Silent Cheaply.
System Specs:
p4 2.8e/800/1mb
msi platinum 865pe
1gb kingston, dual channel
wd 80 gb (JB)
Ati Radeon 9550se
300w antec slk2600AMB case
Fans: 3 total
psu fan monitored on board
one zalman on its resistor, throttling from cpu fan plugin, via speedfan,pwm
one cooler master "ultra silent" up front (system temp refused to go where I wanted without it)

Evercool ductwork, thermalright xp-90 heatsink, arctic silver compound.
reverse cpu cooling. Very effective.

Woops forgot link to photo!
http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=custcool0095xs.jpg

[Fixed. BTW, Image Shack provides two different thumbnail codes, and one of them works -- just copy and paste it! Mod]

hi, interesting. could you tell us about your temps? i'm especially interested in the influence of that duct on the temps.

Certainly:
Upon testing (the 2.8e is tricky due to the 2 cores)
The highest temperature reached for cpu was 132 F(never went to that again yet, 127 to 123 seems to be gaming temp, I could assume it was the initial burn-in). The same attempt with copper cool heatsink by Intel ,was impossible (started losing) @ 145 F +/- a few.
The test brought the system to 83 processes running, 29196 handles 1136 threads and 1.24 GB of ram.Tasks were listed in windows xp task manager. Cpu Burn-in was only one of the programs running.
The system dramatically dropped 15F just @ idle, 102F seems to be average, over the OEM setup I was going to attempt.108 is highest I have seen system since this setup, and hard drive is *always* in low-mid 80's F.
The reviews for heatsink that is in it , I read here, and made up my mind to purchase because of it.
Thank You for great article! It cooled a HOT one
-Barry

thank you. calculating now...

so a temp-drop of about 9 degrees celsius for the cpu. and a harddrive running at 27 C.

Here is some better statistics simply written:
IDLE:
103F/40C CPU
99F/37C System
84F/29C Hdd
I can go lower with these temps, but noticed a common delay when you come off of screensaver/monitor off to on and gaming or "slamming" iexplore around quickly getting to the net, etc. when temps are low. Throttling fan rpm goes up when cpu hits 105F , a blunt jump to a smaller fan, just a whirl to 80mm , intentionally, due to the highly reactive response this cpu climbs in temp(I even thought heatsink wasn't seated properly, and it checked out good.)
WORK:
127F cpu
104 system
84 hdd <- Does not budge temp!
I liked this setup enough to search for "wide" mini-atx cases that take a full atx , with an 80mm outlet ,For future setups.

http://img115.imageshack.us/my.php?image=custcoolside6to.jpg

This is side panel I forgot to mention. Riveted aluminum sheet, some foam. left opening in-line with vga passive heatsink. Only flaw (to me) with this whole Antec case, was the large side dust gathering vent.

Upon a strange event with temperatures and no volt regulation, I went back to core cell software this board utilizes. It is a good thing I did! (Even tho the overclock options aren't for me) Speed Fan now uninstalled.

Volt regulation immediately took place, a very slow curve barely hits 120F cpu full load and system seems to stay at low 100 F. Cpu fan is now the coolermaster at 1400 rpm (low 1200 to 1491 rpm for full load). 2100 rpm fan up front on Zalman rc 56 resistor (1100 rpm constant) PSU varies the most from 1200 to 1800 rpm (very good setup with antec OEM!). Extremely Quiet.....My 8th pc, and it is the quietest (and biggest ironically).

Now here's my "flame" for Antec!
Where is the "new" 300 smart power and 80mm case fan and case by Antec.. More welcome than ever, and all I find is an extreme 120mm setup with *huge* psu's meant for .23 micron power hungry lunatic going into non-existence , Are they stuck in a flim-flamming time warp or what?! .. What Ashame!
I'd stack 2 satas, 2 patas, cdrw, cd-rom ,4gb of ram on a p4 extreme, full-ATX and a crazy hot vid card with this very 300 watt smart power.(and keeping cool quietly I might add)
Can I call them "jackasses" without offending?

Again, I ran into 135-140F CPU temp (nasa worldWind for 30 minutes+). So here is cure if anyone is interested (what a precise chore this has become!!):
the cpu was a coolermaster ultra silent @1400rpm (regulated 300 important rpm). Now upgraded CPU fan to a nexus silent @ 1500 rpm (regulates the same, if not more). Now the front fan is the cm ultra silent.
It is this close to getting it exactly correct. 100rpm+ faster than cooler master by nexus dropped it that much more to no hindering of performance. When fans heat up, they got up to 1000rpm beyond what they are rated.
Now this should complete my home-building project. Hope this post helps...

