Watercooled Nexus Breeze(Zalman Reserator)

[nici]

Hi! Just registered on this forum, and it seems to suit me well since im obsessed with silent computers..

This isnt silent though, the Maxtor diamondmax isnt wery quiet...

Anyway, here´s the specs:
Athlon XP 2600+(t-bred) wery lightly ocd at 2113mHz
Radeon 9800 pro(Sapphire) OCd at 428core/374mem
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe mobo
Audigy2 sound-card
1Gb memory, 2x256+1x512
1Maxtor 120g sata drive(will swap both HDs for a 160g samsung drive)
1Seagate 80g sata drive
Zalman Reserator watercooling including the GPU block.
Coba 350W PSU, pretty quiet. my NX-4090 has annoying coil-buzz and i broke the fan on the nx-3500(dont ask )
Nexus Breeze, with 18dB(cant remember model) Papst 12cm fan at bottom with a 100ohm resistor at about 870rpm.
Samsung SyncMaster 710t display
LG dvd-rom and cd-rw drives painted black by me(ooh! )

Temperatures
idle: 48
load: 55 Remember that the GPU is cooled by the same system..

I think thats about it for specs..







What do you think?

Oh, heres one older pic with cnps7000alcu, zalman heatpipe GPU cooler and nexus fan+PSU.

[Jordan]

It's a nice set-up but without any modding it all comes down to how much money you had to spend.

I wish I had the money for a Resarator

[nici]

Yeah i know it aint modded.. I would be wery glad if someone had some suggestions on how to mod it Preferably DIY and something that makes the thing more quiet.. The tunnel for the PSU fan thingie seems interesting This setup has evolved the last 1½ years, and i got the reserator quite cheap at 170€(well everything is relative..), supposedly the last person in Finland to get it at that price before the price went back up again..
I bought the Reserator because the cnps7000 was the second cooler i had that was claimed to be silent but in reality it wasnt.. I can honestly say the Reserator i silent, the only thing you have to do is put something soft under it as it vibrates a bit(wery little).

[streety]

Nice setup. Only things I would say is your wiring could be improved and do you know what temp your HDD is running at?

Creating an air duct for the PSU will be very hard because the intake hole is facing down rather than towards the front of the case. Just means you have less space to work.

You might be able to seal the bottom hole up and cut one in the side facing forward though. I assume you have two fans in the PSU though so your first step might just be to turn the smaller fan at the rear of the PSU off and see how that effects temps. I doubt it would be a problem.

[edit]Just a comment on your spelling . . . it's very rather than wery. Hope you don't mind me correcting you.[/edit]

[MikeC]

Hmmm PSU duct idea... it only works if there is another exhaust fan aside from the PSU itself: Doesn't the Brezze case exhaust only out the PSU?

[Jordan]

Suspending the HDs would reduce vibrations. Nexus being Nexus must have put a lot of thought into making a quiet case so I'm a little surprised at the apparent lack of HD isolaton. The Sonata and others came with rubber grommets at least (not fantastic but better than nothing).

Of course this would raise temps which there is already some concern about.

Doesn't the Brezze case exhaust only out the PSU?

Yeah, you're right Mike. In fact the only difference between this case design and most is where the rear fan grill would reside is blocked off and the front fan is located at the bottom of the case instead.

This kind of set-up means the PSU is doing all the work so if you have a hot CPU, Graphics card and HD the CPU fan will ramp up. Also there isn't a direct airflow to your HDs due to the lack of a front fan but I don't think hot air will linger too long in that case with convection coupled with the upward push/suck from the 2 fan (bottom and PSU) config.

[nici]

The HDs are warm when you touch them, without the bottom fan they were seriously hot! Tried using it without the botton fan for a day, now i know it doesnt work wery well

About the ducting, making it work wouldnt be that hard even witht the fan at the bottom of the PSU. You could make a stick-frame out of balsa for example, cover it with cloth and laminate it with the stuff you laminate fiberglass with. Easy, fast and looks good when sanded down and painted for example.. There is plenty of room as the waterblock isnt that big. But since the CPU isnt generating any heat into the case, as the block feels cool after several hours, there wouldnt be much point in making the duct really. Just the fun of doing it The PSU fan rotates at about 850rpm when idling, and rises to 1100rpm under full load but thats because the system draws more current not because the case-temperature would rise as the outside of the blocks doesnt get noticeably warmer under load. Anyway, my point is there probably wouldnt be much point in making the duct on a watercooled system.

