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Water cooler?
The new home made Draper superputer has two case fans cpu fan and graphic card fan and PSU fan and is a tad on the noisy side, so one has been casting eyes on water coolers anybody got experience of these water cooler thingies? seems a bit dodgy having water tootling about inside a puter case.
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I've watercooled various systems over the years, using kits ranging from numbingly difficult to install, to the more recent consumer-level ones by Corsair. My overall view is, it's fun to do but there's no real advantage for the average PC. But since it's fun as said, I still do it :-)
Since you're concerned about fan noise, perhaps you should work out exactly which fans are noisy, and then see if they would be replaced if you were to install a water cooling kit. If the noise is from the case fans, you might simply consider better-designed and larger fans, if they'll fit. Stock fans can be very low quality indeed. I built a near-silent PC for a client, using a triple-skinned Antec case designed for noise reduction, a PSU with an oversize fan, and 4 slow-running 12 cm fans rather than the stock 8 cm unit. I considered a fanless PSU but couldn't find an 850-watt unit. There's a lot of information out there on completely fanless systems, too. |
Hi,
having water tootling about inside a puter case So it's better call it "liquid cooling" :) |
The two case fans are just ones whipped out of redundant PSUs,bearings on them probably causing most of the noise,
Still fancy one of they liquid coolers,they seem a lot cheaper now than when I first looked at them . :) |
IBM mainframe computer disc drives in the 1980's (can't speak for >1990's) always used liquid cooling.
That was for drive unit the size of a filing cabinet with 2 x 2.5Gb disc units inside that cost about £250,000! |
As Bushfiva said, could replace the stock CPU fan with a larger unit if there is the space. I used an Akasa Venom (£35.41 from Dabs). Due to the much larger heat sink fed by heat pipes, the fan spins slowly under MB control. Bit fiddly to fit though.
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The CPU already has a serious cooler, heat sink with copper pipes sticking out of it and a large fan,the CPU is a AMD PhenomII quad core 3.6 ghz,think it is just the pottering about lust that has me in its grip,still,think a quieter machine would be nice,tiz that Corair kit I have been looking at Mr Bush.
:ok: |
That's not necessarily all that serious as cpu coolers go.
You could also go down the route of a quiet case. My pc porn was designed from the outset to be quiet & is divided into three chambers, with two large diameter slow spinning fans & it's remarkably unobtrusive. http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/h.../af02-int2.jpg http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...B_Q_Shadow.jpg |
You put the lid on it Mr P?,we puter potterers never put the lid on the case.:rolleyes:
In fact sometimes I never even bothered with a case at all.:uhoh: |
IBM mainframe computer disc drives in the 1980's (can't speak for >1990's) always used liquid cooling. Then in 92 we threw all the IBM DASD out and got HDS - much better :E I remember the room full of chillers for the TCM coolant on the 3084's & 3090's. Mr Draper Sir, have a look at How to Install a Computer Water Cooling System - Popular Mechanics though not entirely sure that's what u wanted :) |
There is a dealer in Gateshead, who do a range of very high spec machines. Might be worth having a chat with them.
Am I allowed to name them? A friend of mine has had 2 PC's built by them, lost the first one in the Workington flood just over a year ago. New one is fantastic! and liquid cooled. PM me if you want the name of the dealer. Gibbo. |
My pc porn was designed from the outset to be quiet .....
Quite rightly so .......:eek: Jack |
haven't bought a ready built computer for years now been building me own these twenty years gorn, since the days of the 386,I tell a lie the first I built from scratch was a 486,used to upgrade memory and such in me first 386
Is the puter shop Orbit? Mr Gibbo? been buying me gear there for a few years now. :) |
The dealer is Cyberpower. I don't know if they sell components, but they certainly have quite a bit of experience of liquid cooling.
My mate went a bit too far, he had 5ft of water in his living room! I'm sticking to my to my (self-build) air cooled AMD quad core running on PCLinuxOS . |
Hi,
You can also try the Hydrogen cooling ... Methink it's nice and more easy than the liquid Nitrogen cooling :) Computer cooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Liquid nitrogen http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...clocking-6.jpg http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/...gnify-clip.png Liquid nitrogen may be used to cool an overclocked PC. As liquid nitrogen boils at -196 °C, far below the freezing point of water, it is valuable as an extreme coolant for short overclocking sessions. In a typical installation of liquid nitrogen cooling, a copper or aluminum pipe is mounted on top of the processor or graphics card. After being heavily insulated against condensation, the liquid nitrogen is poured into the pipe, resulting in temperatures well below -100°C. Evaporation devices ranging from cut out heat sinks with pipes attached to custom milled copper containers are used to hold the nitrogen as well as to prevent large temperature changes. However, after the nitrogen evaporates, it has to be refilled. In the realm of personal computers, this method of cooling is seldom used in contexts other than overclocking trial-runs and record-setting attempts, as the CPU will usually expire within a relatively short period of time due to temperature stress caused by changes in internal temperature. Although liquid nitrogen is non-flammable, it can condense oxygen directly from air. Mixtures of liquid oxygen and flammable materials can be dangerously explosive. Very effective ! |
: IBM mainframe computer disc drives in the 1980's (can't speak for >1990's) always used liquid cooling. Then in 92 we threw all the IBM DASD out and got HDS - much better I remember the room full of chillers for the TCM coolant on the 3084's & 3090's. We had a dual machine system with an IBM 3090 and an Amdahl 5850(?), so maybe it was the IBM processor rather than the disc drives that were liquid cooled, seem to recall that the Amdahl was air cooled. |
The CDC Cyber mainframes installed at Fylingdales in the early 80s were liquid cooled. I don't recall any incidents with the cooling - leaks, etc. Also I recall being told at the time that volume for volume liquid cooling was 5 times more effective than air hence it's use despite the attendant risks from plumbing within the electrical cabinets. I stand to be corrected on this as it's 30 years ago, but I'm pretty sure 5x was the factor.
