

But yes, passively cooled would be an option. Do you know the brand/model your friend has?

Dont know, Ill ask him tommorow. But its a giant 4 tower thingy and each tower looks like its made of alot of coins stacked up.

 

[nutball]

You can go reasonably quiet with something like the Skythe Ninja or the new Thermalright Ultra-120, but you need a large enough case and case fans to move the air.

No you don't need lots fans, you don't need a large case. Just the opposite you need no case fans, you need fans close to the sources of heat. One or two fans can cool CPU + GPU + PSU if you do it right. Depends on your goals of course.

You are right though that 100% passive (ie. zero fans for the whole PC) is stupidly expensive and in reality not worth the money.

 

[Mize]

No you don't need lots fans, you don't need a large case. Just the opposite you need no case fans, you need fans close to the sources of heat. One or two fans can cool CPU + GPU + PSU if you do it right. Depends on your goals of course.

You are right though that 100% passive (ie. zero fans for the whole PC) is stupidly expensive and in reality not worth the money.

You need a large (deep) case to accomodate the Ultra-120 or Ninja. They'd be great for HTPCs except they won't fit!

Not sure I agree about fans near fins vs. case fans. You need to exhaust the hot air and bring in cooler air because, by definition, you cannot cool lower than the case air.

A good flow pattern that causes air to pass over HDs, GPU, NB and CPU as it flows from a 120 mm on the front to a 120 mm on the back *can* work and then you only have two 19 db sources (plus PSU and HDs).