Anyone have a totally water-cooled PC???

[TJM]

I am getting fed up with fans!

I built my P4 3.06 system a couple yrs. ago and spent extra money on super-quiet
Pabst fans from Germany. I installed (2) 80mm Pabsts for intake and two of them
for rear exhaust. I even replaced the noisy stock fan in my power supply and
the chipset fan with super-quiet Pabsts. For the first year, this system was
very quiet and I was very happy.

Fast forward to the present day, and a couple of these fans are going bad. They
squeak and grind....probably from bad bearings. It seems like ANY fan will go
bad after a year or so. It's gonna be a major pain in the ass to replace them.

Has anyone out there built a total water-cooled system? I know they sell kits
for CPU and graphics chip water cooling....and I imagine they make them for hard
drives too. Plus, I have seen a 500W power supply that uses passive cooling
radiator instead of an internal fan. I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset, and hard drives....this
would be the ultimate quiet PC that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

 

[spodosaurus]

I am getting fed up with fans!

I built my P4 3.06 system a couple yrs. ago and spent extra money on super-quiet
Pabst fans from Germany. I installed (2) 80mm Pabsts for intake and two of them
for rear exhaust. I even replaced the noisy stock fan in my power supply and
the chipset fan with super-quiet Pabsts. For the first year, this system was
very quiet and I was very happy.

Fast forward to the present day, and a couple of these fans are going bad. They
squeak and grind....probably from bad bearings. It seems like ANY fan will go
bad after a year or so. It's gonna be a major pain in the ass to replace them.

My vantec stealth fans have been going strong for several years...

Has anyone out there built a total water-cooled system? I know they sell kits
for CPU and graphics chip water cooling....and I imagine they make them for hard
drives too. Plus, I have seen a 500W power supply that uses passive cooling
radiator instead of an internal fan. I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset, and hard drives....this
would be the ultimate quiet PC that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

Have a look at the case mod websites. The forums there would probably be
a much better place to ask about this sort of thing. You'll also need
memory cooling if you're going to have absolutely no fans, as the
temperature will build up inside the case. I would seriously consider
combining water cooling with at least one quiet case fan.


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[Mark N]

I went round to this guys house once. he modded all the components himself
to be watercooled. The water reservoir was underground!!! His system was
needless to say totally silent - and i don't mean manufacturers silent of 21
decibells - i mean absolutely silent. Very impressive.

his website is www.zfz.com

Cheers, Mark

 

[Al Dykes]

I am getting fed up with fans!

I built my P4 3.06 system a couple yrs. ago and spent extra money on super-quiet
Pabst fans from Germany. I installed (2) 80mm Pabsts for intake and two of them
for rear exhaust. I even replaced the noisy stock fan in my power supply and
the chipset fan with super-quiet Pabsts. For the first year, this system was
very quiet and I was very happy.

Fast forward to the present day, and a couple of these fans are going bad. They
squeak and grind....probably from bad bearings. It seems like ANY fan will go
bad after a year or so. It's gonna be a major pain in the ass to replace them.

Has anyone out there built a total water-cooled system? I know they sell kits
for CPU and graphics chip water cooling....and I imagine they make them for hard
drives too. Plus, I have seen a 500W power supply that uses passive cooling
radiator instead of an internal fan. I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset, and hard drives....this
would be the ultimate quiet PC that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

How hot is your system running ? It's meaningless to add fans unless
you measure the case internal temp. Measure, decide if more cooling is
needed and then measure the effect afterwords. I assume you have a
good CPU HSF. Unless you've got a massive system I expect you have
too many fans.

Set up mobo software to report CPU temp.

Set up SMART monitoring to tell you how hot the disk(s) are.

Get the spec sheets for the CPU and disks from the manufacturer's web
sites to see what they consider a conservative operating temp for each
component.

As a rule, case fans should be low in the front, bringing air in and
in the rear high and pointing out. Fan intake rating (Cu Ft/min)
should be balanced with exhaust capacity.

I assume you are buying Ball Bearing fans. Pabst makes good stuff,
and not-so-good stuff.

IMO there are only two reasons for exotic cooling; overclocking
and three or more hard disks in a case that isn't designed for
that many. You don;t say if you are doing either.

A little airflow pointed in the right direction can do more good than
a honking- great case fan.