One idea i have is to transfer all the stuff into my old antec 660amg case, wich isnt much smaller inside than the nexus, remove the HD tray and install the HD with the Zalman heatpipe-cooler(or similar) in one of the 5.25" slots and make a hole for a 120mm fan at bottom of the case..

The Breeze case itself isnt that spectacular, a very basic case with a original cooling solution and loads of plastic around the case. Still the drives doesnt resonate that badly, the maxtor is clearly audible but i cant hear the seagate. When the seagate is working the noise seems to come from the bcak of the case.

About my spelling, feel free to comment it! Its not my strongest language as im from Finland.. I consider my english good, i never talk english but type it daily on the net and you cant avoid hearing and reading english nowadays..

Ah crap, this turned out ot be quite a long post... If you managed to read the whole post all the way here, Merry Christmas It´s 03:38AM here, goodnight..

[nici]

Just installed a program so i can see the HD temperatures, they currently run at 43 both. So i should nott have anything to worry about..

[meglamaniac]

Totally unrelated I know, but that is a BIG sub you've got under the desk there!
Nice setup, but I myself would never use external cooling simply because of the pipes going everywhere. I like my systems to look tidy, and I move it between uni and my parent's a lot so portability is an issue too.

[nici]

Its a Logitech sub, ok for computer use but not earth-shattering thunder type of bass.. And i totally understand not wanting a external cooling solution, but i never move my computer anywhere so its not an issue for me And wouldnt it be boring if everyone liked the same things..

[xxkrnxstylezxx]

hi, i was thinking about buying the Nexus Breeze and basically having the same set up as you (maybe XP-90 with a nexus fan tho).

How loud is the computer just like that? I'm not sure if I should just buy the Nexus, or buy my parts separately and build it...

[nici]

Well it´s not loud by any means, but it isnt silent either.. All the sound seems to come fom behind the case, both 12cm fans spin at about 850-900rpm when idle so they arent making that much sound. I would say the HDs(especially the maxtor) are the loudest thing at the moment, ill restart the machine in a while without powering the drives and check and post back here

[nici]

Started it without the HDs, and i can hear a slight humming sound and a clicking sound from then fan in the PSU wich is otherwise wery quiet, and all the sound seemed to come from the back of the case.
Im not shure i recommend the Breeze though, the bottom-fan is exactly in the middle of the case, if it was 5-7cm more to the front it would cools the HDs much better. I also had to move the fan under the case, it was originally inside the case but the fan hit my SATA cables where they mount to the mobo so it was impossible to have the fan there..

[xxkrnxstylezxx]

hmm..ok

so between the Nexus Breeze...and

Antec SLK3000B; Seasonic Super Tornado 350; 2 x Globe 120mm (or maybe 1 Nexus 120 Silent); Zalman 7000-cu.

Which would you choose? (which would be quieter)

[nici]

I have no experience with seasonic products(i dont think they are even available here) and have never seen that Antec case in real life, reviews suggest its good though. The zalman 7000 fan isnt that quiet, i could hear it outside the case with it on the lowest setting. Could be just mine though.. i have a ASUS a7n8x deluxe, and the 7000 was maybe 1mm from the power-supply so the PSU fan didnt stay quiet wery long after startup. I would guess the Antec is bigger inside.

Dont know wich would be quieter honestly.. I would still go for the Antec though, just because im bored with this huge silver plastic thing. I might skip the 660AMG thing too, as im bored of that too... In other words im most likely lookin for a new case too.. Personally i think the 3000b looks a bit boring, but i guess the perfect case doesnt exist.. I think the antec has better cooling though, my HDs are running at 45c both. It would be much better if the bottom fan was plased 5cm forward.

[MainframeGuy]

Well.... good to be back to the forums - there has been a loooong gap for me for many reasons....

I am presently posting form a hellishly noisy laptop - although my quietest rig is running fine also under the desk - it is not as quiet as it was (I had to add a 120mm fan due to instability that turned to be temperature related).


Anyway - you may be wondering why I bumped this thread up - fact is I came from this thread and wanted to say thankyou for your pics here - at thread start - and also for your opinions on this case - I agree with you and shall be using the nexus case (after all it LOOKS pretty!) but simply as a housing for my AMD64 when I get it running and stable again.

I have discovered also that the rig I have built into the case, AMD winnie et al - seems to need pretty cool situation (which the Nexus is not helping with) so I shall also be adding another 120mm exhaust to this rig.

I guess my priorities have changed now I live next to a train track! I am accepting of higher DBa rigs - but stability is a must have for me (as I believe it should be for everyone).

May post more when I get more time - always did value this forum highly and shall be building server for living room soon also!

[Erssa]

Well I finally managed to registerer on these forums.