My area to live is in warm spring now, and outside lines for power are ragin again...
Found my old post , the custom cooling is working great. The volts for everything have become precise, the CPU thermistor is giving a false reading, so, by the back of my hand and knowing the pc, it is trusted. This 2.8e has a very low hangin resistor that may damn near hit the thermistor. Any suggestions for very accurate cpu temp without taking up a bay? It is not really needed , but would erase all doubts on my largest and hottest most silent pc yet.

After about 12 weeks, the custom cooling is great. I never find updates for these aftermarket parts and I want to keep you posted with much more than a o/c for 5 minutes and declaring something good.
here is quick review (to avoid searching post)
ad-02 duct work, for 8cm (80mm fan)
antec slk2600amb box
I found this version antec case hacked and ridiculously detroyed judgmentally prejudiced against by a popular oc group-- I am on second mb and 6 years with same unhacked box, "cool as a cucumber" on 300 watts and a hungry large full atx with a 2.8e prescott cpu. I hardly ever recommend the past for electronics, but the past few years and what is deemed evolution has me frowning. I recommened this setup to anyone.
here is photo of my 3 fanned silent system

Still going silently since my first post of mar1 2006. I haven't had to clean dust out yet for the first 6 months so far- it is still quite clean!
I have not had to reinstall or had overheats. The loudest thing in my office is me smacking the keyboard with my fingers. I have to check the power lights to know my pc is running.
The 2.8e seems to be getting better as I go along, one of the hotter cpus, and still by far the most contnetly quiet setup I have ever run.
I will not hesitate to ignore popular reviews upon my own fact finding. This setup has proven it to me yet again. HL2 is incredible to look at and play- all summer long. not a hint of a problem or slow down.I have made some videos, etc etc. I used audacity for some music chores as well. Very nice with aftermarket stuff. Don't hesitate to doubt oem- and make it even better.

I thought to take cover off for fall cleaning- been 7 months.

photo is 7 months untouched- just cover taken off.

It has been running every day, sometimes for several days. Temps/volts are great. All I did was blow dust off of outside of case and clean it. Left the inside alone, except for the front fan - which was still quite good/freeflowing. I can't even begin to tell you what this silent pc does for my head, as well as itself- including noticable less consumption. Thermalright xp90 is a winner!

I would be concerned about restrictive air flow within the case. The only paths for air to travel out of your case are through the PS and through the CPU heatsink and duct. Both flow paths are quite restrictive, which will reduce the volumetric flow rate of air through your case. Watch the motherboard temps during long duration use. I wouldn't be surprised if your case temps are quite high.

Adding acoustic foam to the side panels of your case may contribute to heat retention within the case. Those foams are typically pretty decent thermal insulators relative to your aluminum case.

I do like your thoughtful approach to providing active cooling to the CPU and case ventilation from a single quiet (Nexus) fan. Nice work!

Another update...
It is going on a year, I humored to take the cover off to check on things in September. Still running , dare I say, Perfect (my best ever since I began in 98) The box as stubborn as an antec is, is helping things along as a better heatsink than where it began. The cpu fan is down to 1000 and even into the 900s rpm- while working.. No concerns at all.Quieter than ever. In for the long haul hopefully...
Maybe I'll come back in two years on this very machine to help feed the true facts about what cooling without the crazy half dozen fans and 500 watts of power can do.
I am ready now for a friendly wager on how far this silent pc will go...
"They coulda woulda shoulda," and DIDN'T build to silent potential.My best pc yet and it has nothing I can buy all built to this day...
This forum is great, still checking in on the articles and news, etc.
My other custom build with a forgotten casetronic 4117 all aluminum case is doing great too, on 2 zalman resistors, running a p4 and gaming,again the box became a heatsink, power recycler/saver. Maybe post that one and its full year update as well.[/u]

Lo and behold I racked up 19241 hours on the hard drive. speed fan still claims well below max temps and fitness is 90%. the temp average was 31 C. (87 degrees F). Claims 708 stop/starts, and it coincides with a few several day runs I let it have.I found several errors software related as I lazilly went about daily routine that really had an impact on idle temps (had no clue for months, until I checked by chance). Back to full speed ahead.Still just one cleaning, and it is very quiet with a sense of many hours to go...
My luckiest greatest setup yet,
I said I would keep after this here as a report, I hope to come back after i finally kill this unlikely super quiet beast and my custom setup and tell you all about it.

