COLD AND SILENT COMPUTER

Sir Come-Alot · Post by **Sir Come-Alot** » Mon Aug 19, 2002 4:16 pm

Hi everyone, my first message here...
Maybe some of U are interested in the followig video...

The video shows how to install effective water cooling in a PC case, using only high-quality components that are worth the investment in the long run.

http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/02q ... ng-03.html

I'm thinking aout building it, it sure looks great to me!

Does anyone have this installed? If yes, then how is it?

snoopy4ever · Post by **snoopy4ever** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:16 am

Thanks Sir.

That is SO interesting.... Thanks for share it with us.

I've not experienced heat problems on my computer,.. not that I'm aware of.., but I'm wondering if I upgrade my 6 processors system to 21.. (using a scope SRB).. maybe I'm going to need that cooling system.

Regards

Snoopy

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 11:26 am

A better idea is to install a fan that blows air directly at the PCI cards in that case.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 12:29 pm

Fans are (generally/usually) louder than a water cooling rig and are limited by the ambient temperature (ie: they cant pull in cool air if the ambient temperature isn't itself cool).

The thing with watercooling is there is always the chance for condensation (or leaks), paticularly if you're using a peltier. As I have many thousands of dollars of Creamware DSP cards inside, I would never risk such a setup on my audio box... now if I only had one single $500 audio card in the box, I may consider it.

[ This Message was edited by: subhuman on 2002-08-20 13:30 ]

coc999 · Post by **coc999** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 2:01 pm

He he i can not imagine if you replace water by liquid gas at -160°c.
Maybe with specially study components
with some stainless steel micro pipes circulating in it.
brrrrr....

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 4:38 pm

I think peltier elements in a DAW, are a bit of a no-no, because of the condensation issue

Standard water cooling using good quality components however can be very quiet and I feel they have only a slightly higher risk over a psu fan, psu itself or cpu fan dying.

Using de-ionised water means the risk is further minimised, and it would only take one clever soul to improvise some sort of anti-static leak protection around your pci cards to protect your investment.

Definite potential there, but more for the hobbyist then anything mission critical

ernest@303.nu · Post by **ernest@303.nu** » Fri Aug 23, 2002 10:23 am

slightly OT: I'm running a demo-version of CPUidle on my DAW since a couple of days and have noticed a CPU temperature drop of about 10 (!) degree Celcius without affecting (until now! fingers crossed....) stability. CPUidle does so by invoking the HLT-command when CPU is running idle.
I've installed a simple NTC-controlled auto fan speed control on my powersupply fan and the fan is spinning at lower rpm due to the lower temperature. Looks promising.... CPUidle offers a 30-days trial, I'm curious about stability next couple of weeks...
I'll report back on this topic

I'm even noticing my studio room temperature has dropped a bit so I can have the noisy airconditioning run less often

[ This Message was edited by: ernest@303.nu on 2002-08-23 11:24 ]

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Tue Aug 27, 2002 9:48 pm

Well Hello there....

I'm running a Water Cooled PC as we speak. YES my DAW is water cooled! It's a big job, and requires a great deal of effort and planning. Leaks in a water cooling system are VERY uncommon. If installed correctly. i.e testing the water cooled system OUTSIDE your case and away from your expenise computer parts. For HOURS before installing it.

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showt ... adid=77582

Here's a link to my post in the Australian Overclockers forums under Extreme Cooling. I'm not sure if you can view the link not being a member. Maybe you can log in as a guest.

Anyway I'll post a thread in maybe a few weeks (when I have time). Including pictures and info, like I did on the OCAU forums.

Water cooling is a fun hobby to keep you busy for a week or two. And the results are WORTH the money and time. Water cooling is not cheap.

Cheers

snoopy4ever · Post by **snoopy4ever** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 9:38 am

Can't wait to see your post Wayne..

happy water cooling!.

Snoopy

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 5:48 am

Yeah, I'm seriously considering a watercooled system.... Just for a quiet system

How quiet is the system you are running WayneSim?

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 11:59 pm

On 2002-08-29 06:48, remixme wrote:
Yeah, I'm seriously considering a watercooled system.... Just for a quiet system

How quiet is the system you are running WayneSim?