I've used one of these $15 overtemp alarm gadgets in each disk on
several important system, over the years:

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/cooling/alert/index.htm

This way if a fan fails I get a loud alarm right away. The preset
temp (110DegF) is a conservative do-not-exceed temp for any disk
drive.

Put a couple of these in you system and then remove all your fans.
See what happens.


My $0.02

 

[IsaacKuo]

I am getting fed up with fans!

I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset,
and hard drives....this would be the ultimate quiet PC
that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

Check out SilentPCReview; especially the forums. There
is a LOT of misinformation and false hype about "silent"
or "quiet" PC hardware out there, and SilentPCReview is
the only place I trust and believe.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Generally, there is a preference for air-cooling rather
than watercooling at SilentPCReview. Most SPCRs don't
watercool, because it's expensive and it doesn't actually
eliminate the need for fan air-cooling unless it's routed
to a very large external heat radiator. A typical
watercooling setup just moves the cooling requirements
from one place to another--the radiator still needs a
couple noisy fans. If you're building a computer that fits
entirely within a standard case, then you can get quieter
results without watercooling than with.

Personally, I'm a "one fan" guy--I like making the PSU fan
provide airflow to cool everything by stringing all components
along a single air path, and living with the noise from
that one fan. This approach is sufficient for my needs,
since minimizing cost is one of my goals and I use relatively
low power hardware (low end CPU, GPU, etc).

Most SPCR's prefer the opposite approach--use many fans,
undervolted to silence, and place all components in separate
air paths. Since each fan is silent, the overall result is
silent. By isolating components into separate air paths,
each component is optimally cooled by fresh unheated air
and the airflow requirements are thus minimized.
In either approach, airflow design is very important!

Isaac Kuo

 

[Doug]

That's a bit on the extreme side, but it is quite impressive @ that! I wish
I had that kind of time to just fiddle with cooling like that.

Regards,

Doug

 

[Mac Cool]

spodosaurus:

You'll also need
memory cooling if you're going to have absolutely no fans, as the
temperature will build up inside the case. I would seriously consider
combining water cooling with at least one quiet case fan.

Not necessarily... depends on how you set up the water cooling. Even with
water coolers that are inside the case, they usually have an external
radiator to move the heat outside the case, some folks put fans on the
radiator. When I had a water cooling setup, I used evaporative cooling so
fans were unnecessary. The downside to evaporative cooling is that you
need a method of removing impurities from the water and you have to add
chemicals to prevent algae and other little critters from living in your
water. The upside is silence.

 

[Al Smith]

Has anyone out there built a total water-cooled system? I know they sell kits

for CPU and graphics chip water cooling....and I imagine they make them for hard
drives too. Plus, I have seen a 500W power supply that uses passive cooling
radiator instead of an internal fan. I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset, and hard drives....this
would be the ultimate quiet PC that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

I'd love one of these myself. I hate computer noise. Trouble with
a power supply that lacks a fan is that the power supply fan is
responsible for most of the case cooling. You could use a water
cooler to cool the CPU, but what would cool the rest of the case?
Maybe if there were holes long the bottom of the case, and holes
at the top, convection currents of air would do the trick.

 

[Glenn M]

I am getting fed up with fans!

I built my P4 3.06 system a couple yrs. ago and spent extra money on super-quiet
Pabst fans from Germany. I installed (2) 80mm Pabsts for intake and two of them
for rear exhaust. I even replaced the noisy stock fan in my power supply and
the chipset fan with super-quiet Pabsts. For the first year, this system was
very quiet and I was very happy.

Fast forward to the present day, and a couple of these fans are going bad. They
squeak and grind....probably from bad bearings. It seems like ANY fan will go
bad after a year or so. It's gonna be a major pain in the ass to replace them.

Has anyone out there built a total water-cooled system? I know they sell kits
for CPU and graphics chip water cooling....and I imagine they make them for hard
drives too. Plus, I have seen a 500W power supply that uses passive cooling
radiator instead of an internal fan. I assume with this kind of power supply
plus water cooling for the CPU, graphics card, chipset, and hard drives....this
would be the ultimate quiet PC that would last for many yrs? Please tell me
this is possible.....I am at wit's end!!!!

Check out the following:
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/tnn_p4PC.html
You can also buy the case and build it yourself...
Regards,
Glenn M


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