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I don't remember water cooling being used in mainframes (I'm still relatively young :)), but I do remember working on a datacentre refurbishment and having to cater for the removal of all the plumbing for it that was under the floor. The combination of the massively unwieldy data cables and equally unwieldy water pipes meant that there was little space for new power and data runs until the old stuff had been removed.
SD |
Certainly the IBM mainframe I designed a datacentre for in 2004 wasn't water cooled. The fact it needed to have a reinforced floor without water cooling sort of put paid to any extras in the way of water.
Anyway, I would vote against water cooling as i've heard too many horror stories of leaks killing the PC. Try Quiet PC-Quiet PC Hardware-Quiet PC Components-Quiet PC Zalman Products for quieter fans instead :ok: |
Just for information rather suggestions upon your beast.
Several of the Power Mac G5 range have liquid cooling, including my Quad-core. It does seem to work well. However, once breached the salvage appears untenable. Failures are rare but I have a friend with an early G5 which was bought 2nd hand and may have had internal physical damage and has leaked, it will run for a decreasing time before dropping out. Now at 12 minutes. Quotes for a fix are more than a current 2nd user high spec. unit from a reputable dealer. So liquid cooling is very useful but sound plumbing is necessary. |
My tower unit media server has five fans and wasn't the quietest thing on the planet until I fitted air filters having become fed up with the speed at which dust collected inside.
An unexpected side effect is that noise has now dropped to a background hum. CPU and HDD temperatures remain unaffected, as does the air temperature inside the enclosure with the remote probe I use. Worth a punt for very few £s. |
My tower unit media server has five fans and wasn't the quietest thing on the planet until I fitted air filters having become fed up with the speed at which dust collected inside. My last server had seven 8-cm fans and was very noisy. The next one I built had only 12-cm fans and was much quieter. My current desktop is in one of those more recent PC cabinets that are equipped with a big 20-cm fan (or even a 30-cm fan), plus a few 12-cm fans. It hardly makes any noise at all, but the CPU and GPU and everything else stay very cool. As for dust, stretching some women's nylons over the air intakes works really well. Bigger fans that move a large volume of air at lower speeds also seem to help reduce dust. |
My experience is that it is the GPU fan that is often the noisiest, especially when it is a bit long in the tooth.
For that reason, I try to only use GPUs designed without fans, just with large heatsinks. All 5 PCs currently in the household are so equipped. I agree that larger diameter fans at lower RPM are quieter, but one is often limited by the case when it comes to replacement. Most fans do specify the dB level they operate at (whether you believe the figures or not is another matter), so can be used to guide purchase of fans. Cost and quality are generally directly proportional, so cheap fans are rarely the quietest. Unless you are doing serious over-clocking, cooling is highly unlikely to be a problem, and as MB says, investing in quieter fans is a much better (if not as satisfying for the tinkerer in you) solution than water-cooling. SD |
For that reason, I try to only use GPUs designed without fans, just with large heatsinks. All 5 PCs currently in the household are so equipped. |
I agree on the fan size and noise discussion - it's my experience too - but for the low cost involved I'd still invest in some filters if I were the OP. It's not going to make it any noisier and it will make it quieter to some degree and that "some" might be significant. If not, so a few quid were "wasted" but at least the dust ingress will be lower!
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Right chaps, one has abandoned the idea of liquid cooling a visit to the local puter boutique has shown that liquid coolers only seem to be designed for tower cases (size of fan radiator ect) the new draper home made super puter lives in one of the new desktop cases,anyway experiments with different fan configurations have silenced the beast a lot,what I wanted to ask is does any software exist for live checking the temperatures of CPUs Mb Hard disks and the like,preferably free to download? one's machine seems suspiciously quiet now and checking temperatures in bios is not really practical.
:)PS Machine has been running for a couple of hours shut it down and rebooted to BIOS the power monitor shows CPU at 51 C 123.5 F mother board at 38c 100f |
Passmark, MBM, hmonitor, Intel Active Monitor and many others, probably including software from your motherboard manufacturer. I've used hmonitor in the past.
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Google SIW - System Information for Windows. The program is free and tells you everything you want to know about your PC. Temperatures can be found under hardware/sensors
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Second SIW :ok:, I also use SpeedFan.
SD |
Silent Running, not on Trust
Needing a good UPS to keep The Works going here in Spain during frequent power outages, I bought a large Trust UPS with a 40 minute battery. Great !
Unfortunately the Trust UPS has a cooling fan which is wired across the mains input and is (a) VERY noisy and (b) runs all the time (even when I turn the UPS off) and (c) despite dismantling 90% of the UPS, the fan is located in the other 10% and can't be reached to install an off switch. It is so loud I've had to build a silencing cover with air duct. And no, I can't hear my PC any more - sound drowned by the Trust UPS fan. P.S. Trust do not make this model of UPS any more. http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/u...ofTrustUPS.jpg |
I've been using an APC Smart UPS 1000 for the last 5 or 6 years (the battery now needs replacing - ouch), and it is almost completely silent - apart from the beeps it makes when telling you the battery has had it. :sad:
SD |
I've also used the smaller APC's domestically and the big ones for clients. On the domestic ones, I'm not too happy with the relatively short service life of the battery. I'm trying out units by CyberPower at the moment, and very happy with the amount of information available on the front panel and via the computer widget. For example, the front panel shows power used by attached devices, which is great for checking that one's bought the right-sized unit. The only downside of the CyberPower I've found so far is that the power button is VERY easily pressed, which switches the entire unit off instantly.
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