Water-cooling to quiet a pc?

[Soral 3.0]

Howdy all,

A year and a half ago, I made my first real custom pc. Back then I played lots of FPS games, so my priority was power over productivity. But now, more than ever, I find myself being ever so frustrated with the noise of my pc. It's quieter than other "powerhouse" machines. But I would like to quell the aggressive hum of fans...

Although my main goal was power, I still have some "quiet" parts:

Lian Li Quiet Aluminum PC Case PC-6070

Zalman CNPS7000B-ALCU Quiet Case Fan
(cooling a P4 3.0 Ghz processor)

Thermaltake PurePower (W0009RUC) 420-Watt Power Supply

ATI AIW 9800 Pro
(stock fan)

But my computer still generates enough sound to wake me up in the morning and keep me up at night... I would give a dB reading if I had a
meter.

I've been thinking about water cooling -- especially the

zalman reserator 2

But it's got a big price tag and I'm not sure if it's going to be the answer to the noise problems...

Also, my computer cpu temp is 140 F at idle, and 160 F at load! (motherboard at 120 F at idle). It tends to get really hot, and my fans still are cooling it enough....

I would just appreciate any input on the effectiveness of the reserator, (is it worth it to quiet an existing pc?) and any other input on my loud pc!

-Isaac

[san_fran_crisko]

Hi Issac,

I bought an Antec P-180 case along with Zalman flowers for my CPU and graphics card. The problem I have is despite the fans and the case fans that come with it running at their lowest RPM, there is still noise! Despite is being a low hum it still annoys me being a Music Technology student.

What I think is the best option if you really want a silent PC is to invest in a fanless water cooling system that has upgradeable/interchangeable blocks for the CPU/GPUs. At least that way when you buy a new machine you're only spending say $30 on new blocks.

It may be a bigger investment up front but if you upgrade your PC alot of those Zalman flowers and other coolers will not be compatible with the new processor brace/sockets so you'd have to buy a new one anyway. At least the water cooling system should last you as long as it keeps operating. I notice that model has a pump. You can get convection models which just run on convection from the hot/cold water transferring but they're not as good at cooling. Still, theres no pump to go wrong and hopefully those things don't rust.

Good luck.

Crisko.

[Soral 3.0]

Thanks Crisko!

So I guess you're for water cooling? Do you have any suggestions on water cooling systems?

-Isaac

[jbennet]

i water cooled my xbox

[san_fran_crisko]

I'm afraid I don't have a water-cooled PC myself or know of anyone who does but Zalman are always a name to trust in this department. I'd say that unless you're trying to cool a quad-core Server that has an unreleased ATI graphics beast of some sort the Zalman RESERATOR 1 V2 Fanless Water Cooling System should be more than adequate. Just type that into froogle or kelkoo and see what the cheapest price is.

Hope that helps.

[jbennet]

why do you want to water cool anyway?

i modded a rackmount to be 100% passively cooled before

[Soral 3.0]

Will do Crisko. :-)

why do you want to water cool anyway?

i modded a rackmount to be 100% passively cooled before

Um, I thought I made that quite clear in my title... :confused:

-Isaac

[Crindle]

An extreme that i saw done on howstuffworks.com is to seal off your entire case, air or liquid tight, and take out all your fans, and submerge the inside of your case all sealed with cooking oil. Sounds weird, but it dissaptes heat greatley, and cheap too, just be weird when you have to modd for upgrades or have it worked on, another case of oil.

[Soral 3.0]

An extreme that i saw done on howstuffworks.com is to seal off your entire case, air or liquid tight, and take out all your fans, and submerge the inside of your case all sealed with cooking oil. Sounds weird, but it dissaptes heat greatley, and cheap too, just be weird when you have to modd for upgrades or have it worked on, another case of oil.

Yeah! I saw that a while back! But imagine how messy that would be everytime I needed to plug in a USB flashdrive, put in a cd/dvd, and not to mention turning it on and off...;)

-Isaac

[Crindle]

Make an extened button to the outside, and the same with usb drives on front.

[Soral 3.0]

You're actually serious?

-Isaac

[webbo]

water cooling should really only really be used for overclocking or otherwise if you have money to burn.

water cooling is more effective but if you just want to lower the dBA down on your pc then try:
1, changing to larger 120mm silent case fans,
2, changing the heat sink and fan system on the cpu
and to help lower the temp also try
1, making sure all internal cables are tied off neatly to allow airflow
and
2, using a larger pc case made of ali

water cooling isnt for everybody, it cost money, and has to be done properly by a competant person otherwise if you dont know what your doing you will flood your system and blow the lot.

as an example i have a thermaltake shark case, which has two silent 120mm fans and a honeycomb side panel, and the temp and dBA in my case is perfect. i am thinking of modding it with a new side door that will fit a 200mm side case fan! to add even more air circulation and still keep the noise down.

when i do get the pennies i will go for water cooling but that will be to overclock the system

the point is do a bit more research before shedding loads of money on water cooling and think about whether a few fan changes can help

[jbennet]

water cooling is silly

i run a pentium D extreme, 3gb of ram, 2 180gb disks, 2 dvd writers, a floppy, loads of PCI cards and a radeon x1950 512mb. Runs all fine with air cooling fans and heatsinks. Can barely hear it.

Cpu tunnel on the front to the back - 2 80mm case fans for that as well as a single 80mm case fan also blows down onto the northbride and ram (which have heatsinks), 1 fatass cooler/heatsink on the gpu and 2 fans blowing/sucking the hdd bay. i use round cables or SATA only. And a cpu cooler of course

7 fans in otal and its barely audible - use good qualilty slow fans, and big, good heatsinks and compound/