I am planning to upgrade my computer in 2 months, so I decided to check up the latest things on these forums. I came across this thread when I did a search about nexus breeze. What makes this interesting is that you (nici) have switched from Breeze to Antec SLK3700. Could you explain what kind of benefits you gained? I am interested because I bought a breeze with nx-4090 in september already and I am planning of building my new rig in it.

I haven't yet decided what motherboard to buy. Atm I am between DFI nf-4 Ultra and this sapphire board based on ATI Xpress 200 chipset. Well the sapphire isn't out yet and I am hoping that there will be a version with just passive heatsinks instead of those waterblocks, here is another picture. The thing with both of these boards is that they should be able to give upto 4.0v to vdimm for memory. I see that in your new signature you have 2x 512mt of twinmos memory (based on winbond UTT I presume?), wich is the same memory I am planning to buy, if it can overclock even halfway decently. So any experience on them? If they don't overclock well I can remove DFI from my list since the voltage is the only catch in it, otherwise it's not worth the trouble of mutilating the zalman nb-47j heatsink imo. Also I just love the positioning of the passive NB coolers in those ati mobos, they are on the preferable position of above the 16x pci-e slot.

For my current system the cooling is enough, but would it be enough if I upgraded to:
DFI nf4 ultra /w nb47j
amd64 3000+ rev e. /w zalman 7000b-alcu
2x 512Mb TwinMos PC3200
Xfx gf6600gt /w zalman vf-700-alcu or sapphire x800xl ultimate (not available yet, but it includes the same zalman)
WD740 Raptor /w nexus disktwin

I am planning to optimize between silence and performance, so I will be overclocking the system. Propaply to something like:
cpu [email protected] (290x9) and memory ddr480 2-2-2-7 (mem divider set to 0.83), but only if this memory can OC well. I know it could be doable with this type of memory at least accoding to akiba.fi (the store where you propaply bought them from?), but I'd like to hear from your experiences.

Any comments on the system that I am planning are welcome. Do you think the raptor would stay cool enough in the lowest 5.25" slot with disktwin? My current system temperature is 31c according to mbprobe and my Samsung V40 80gb is at 31 according to dtemp (btw I hate this hard drive it whines extremely loud).

Btw looking at the picture of your system I started to wonder where you have placed your center speaker? I assume we have the same logitech z-680 speakers?

[nici]

Erssa--> No its actualy not UTT, i have one stick with PSC and one with M-tec chips.. They are just regular TwinMos sticks, i took them from my old system, theyll do for now.. Though i have thought about getting the UTT based memory. on the www.only4pro.com site it says that it has compatibility issues with DFI NF4 boards, but these boards are incompatible with a lot of memory from hat i have read.. There has been a few bios updates to enhance memory compatibilty, and you can find good info at www.dfi-street.com on all sorts of problems and solutions, check it out There is also a long discussion about the Winbond UTT memory, use the search if you cant find it otherwise So my guess is that the UTT memory would work just fine with the correct settings. Google for reviews, theres also a link to Speed Premium review on www.only4pro.com site where the memory is.

I got the Club 3d x800XL from www.only4pro.com along with my mobo and PSU, 339€ for the card and it has dual-DVI and VIVO, all other x800XL card seem to have just one DVI conncector and no VIVO. noisy reference cooler as standard, though i immediately changed that for a O4Po Magnum waterblock Whats the price of that Ultimate sapphire? Ive seen the regular one for 330€ somwhere.. And i would recommend the x800XL over the 6600GT if you can afford it, mine overclocked to 459/555 without any voltage mods and i got 5440 points in 3dMark05... i got 2700 points with OCd 9800Pro.

Im not running Z-680, i have the 2.1 Z-2200. Same subwoofer and speakers but just two of them...

The raptor would probably stay cool yes, but the general opinion here seems to that the raptor is very noisy. Never heard one myself. Im also overclocking and silencing the same machine, its more interesting than undeclocking and silencing

edit: Forgot about the case thing. I found out that having the PSU as the only way our for the hot air made the PSU ramp up in speed and create more noise, also the airflow from the bottom fan did not get to the HDDs and they idled at 45c, too high for my taste. I think the fan is positioned too far back in the case. I also got tired of the look of the case, not that im too entusiastic about the design of the 3700 either, its pretty boring. But that will hopefully change, im panning to mod it. Not[i/i] with windows and leds and cold cathodes and poop like that, but make a front panel with door out fo mdf and some intake ducts and interesting HDD suspension/cooling most probably. This should make it quieter, but also better looking.. I still have not found one case that would be perfect for me, so i just have to extensively modify one to my taste