Passive Water-cooled PC (Almost Silent)

[fingers]

Hi guys, I have finally managed to get my PC to near noiselessness by running a totally passive (heat transfer) water-cooling system. Currently the only audible components are the PSU (to be swapped out when cash is available) and the CDRW/DVDRW drives (only when in use so not really considered an issue!). I think the pump (CSP750) may become audible once the PSU is silenced but right now I can't hear it unless I put my ear right beside it

due to the reported pump failures I shall be swapping this out once the watercooling shop has the DCC in stock, hopefully later this month

The loop runs as follows:

Rad >> CSP750 (pump) >> Maze4 CPU >> SilentStar (HDD) >> Maze4 (Northbridge) >> Maze4 (GPU) >> Rad

I use a T-line so which fits just before the pump intake

The hard drive

I am using a customized SilentStar Dual HDD Cooler to keep my drive both cool and quiet:


full project log showing work done

The system is very quiet with the HDD only audible when running a defrag and then only very slightly with my head inches from the casing! This is on an old 80GB WB 8MB Cache drive which is very loud indeed! I can not hear the drive spinning up at all and am thinking of adding some extra foam in the front slots to silence it completely!

The tests

The system itself runs cool for general 'everyday' use, seeming to stabilise in the high 30s low 40s (degrees C) on the CPU after extended use of around 3 to 4 hours.



When run under Prime95 torture test the results where fairly impressive and on-par if not better than my previous air-cooled set-up (Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu, Zalman ZM80A-HP, Noiseblocker 80mm, Passive NB), for graphic (gaming) performance the new set-up is much better as the passive Zalman cooler added a large amount of heat to the system.

Test results for Prime95 run with a room temperature of approximately 18C (start) to 20C (end):


The system

The system itself is built to the following specifications:

AXP2500+ @ 2253MHz
Asus nForce2 Deluxe
512MB XMS3200 Corsair
MSI GeForce4 Ti4600
Pioneer 16x DVD-RW
Liteon 40x16x48x CD-RW
WD Caviar 80Gb SE
Antec TruePower 430W
Hercules Game Theatre XP
CoolerMaster 'BlackWidow'
Samsung 193P

And here it is ...

Close up of the radiator which is made from two 10meter coils of 10mm copper microbore pipe which gives approximately 3.14 square meters of surface area, over twice that of the Zalman Reserator.


The radiator isn't the best looking bit of kit but I have plans to revise or hide it in the near future. Here's how it sits tucked away in the corner of my room for the time being.


The system itself with what was to start with a massive mess of tubing now refined to a clean and tight loop sitting happy in my room.






For more pictures, test results and a log of the work done please visit my full project log here, cheers.

[Edward Ng]

With a 34365763284856-pass, "radiator," like that, plus Maze4 blocks, the DDC will provide an improvement to the performance of your cooling system in order of several magnitudes over the CSP-750. Those Maze4s work better with more flow than you're giving them right now, since your, "radiator," is choking that pump.

At least I gather you don't have too many positive pressure worries at the inlet!

-Ed

[fingers]

Hi Ed, thanks for the reply, I was wondering if the DCC would make much difference and so am glad to hear it should be better

The flow actually seems very strong with the CSP750. The downward flow on the rad matched with it's larger than the tubing diameter and sweeping curves doesn't seem to offer much resistance, but I'm just going by the bubbles shooting round the loop (which really did speed round) until they blead out Of course being very new water-cooling I don't really have anything to compare with

one thing I did notice is that on my first build there was some leakage (minimal) around the outlet on the pump suggesting some amount of restriction, but with the new (shown above) loop there has been no evidence of leaking at all.

Either way the reduction in noise from the DCC and the speed monitoring without drawing power from the fan header will be a great improvement to my system as well as the peace of mind thus justifing the cost and the hassle of making the swap

[jonoc]

Nice idea!! I like the "McGuyver" quality of it. If you put the coil next to the window, do you think you could get your temps a tad bit lower or does your place have pretty good window insulation?

[miyagi]

with a bit of modding that could turn into a nice CD tower. good stuff.

[fingers]

Nice idea!! I like the "McGuyver" quality of it. If you put the coil next to the window, do you think you could get your temps a tad bit lower or does your place have pretty good window insulation?

I used to love that program when I was little

Yeah it probably would be cooler by the window as there's no double glazing and the inside of the glass is very cool, however due to all my stuff and having a very small room I can't get my PC close enough to the window , maybe when I move next.

Anyways my room is generally cooler than in the tests as I wanted to see how it would cope with summer (ish) temps, it runs much cooler normally as I like the cold and have my heater off almost all the time!

with a bit of modding that could turn into a nice CD tower. good stuff.

Now that's a good idea I will definatly look into that as an idea for a markII design, could work out very nicely Putting it into a container of water and adding ice when benching is another idea I've been toying with

[spacey]

amazing stuff for sure.

as others have said, it would be cool if the copper coiling was artistically molded to do something else too... but then i suppose it makes it hard to move if you should ever need to. maybe just hide it under your bed

[fingers]

amazing stuff for sure.

as others have said, it would be cool if the copper coiling was artistically molded to do something else too... but then i suppose it makes it hard to move if you should ever need to. maybe just hide it under your bed

Cheers yes at the moment I'm playing with a few ideas including a suggestion to wrap it around a suitably sized copper tub (plant pot) with a manly (:D) plant, like a indoor palm tree or something! but for the moment I'm just going to leave it as it is, just going to keep my eyes open until the right solution presents itself!