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leaving water cooling to air because air is quieter !(help me plz)

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MLMIB

Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Location
new jersey
okay, situation. I leave friday for college, and for the past 18 months I've enjoyed water(it works well, cools a bit better, to my satisfaction) but when I go to college my room mate may not tolerate the noise as much so I'm trying to cut down on noise and heat(condensing all to one hard drive for heat issues, and pump does heat....) anyway, heres the prob. I went to disconnect the fans on my case, to find out if they just needed to be modded or replaced maybe because the unit is noticably loud. I have 2 rear fans, the psu(fortron 530 watt) 'n a push/pull dual fan setup on a rad in the front along with one fan blowing on the mosfets. when I unplugged all of the fans I could(the three, 2 in the back, one on mosfets) the noise didn't drop, conclusion is that most of the noise is from the radiator 'n dual 120's. I have a similar rig(p4 with near specs, not as many hd's/cdroms, or expansion cards, but similar in speed 'n core chip) that isn't nearly as loud, only difference is it is air, this is water.

now, to solve this I was/am considering ordering a slk 947 to install so that I can hope to leave my comp on 24/7(avid folder).

so, I come asking you before I ditch water(possibly for good, because I don't know when I'd be able to come back) is there anything drastic you can suggest?

setup for water is as follows

WW block
1250 ehiem pump
120 mm aluminum fan x 2
shroud x 2
standard rad from dtek.

advice? I do like to "coolness" of water, but sound('n possibly heat) need to go.
 
Well one, get the fans on a fan controller! Second, those aluminum fans are loud, they are not 30dBa like advertised. Get some Panaflo L1A's if you dont want to use a fan controller, but, this is going to be your best bet IMO. YOu can dial the fans down to an acceptable level when quiet is needed.
 
It's always possible to undervolt the fans, though without knowing more about your temps and current OC it's hard to say if that's a viable option or not. Another option is to add another rad, or substitute a larger, more efficient rad that will give you the same temps with fans that are turned down. Also, the cooling increase by having a push-fan coupled with a pull-fan is pretty negligible, and it's pretty widely accepted that a push-fan creates quite a bit more turbulence and noise, so maybe try removing it and seeing what it does to the db's?

I have to say, though, given you're willing to downgrade to a SLK 947 with a quiet fan, simply reducing your OC to the levels you could handle with the 947 and then undervolting your current fans should give you comparable noise levels.
 
temp is 51c on the proc. and it's only oc'd from 200 fsb to 210 fsb(really, it's nothing, I'm willing to lose that small of an oc, something, I think the ram, is givin me stabilty issues when I oc more


on the aluminum fans, isn't it false advertising? I was comparing a few times and the aluminum's always at least seem to be better, is this never true?

btw, how much heat does a pump put out? because heat will become an issue over time(not ness. on the processor, but heat added to the room, esp when another person would have to deal with it)

many thanks
 
i have watercooling, and its loud. 55db server fan on the rad. but watercooling didn't help my cpu overclock. so im going to slow my fan down from 24v to 12v where i have tested it, and its almost silent.

you should see if with one fan one the rad (i believe you have two) that you can get the same overclock. if thats true, then you should be able to get a fan controller for the two fans and cut back on the power to half speed (giving you about the same power of one fan).

you can also check to see if you mobo is reading temps right, because it might not be as hot as it seems so you might not have to worry so much, because you said you don't have a huge overclock, it doesn't sound like your temps could be too much hotter then they were stock.
 
Some pics would definitely help.

If space isn’t an issue you can move the radiator out of the case and drop the fan speed quite a bit. You may also submerge the pump (if it can take it) which really reduces the pump noise. My last setup was external with a heater core, Panaflo M1A 120mm and a Rio 1300 inside a tupperware container. It was quiet enough that we’d forget it was even on.

Your temps seem a little high for wc, if you fold 24/7 going air cooled is going to make them higher unless you add some serious fanage, which is just going to be louder. Your best bet is still wc for quiet folding, IMHO.

-Shaz
 
Those aluminum Evercools are not bad, but the noise level stated is not...right.

I think they get away with it because they are merely "misleading" about the sound and how it is measured" ie., if I were to measure the sound of an 80mm Tornado fan at full voltage from two streets over I could say it is quiet too. ;) (Over-stating the case but you get the idea.)

A rheobus/fan controller does wonders- I use the Sunbeam unit and think it is well worth the $20 it costs.

The Panaflo L1as are reputed to be very quiet and the M1as are used a lot as well: more flow with higher noise. I use th H1as which are louder still....louder than my Evercools at full throttle in fact. ;) But with the fan controller I have the option of quieting them down quite a bit. :)
For you I think the Ls or Ms and a controller would be MUCH better choices.

