Fanless?

Anybody tried using a chevette based WC system wihtout a fan on the HC?
I'm just wondering what the temps would be like using the passive cooling abilities of the HC.

im running hot with bim2 with 4x fans on it. maybe that would answer some questions lol.

A few guys have tried fanless before, but they needed a huge radiator for it to work and they werent getting amazing temperatures either.

A good example of a fanless setup is a Zalman Reserator.

Look how big that is and compare it to a chevvy heatercore.

I'm running a passive system with a real big radiator (see attachment). With my system you can find in my signature I'm getting CPU temps from 40°C idle to 53°C at full load. That's quite good for a completely passive oc'ed system, but it depends mainly on the size of your radiator and your ambient/room temp.

Length x Width x Height: 405 x 420 x 43mm

I remember someone buried a huge mass of copper tubing under his house and used that as his radiator. Seemed to work fine. But it did require alot of work...

bigbadhenchman said:

Anybody tried using a chevette based WC system wihtout a fan on the HC?
I'm just wondering what the temps would be like using the passive cooling abilities of the HC.

Click to expand...

I'm doing it right now with my signature machine @ 41.2C full load. It has a 120MM evercool on it but after i accidentally forgot to turn my fan on one day i realized it runs 5 degrees colder with the fan off because of the way its designed. When i move the fan to the top of the rad it will drop my temps, but for the moment its colder with no fans in the loop.

wow, weird.

i plan on 7V fans pushing air into my system, to cool things like my NB and ram, hard drives and sch...and all the exaust going through the heatercore for cooling....i'll probly end up with a large heatercore or two

I used to be the king of passive; I generally found that a Gerwin style works best. Oh sure, I tried a copper bucket, loops of copper, big radiators, H/Cs, even the seemingly perfect 1/2" flattened copper. And yet, for $13, I built ran my Gerwin radiator (the most efficient design I'm aware of) at around 30c idle, going all the way up to 34c load.

I can round up a picture of mine (which is soldered and slightly more purdy than the innovater's) if there's a request.

Axle said:

I can round up a picture of mine (which is soldered and slightly more purdy than the innovater's) if there's a request.

Click to expand...

Yes please

and how much it costs

Definately want to see some pics!

why do you need passive. I want a silent PC too!
But with all the stuff in my case it gets way to hot! DO it like me get very quiete fans and a fan controller, when you game fans up, during use fans medium, when you go to sleep and download stuff I set it all to low (room temps drop during the night no AC in the UK guys) and I swear to god I cant hear my PC and I am 1,3 meters away. ANd I cant hear it when I am on my desk and my computer is under my desk. Except for hd seeking noises.
I do have some accustic foam in my case too, but I dont think it helps at all any more since I dont have a graphica card fan or cpu fan.

I came around to that way of thinking, Julian.

My new (air) setup with 120mm OEM panaflos makes less noise than my pump did... I had no fans when I was on water (save an 80mm Panaflo L1A in my PSU @ 4v...it only started half the time).

But the evolution of passive:

At first I had a bucket. It was copper (pure!), but it leaked, and stained my carpet. I grew angry. It also had good temps when you first booted up, but they just kept climbing and climbing and climbing:


Then I moved to a more innovative solution. This is just about the WORST design in the world, but it was an exercise in soldering and it was the only thing that fit behind my rafters. Plus, due to the cold (I used Windshield Wiper Fluid), I saw temps well below chilly:

I used this in Dec, Jan, and Feb in Pennsylvania.


This came to an end when this happened:


It froze.

Next I tried some 3/8"OD Copper coil from Home Depot:

This was not a good solution. Nice temps, but it leaked constantly.

So, onto this 1/2" coil I got off ebay for $12 shipped:


This worked very well, and I was happy. But if it's working just fine, then, as the saying goes, try really really hard to break it.

So finally the best design yet. It's not mine, it's a man by the name of Gerwin who resides over at Procooling, or at least used to. He used compression fittings, I soldered.





When I added the coil, I lost about 5c:


The design of the Gerwin radiator is to minimize resistance, and still have a lot of water pass through a lot of tubing. Water will take the path of least resistance, or the shortest one. There is no shortest route in Gerwin's design, and it works well. However I recall asking him some time later about it, and he said he'd doubled the size of his, making it about 6ft by 4ft, and mentioned that it did absolutely nothing for his temps but was splendidly fun.

Later I tried using commercial radiators passively, but always ended up either selling them or returning them because I'm a cheap ******* and they were expensive. My Gerwin radiator cost me about $9 in tubing and $4 in Ts and 90 degree elbows at the Home Depot. I used to idle around 30, but if anyone saw my thread regarding my TC-4 and a very small problem with corrosion, right before I dismantled it I had a load of around 41 without the coil.


There are much better solutions out there; I've seen them (and have pictures of them). But the Gerwin radiator is by far the best for the money I ever tried.

Cheers,
lex

bigbadhenchman said:

Anybody tried using a chevette based WC system wihtout a fan on the HC?
I'm just wondering what the temps would be like using the passive cooling abilities of the HC.

Click to expand...

I do at night all the time. At 2000mhz @ 1.86v reported vcore, I'm usually in the mid 60's (celsius) or really low 70's (celsius) with a room temp of ~80f. My computer remains perfectly stable even at those high temps. All temps are at load.

Axle,

About that Gerwin design... the three horizontal sections are all equal in length?
It looks like a pain to put together. All of those little T's and the short lengths of tubes between them, but I guess if you've got a fanless radiator with good temps it's worth it.

You say you idled at around 30C, but what were ambient temps?

Well, as close to equal as I could swing.

That's the thing; my ambient temps when I idle at 30c are probably about 55-60f. during the summer, when I had an ambient temp of closer to 80-85f (no AC), I still had a load temp of 49c or so. It really is an efficient design, if you're looking for quiet.

man someone has way too much free time.

Axle said:

Well, as close to equal as I could swing.

That's the thing; my ambient temps when I idle at 30c are probably about 55-60f. during the summer, when I had an ambient temp of closer to 80-85f (no AC), I still had a load temp of 49c or so. It really is an efficient design, if you're looking for quiet.

Click to expand...

that's awesome. do you think if you had a couple of these running along the sides of your case (inside it) it would work ok?

I figure two of them, and each would be about 1.5' square.

I really like the Gerwin radiator. Now if I could submerse it in my pool which rarely gets above 75f I would have some decent temps considering it could be 95 in my room.

I found out, by accident today, about running fanless.
I cam home, and foud the CPU temp at 53c, after running all day with the HC Fan disconnected.

Actually not bad really.