Water cooling plans

[sensei]

First up, thanks for a great site/forum. I've been visiting this place for a little over half a year now, and have been tempted to upgrade to SPCR-grade gear for a long time now.

I am currently running a fairly low-noise setup, (papst fans, seasonic psu, seagate HD, passive Zalman GPU-cooler, mostly thanks to you fine people ), but I want silence!

I want to not hear my PC @ about 3 metres distance, where my bed is located. I have VERY little ambient noise in my bedroom, and very sensitive hearing, especially at night, so It'll need to be next to inaudible. It performs 24/7 server duties. (not folding as of yet , so it's allmost always idle)

I will NOT be overclocking (undervolting more likely), but I am contemplating a CPU upgrade (will try to avoid hot P4's, but performance IS a high priority.) I'll keep my 9700Pro.

I don't mind heavy modding (though bluefronts Cookie-Jar-Cooling is probably too ambitious for my ability/time.)

So.

I'm contemplating a few different ideas, one of witch is to water cool the CPU & GPU, and mount the radiator, probably ducted, under the PSU fan (120 mm naturally), so that it draws air up through it, thus avoiding a case/radiator-fan, while avoiding an inefficient passive radiator setup. The rest of the case (don't know which yet, will probably go for aesthetics), would be air-sealed, except for a filtered (fanless) intake at the front, cooling the HD(s). Sound deadening material and HD cradling will be done if necessary (probably will be ).

I have a few questions though: Do pumps generate too much noise for my sensitive ears? and if not, which should I choose? What about a submerged pump, sound-wise? Will the heat from the radiator heat the PSU too much? (I've seen setups where all air exits through the PSU, so it shouldn't be a problem should it?)

Most importantly: Is there a more silent way to spend my hard-earned? Should I forget water cooling and go modded air?

thanks guys

[HaloJones]

Once all air is bled from the system, the pump will make no noise to speak of. pumps vibrate according to how powerful they are but unless the pump is on the floorboards and you sleep on the floor you won't be aware of the pump.

If you are not over-clocking and not running at full load a passive radiator such as from a car (not the heatercore but the proper rad from the front of the engine) will easily shed any system heat. If you had a fan atttached but turned off at night, you would then be able to go active when you are using the computer and noise is less of an issue.

My own systems are water-cooled and are very quiet.

[Gooserider]

I would not put the rad so as to block the airflow through the PSU. The fans in PSU's (especially quiet ones) tend to be low air flow, low static c pressure units. A rad offers considerable airflow resistance so you would end up with not enough airflow to cool the rad, and restricted airflow (and that air being heated) to the PSU making even more of a heat problem.

Best silencing solution is probably to get a low flow PSU w/ a thermal control fan, and duct ambient air into it. Set up a second airflow loop w/ additional high static pressure fans SUCKING ambient temp. air through the rad. The larger the rad, the more effective it will be at cooling, and the more slower / quieter fans you can mount on it. Generally you will be better off with several undervolted 120mm X 38mm fans than you would be w/ fewer smaller and faster fans both for cooling and noise. This second radiator airflow loop can be setup to blow through the case, possibly eliminating the need for an exhaust fan, or (slightly better in theory) ducting back to ambient. (perhaps in an external cooling box) Either way, you will need to do something to ensure that you maintain at least some airflow through the case, or plan on doing LOTS of watercooling. According to Bladerunner of Zerofanzone.com fame, there are LOTS of components that aren't normally considered to be heat problems in a case with even minimal airflow will over heat badly in a case with NO airflow.

Gooserider