Another fan possibility is the Sanyo-Denkis listed in the Cyber Deals section: i haven't picked any up yet, but they look great and are very highly spoken of.
 
I recently ditched water cooling and went with the copper zalman 7000 heatsink.

pretty damng quiet I think. Now, I need to quiet down my case fans, and my 5900ultra.
 
Proper water cooling can be quieter than air... I can't even hear my computer running when I put the side-panel on. With the panel off, all I hear is the whine of the HDD. I have a chevette core with one 120x38mm fan pulling, MCP600, and a D-tek WW. All my fans, including my PSU fans, are on a fan controller and the computer WILL run with every fan off... I can fold 24/7 with the 120mm off, but temps hit 78c :-/
 
thats what I want, is for people to walk in, and be like "what computer, I don't hear a computer". I'll get pics together soon 'n post them as soon as I can, can anyone host?
 
thats how mine is at the moment, I turn it on and I think to myself, is it really on? its very satisfying.

It can be done with watercooling to, although it will be bigger than aircooling.


Jon
 
Full 12V on those evercools is LOUD. However, I dropped mine from 2300 RPMs to 1680 RPMs and it's barely audible. If you want the option of temp and RPM monitoring, I would look into getting a Super Flower Fan master. It looks good too. If you don't care about those, then a Sunbeam fan controller is the cheapest way to go. The LEDs on those sunbeams are BRIGHT (too bright) so you might need to mod it a little.
 
klath said:
Full 12V on those evercools is LOUD. However, I dropped mine from 2300 RPMs to 1680 RPMs and it's barely audible. If you want the option of temp and RPM monitoring, I would look into getting a Super Flower Fan master. It looks good too. If you don't care about those, then a Sunbeam fan controller is the cheapest way to go. The LEDs on those sunbeams are BRIGHT (too bright) so you might need to mod it a little.
I had an evercool until I broke when my knuckles busted a blade off... They're almost dead slient when turned down.

I have the Sunbeam and the LED's are extremely bright... They light my entire room up at night. The controller itself is awesome though. It goes from 0-12vdc and at ~7vdc, the leds change from red (on - ~7vdc) to blue (~7vdc - 12vdc). It can handle up to 20w a channel which is a good thing if you attach two or three big 120's to a single channel.
 
Those evercools are pretty quiet at 7V.
The Fortron 530W is pretty loud under load. You can move the thermister outside of the psu box to keep it quieter. When you open it up there is a small circuit board screwed on to one of the heatsinks right at the top. The thermister is wired to that circuit board. The wires are long enough to put the thermister out the back of the psu where all the wires go out. This will keep the fans from spinning up to full speed (because the thermister will read ambient temps instead of the heat inside the psu). If your case is cooled pretty well it won't be a problem.
 
pelikan said:
Those evercools are pretty quiet at 7V.
The Fortron 530W is pretty loud under load. You can move the thermister outside of the psu box to keep it quieter. When you open it up there is a small circuit board screwed on to one of the heatsinks right at the top. The thermister is wired to that circuit board. The wires are long enough to put the thermister out the back of the psu where all the wires go out. This will keep the fans from spinning up to full speed (because the thermister will read ambient temps instead of the heat inside the psu). If your case is cooled pretty well it won't be a problem.
or you could wire the fans into a fan-controller like me :)
 
the image is uploaded

otherwise in the case(for those wondering) is a 9800 pro, audigy 2 zs plant, 2 cdroms, 120 gb maxtor hd 'n a winfast TV tuner

any advice?

curious, has anyone added the fortron to their wc circuit? it just takes 2 chipset blocks attached to where the aluminum is right now, right? than ya can take the fans out 'n put in a 5v 80 mm fan instead, right?
 

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MLMIB said:
the image is uploaded

otherwise in the case(for those wondering) is a 9800 pro, audigy 2 zs plant, 2 cdroms, 120 gb maxtor hd 'n a winfast TV tuner

any advice?

curious, has anyone added the fortron to their wc circuit? it just takes 2 chipset blocks attached to where the aluminum is right now, right? than ya can take the fans out 'n put in a 5v 80 mm fan instead, right?
Is that the mid or full-tower dragon case? I have the full-tower Matrix, which is the same as the dragon minus the front.

Yeah, you can WC your fortron... Prob wouldn't need a fan at all at that point. I use a 550w generic PSU that runs (well ran, the 9800 died :() my AIW 9800pro, NF7-s w/ T-bred B, a 40gb maxtor and 2 CD-ROMS. It ran fine without ANY fans... Obviously I don't run it that way, BUT I do run it with fans turned down to inaudible levels.

Some pics of my rig...
 

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