Silent, no moving part PC:

attack

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May 23, 2002

• Jan 22, 2005

• #1

First, the PSU:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=270023
Antec Phantom

For the Mobo and CPU's I think a PC-DL with 1.6LV xeons would be the way to keep this cool....use the large IWT heatsinks and no fans

And, the big thing....HDD's!
I'd get a 8 channel IDE controller and run an 8 disk RAID 0 with these:
http://www.m-systems.com/Content/Products/product.asp?pid=34

use a large zalman heatpipe on the video card....pic any RAM ya want

This would actualy be a decently performing absolutely silent PC! hehe....now I just need a couple thousand to buy those IDE flash drives!...and controller

 

Captain Slug

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #2

RAID 0 would remove most of the speed issues with the drives, but you're going to end up with a semi-fast, really expensive storage device.

Edit: Oops.

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2005

OP

attack

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May 23, 2002

• Jan 22, 2005

• Thread Starter
• #3

checkout that link...those top oput at 128gb....and yeah I know they're incredibly expensive, I just thought it was cool that you could actualy get by with a usable silent, no moving part PC


Performance
Burst Read/Write: 100.0 MBytes/sec
Sustained Read: 45.0 MBytes/sec
Sustained Write: 40.0 MBytes/sec
Access time: <0.04 ms

Are those correct you think? Those read/writes are like current 7200 drives...and access time is obviously gonna be a ton quicker....that's incredible if it is!

 

Captain Slug

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #4

Average sustained IDE transfer speed is 66mb/s in Mode 4 and 100mb/s in mode 5
You can make 5400RPM drives silent if you work at it.

And as for the cooling, you cannot build a completely passive machine. "passive" heatsinks still require ambient airflow to work effectively. One option that a handful of manufacturers have used is to heatpipe the processors onto the case so that it acts as the heatsink. Providing of course that your house has enough ventilation, that would work fine.
Thermal stacks (heatsinks designed for environments of no ambient airflow) only work effectively in temperature ranges unsafe for PC operation.

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2005

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attack

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May 23, 2002

• Jan 22, 2005

• Thread Starter
• #5

even raptors don't hit 100mb/s sustained

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200410/200410087B300S0-2_2.html
The maxtor III is considered the fastest 7200rpm IDE drive at storage review, it goes 65-37 begging to end, so about 50mb/s average

74gb raptors:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200401/20040126WD740GD_2.html

You don't have to have airflow to cool, simple thermo energy transfer will occur and probably be enough to keep these cool since they can operate at high temps and the as delta T gets higher more and more energy is transfered. Also, only in a vacuum could you get no ambient airflow.

 

SavageBasher

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #6

Have fun keeping the cpus and that power supply cool... they are designed to run with passive cooling, not no cooling at all.

 

Captain Slug

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #7

ajrettke said:

You don't have to have airflow to cool, simple thermo energy transfer will occur and probably be enough to keep these cool since they can operate at high temps and the as delta T gets higher more and more energy is transfered. Also, only in a vacuum could you get no ambient airflow.

Click to expand...

Without ambient airflow you're relying on thermal-stacking effects. Unfortunately that effect only becomes effective above 120f to 140f.
You will be relying on the air conditioning in your house to provide the airflow.

Beyond the novelty factor I still don't see the point of spending 10 times more money to eliminate the last remaining 10dBa that a cheaper hard drive would create. The only REALLY point of using a flash drive is for applications that require lower power consumption and better impact resistance.

 

JCLW

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Apr 1, 2002

• Jan 22, 2005

• #8

Use a Dothan.

 

D

Dc5e

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #9

the powersupply may not be powerful enough for powering xeons. Second of all, if you want passive heatsinks for the cpu's, don't use the stock heatsinks, they suck at passive. You'll be better off getting the CoolerMaster Stacked fin Heatpipes for xeons. They work much better and i just vented them to my rear 120mm exhaust and it works even better.

And running 8 hard-drives will probably add quite a bit of noise. In my system, my hard-drives are almost the loudest besides this one 80mm fan running at 2500rpm.

 

A

aeiou

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Oct 30, 2004

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Madison, WI

• Jan 22, 2005

• #10

why wouldn't you use watercooling?

 

threeme2189

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #11

nice idea...
youl need alot of bling to get that rig set up...good luck

 

OP

attack

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May 23, 2002

• Jan 22, 2005

• Thread Starter
• #12

heh, wasn't planning on building this, just showing everyone it could be done...didn;t think people would lash out cuz so adimently against the idea!

Oh and 8 flash HDD;s would be about as loud as 1 flash HDD...well if about means exactly.

 

D

Dc5e

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• Jan 22, 2005

• #13

hah, i just realized you were talking about flash drives. Yeah, they would probably be silent.