Thinking about watercooling...

Ok I have been toying about with the idea of watercooling for some time now. No, I do
not overclock. I am not looking for blazing speed. I want niiiiice and quiet. If I could
remove every fan from my system that would be aewsome. I do game and work with lightwave from time to time.

I was wondering though. Even though the watercooling can be used to cool just about
everything, hd, cpu, mb, vid card and prolly even ram, is it actually that much quieter
when you still have those loud Power Supply fans running? or can you water cool those too? and in any case is it that much quieter?

I am looking for an all internal water cooling solution w/out an extra power cord. The
aquarius system has a neat bay fit system but doesn't deliver performance. (according to the article)

Antec has a case that has a 20db rating. I am not sure how they got that but I am going to get an antec anyway because I really enjoy working on them and they look quite nice. And I hear their TruePower PS's are very quiet.

What I am figuring is padding the case with sound absorbing material and dampeners on the inside and water cooling as much as i can. Even if I have to go so far as to enclosethe water pump itself in it's own soundproof box internally. I know you need at least 1or 2 fans to cool the water but I am thinking you could create some kind chute from the front of the case to the back with the radiator in the middle and the two tubes act as (with some mods) as a muffler.

I am looking to build this as maintenance free as possible. I like tinkering with stuff,
but I tinker with everything so i would like to take this as a project, do it right and
well, and then move on. (after playing with my trains for a bit).

Currently, if you can believe the asus temp monitors, I run at about 60C on the cpu. I
have 2 fans in the front. an additions fan over the hd (one of those hd cooling fans
that takes in air from the front), a fan in the rear, a vid card exhaust fan, the one on
the cpu and ps of course. The other issue recently brought to light which has again
piqued my interest in wc is i have a radeon 9700 which seems to have heat issues and locks up. The articles I have read confirm this.

anyway, those are my two bits. Any comments on my noobishness or in fact related to this message are greatly appreciated.

Hsnopi

Well, you can watercool pretty much everything and anything you want, but you will still have to have fans in your system. When you watercool you basically use the water to transfer heat to a radiator, or heater core which is basically a really large heatsink. You'll need fans to cool the heater core which are usually one or two 120mm fans that will make noise, but if you pad your entire system with noise foam stuff then it will be pretty noise free.

Most watercooling systems still use fans to cool the water. If you want to go totally passive you can with watercooling, but it will be expensive. If you just want a very quiet system, check out zalman products. You can get passive GPU coolers, passive northbridge, and very quiet CPU cooling, all for a fraction the cost of a passive watercooling system. You can also buy ultra-quiet power supplies.
If you want to do passive watercooling, check out this article.
Good luck!

that was an aewsome article! I actually emailed him about it. I think I am going to try that. Lots of planning.

thanks!
I have read a bunch of articles on the site but somehow missed that one.

What I am figuring is padding the case with sound absorbing material and dampeners on the inside

Click to expand...

That dosen't work very well...

I did it and a half, it's over rated over priced crap.

I assembled my radiator with 2x120 mm rheostat controlled fans in front of the PSU. Sealed the compartment, so the exiting air is blown out of the radiator over the PSU heatsinks. With my idle temps of 42C the system is virtually noise free.

PS. I have CPU, GPU and 2 HDD inline watercooled with this system.

I think it looks ugly...personally. Plus I have an all Acrylic case...so the fans look cool. Air cooling for me!!!!

yeah silence was the main reason why i switched to watercooling, i rekon its the best "component" ive ever bought for my or any pc, i love it. I have zalman passive northbridge, no fan on my gfx card (i found out it runs 100% stable with just the hs) and watercooled my xp2200+. Theres a single 120mm fan running on 4.5v on the radiator to cool my processor, it is SILENT. The psu fans however, i have both of them running on 5V as im only using about 300W of my 550W psu so heat output isnt all that great for my psu. The loudest thing in my pc now is my hard drive, the "silent" seagate barracuda IV becomes not so silent when your other componoents do not make a single sound. (i can hear it when im sleeping but not in the day time)

Welcome to the dark side my friend, you'll be hooked on water cooling the moment you start building....just make sure to convert as many people as possible to watercooling so the swarm lives on . Glad you are as excited as many of us were our first time building our systems! Good luck and I hope you achieve your goal of silence! .

The way you describe your case, it sounds like there are a lot of thing that need to be cooled. Considering the fact that you don't overclock, I wouldn't think you would need so many fans. If you must have all those fans, I would doubt that you can find a cheap, silent, and good water cooling system. That would be the overclockers dream. Good luck though. Also, smart fans and fan controls sounds like its your cup of tea.

If someone doesnt overclock and wants a really quiet system. You dont have to spent lots of money in a watercooling system. An SLK-800, coupled with a Vantec Steath fan, if not overclocking, should keep temperatures in the 40 C. range. Hsnopy, what are your system specs?

I don't see a reason to spend ANY money on water cooling if you aren't OCing!!! A couple small quiet fans would do the trick. Don't cross over to the dark side!!!!! Stay with air!!!!!!!

NcBaller1985 said:

I think it looks ugly...personally. Plus I have an all Acrylic case...so the fans look cool. Air cooling for me!!!!

Click to expand...

Well talking about looking cool and actualy being cool are to different things don't you thinnk. Everyone whether OCing or not should be concerned with the level of heat in any given PC. You can hold on to a few of those fase though, you'll still need 1 or two of them to move thae are around in that case. Try this get in your car on a hot day, crank up the AC after all it it hot right? Now swith from circulating the air to just blowing it into the car and hoping that the more cool air you push in the more hot are you'll blow out. Ahhhh, the air is hotter from the AC now. You will ALWAYS need air being blow in and out of your case to keep it cool.

Good luck. It looks like you've got a promising chance to completely silence your system. Opposed to passive cooling, I'd suggest a chevette heatercore, but one of these blowing onto it. It's rated at 52dba at 24vdc, but at 12VDC, its essentially dead silent. You could even run it at 5v or 7v if thats not quiet enough for you. This would provide enough performance to cool whatever you please, and still leave some room for overclocking.