It's much quietier than a Normal HSF on your CPU. However as I wasn't aware that my vid card was so noisy (GF4 MX440). If I did it all over again I would have put in a GPU water block as well. Now i'm thinking of maybe getting a Zalman GPU lightpipe heatsink to put on my video card. (yet to be released) http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/zm50-hp.htm

Anyway once I get my video card sorted out all I will be able to hear is a LOW speed fan (fan speed control) on my PSU and a low noise hum from my water pump. All in all, heaps quieter than a normal Air cooled system. As far as silent goes a computer will never be silent unless your computer is far away from you or of course there is extreme cases of silent computers but then I'd be talking BIG $$$. However Water Cooling is close enough to silent for most people.

If you consider water cooling you will have to consider modifying your computer case thus requiring you to pull everything OUT of your case and arrange and plan. Also get a radiator that fits your case. I'm taking about heaps of messing and playing around. People make it look so easy but depending on your setup it may be very hard.

Also a quick fix for a more silent computer now would be to line your case with foam. I did that before I had water cooling and it did improved the sound.

Has anyone got the link I posted a few posts up to work?

Anyway...

Here's some pictures of my Water Cooled setup. As you can see in the pictures, I have a Pulsar 2.
http://pcdb.overclockers.com.au/view.ph ... &page=pics

snoopy4ever · Post by **snoopy4ever** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 10:17 am

I've seen your pictures Wayne, as well as other's., but I'm wondering if for us who have 6 or more DSP's, is it going to be required to use an extra chip heatsink for every DSP we have in order to do a proper cooling? ..

thanks for your help on this

Snoopy

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Fri Aug 30, 2002 11:10 pm

On 2002-08-30 11:17, snoopy4ever wrote:
I've seen your pictures Wayne, as well as other's., but I'm wondering if for us who have 6 or more DSP's, is it going to be required to use an extra chip heatsink for every DSP we have in order to do a proper cooling? ..

thanks for your help on this

Snoopy

To be honest I don't know. Creamware cards don't have heatsinks on there DSP chips to begin with. But I assume that it couldn't hurt to add heatsinks to them. Maybe only Creamware could anwser these questions. But then again it's not likey they could anwser. Depending on how much of a tech you are, you could place heat probs on a few DSP chips and see how hot they get. If you were worried why not place a Low speed, Low noise fan blowing over your Creamware cards.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 5:43 am

I've tested 3 fans for cooling my machine, i review them quickly here for user future reference. I'd like to know more about silent hard drive cooler (fans possibly).

Tested :
- Platinum Multimedia "one ball bearing" 7 €
- TITAN "2 ball bearing" with temperature sensor ( 15 €)
- Enermax UC-8FAB with speed manually adjustable, 1000/3000 rpm 2 ball bearing (not advertised for its silent ability) (15 €)

all are 80 mm size (for chassis)

Well the more silent is the platinum fan, 2nd is titan, 3rd is the enermax wich makes a lot of noise as soon as you speed it more than the minimum value of 1000 rpm.

NB : i have an ANTEC True Power 380 W with 2 connectors specially for Fans (12 v plugs with only 2 pins) : none of the fan worked on those plugs, except the TITAN for a few hours (it may be some bios settings, as the antec is connected to the mobo with a sensor for auto fan spped).

Platinum : 3 pin chassis connection. best value price/silence/efficiency. very cool air supply. i've put it on the chassis, near the cpu.

Titan : 3 pin chassis connection. an adaptator, i've plugged it to a regular 12 v supply, on the chassis front, just behind the 15 dsp of scope. the termo sensor will do its job.

Eneramax : i've put it in another computer (my old one, inside a new case). in front of the C:/ hard disk (i've reversed it so air comes in, not out as it is supposed to so). Not silent, except at lowest speed, despite 2 balls bearing). because i don't want to hear that when i record acoustic on the main computer. anyway that second computer has a noisy power supply. I guess the Enermax is for the furious overclocker, because at 3000 rpm, you could use it as air conditionner !

Used with the new computer (the one with ANTEC silent power supply) , only the enermax is hearable over the power supply.

So the cheapest and most unknown (platinum multimedia) and not advertised for any silent or other performance is the best performer and air is supplied just as with the other fans ....

Overall, without the two additional fans (platinum and titan), ASUS probe showed a cpu temperature of (celsius) 40/41 at start, 44/50 after a while.
Now it is 34/35° at startup, and , 33 after one hour (but i haven't put the system at "real" work yet).

hope it's useful.

Any advice on those double fans you put between hard disks ? silence please

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 6:23 am

Great review, thanks

Strange constatation:
I installed 3 extra fans in my pc:
-one fan bottom-front, sucking air in the case to blow on DSP
-on fan top-rear, above the PSU, as extractor fan.
-a small heatsink w fan (from old P1) on the audio drive

I wonder why the CPU's go up 10°C, from 35°C to 45°C, with these fans installed. I suppose DSP and drive are much cooler now, giving warmer air to the rest of the case -where the CPU get cooling air.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 6:45 am

I correct my post, my computer is on for a few hours now, and temperature raises from 33° to 38° and i guess it would go to 40/50 when at work.
That's better than the 60/65 i used to have with my (slightly underclocked) P III and no fan.

AtOmic, I don't understand the part about Hard disks and dsp (you say that fresher componants gives you more heat ?
The temperature you have seem normal no ?
Good point to put a extraction fan at the back-top of computer (as heat goes up, not everyone remember that when thinking about heat

)

Myself i've chosen to reverse the fan near cpu, so it blows air from the outside onto the cpu, and extraction is made by the antec power supply (it has a extraction fan above the cpu, pretty cool, but those are a bit expensive for just that use).

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:15 am

re: fresher components & more heat

Here's my theory

Imagine a room with one heating element. Put a blower on it and the ambient room temperature will rise. Even if the air is drawn from outside the room, the higher flow over the heating element will warm up the room.

Same will happen in my box, I suppose. It doesn't make sense actually, cos there's an extra extractor and sucking fan in my box. The cooling air from DSP's and drive increase the temperature in my box, so that CPU is cooled by let's say 30°C air instead of 25°C air. CPU cooling will be less efficient and CPU's will be warmer.

Just looking for an explanation of that weird CPU temp rise... The CPU's run in a safe temp range, so there's no problem really.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:38 am

ok i understand, so Heat is running away from the fresh air blown in the case, and that heat is going to hide somewhere else in the case

it could make sense actually. because the same amount of heat should be produced by the components, fan or not, and fan just make it go somewhere else or allow to achieve a stable temperature after a while..
Without extraction (imagine put your case in a totally airproof box, for silence for exemple) temp will rise anyway, as the cooling effect of fans over ambient air is depending on the initial temperature of that ambient air. (so in a close circuit, heat will go up anyway)

It could also depend on where are the temp. sensors on the mobo/cpu etc ...

I believe that all electronic "have" to heat to function, and more dsp/cpu/HD usage makes the component work more, producing more heat. right ?

By the way, what is the ideal temperature for a CPU ? what's the minimum ? any idea ?

I've been also told that if you don't overclock, any cpu should be safe from heat problems (not talking about our dsp here).

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2002-11-17 07:43 ]

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:47 am

I also remember being in a Sauna (oh I really hated that, i prefer hammam) !
Make your towel turning fast above your head, fast, like a fan, actually makes air much hotter than it is originally. But i guess that's because it is a closed circuit or it's wet air i don't know.
I almost killed the guy anyway

!

(edited for english grammar)

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2002-11-17 07:55 ]

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 8:07 am

"electronic have to heat":
Not, AFAIK. Electronic wiring wears as the 'wires' heat up and cool down again- thermal expansion and shrinking eventually breaks all electonic. I heared CPU's are given about 10 yrs lifetime from the manufacturer.

"ideal CPU temp":
Max is about 60-65°C for pentiums, AMD will standard run so hot sometimes.

"don't overclock and cpu is safe from heat problems":
Try removing your fan or imagine it fails

[don't!] Later pentiums, don't recall which, have over-temp protection. Older ones reduce frequency, as set in the BIOS (thermal throttling) For max cpu performance, disable thermal throttling as you may find insufficient cpu power from time to time.

re: sauna:
A sauna uses 2 temp reglations: the heating element (absolut temp) and humidity (relative temp). Humid air feels more extreme (cold & warm) as dry air. It's more dense and has larger impact on your skin. This is N/A for computers