My daily routines many time involve heavy encoding from raw video format, and it is still fast, calm and blip free vid makin...

hey it is a complete year number 2. Had the cover off after a 16 foot snowfalling record breaking winter (loving the spring time power surges right now). figured I would get it back to spotless and I modified the duct work base to cpu to be all aluminum instead of the plastic base (redundant piece, I do not know exactly why I left it) I made this piece, the rest is all "store bought".
I also took a dive into mpeg2 vids at 10mbit recently, does very good, nothing 2 mention as it poutputs from ulead video studio. I also make my own amateur graphics and made a bad one just last evening causing a reboot. (woops, I said I was amateur) the point being, the system went to 116, and kept running, with my bad graphic compile. Wrote a dump file, and silently up and running agian.

HDD== 11341 hours (the same age as the pc) 870 starts and stops, 13.94hours a day since new.

And a sata2 400gb is on the way, I may take the pata out forever....
(its been a great decade with pata but the numbers can't be denied sata==evolution)

oh god, i love this thread! Like a document of time
I almost feel like im screwing it up by commenting! (but have to, just to get the "Notify me when a reply is posted")

But I agree sata IS evolution! I would take the time and clean up the cables in the case at the same time when the new HDD arives.

What kind of video encoding have you done with 80gb HDD and 1gb RAM?

Interesting thread Kinda surprising to see that computers indeed can work for years untouched... Makes sense, but I just tend to change my hardware three times during that period.

I had a P3 800 MHz rig running for a year. At start I was pretty paranoid about leaving it running alone, but even after a year it had never even crashed (let alone burst into flames). Shame the HDD was so loud I eventually shut it down and got my shell from elsewhere.

I forgot to post before and after pics of cleaning stats


Like Day One. Only better.

I learned awhile back to drench my ati vid card in scalding water, take off the northbridge heatsink and put some arctic silver thermal compound, and do the same drenching for the xp90. I am looking forward to lower volts of sata....
See ya in the fall for next update.

waddyaknow, it does work. Added the accelero to the 2600pro AGP.

I had to make a stud type setup, with tinsnips, a drill, a small bit of grinding, alot of bending.
The studs are longer and bigger in diameter (3mm), and I had to keep the original backside of the vid card cooler (which is now sitting less than perfect, but has temps going lower than OEM) due to the pciE conversion chip (hot little bugger) So far so good. It seems to have gained response with that little buzzing fan gone (power gain?)
I had to remove the back plastic of the accelero due to it not fitting on the motherboard clearances, other than that, all is good.

The problem with memory heatsinks not sticking is a 3m mystery (as usual) I just stuck them on there, ran an open gl test windowed, and could smell the adhesive... kept the box open until odor went away.so now assuming it is welded to the bottom side chips.
I added one extra zip tie (lime bright green in photo) to be sure it stays stable. The trickiest part of this is learning that to cool the gpu, is not pressure, it is a matter of touch, alignment and heatsink, pressureless (what a precise headache to put together)

If I do not kill it soon, 12000 hours is climbing up. Will update in the future.

I haven't forgotten this thread!
Now at over 15150 hours
1077 stops and starts, and 1057 power cycles. The new drive allready has over 3000 hours. Time slips by...


Not much to do except be lazy with the pc. No problems since last update, except for monitor cleaning (eww). that deserves a thread on its own with possibly 100k hours gone by.Custom ductwork painted with rustoleum and primer (not from a spray can) I caught a bizarre phenomona in action between something and something, as it is aluminum I painted it thoroughly. The psu was taken apart to be cleaned, still the original and does have a warm breeze at all times with the stuff added.


I am not excited about upgrades, and the hd video processing software is right at home. Next update in the spring

Winter 2009



17435 hours.

forgot the winter update, when this month the build began 3 years ago.

I have since climbed to 3gb in ram
painted the hom made duct, made my own 92mm fan out of a zalman and nidec to keep big air 2600rpm.

Thebiggest upgrade was the 3400mhz cpu (HT prescott)

and the bigger of the biggest upgrade has been windows vista premium. (Very nice BTW). DX10 is here...

and lastly the bigger of the biggest of the biggest upgrade has been the earthwatts 380. The 2.3 pci standard is indeed doing something clever. The vid car has a real plugin for its unique pci-e architecture in an agp slot, and i found the antec sl300 psu had a burn mark at the 12v cpu plugin (yikes!) Swapping out was a good call...

No errors, a bit warmer, but top temp is the same as the 2.8e that was in it, that was fixed by my home made cooling to match it.

After these upgrades, I had to run my home made benchmark


even with the Vista "hogging" 805mb of ram, my script went two minutes faster. It simply makes powerball lottery numbers, checks for dupes, sorts and writes. The script really takes to hyper threading in the searches. Vista is doing something much larger and respecting it better than xp home. (heap management I believe is the correct words for that)
If the photo should disappear (as long as photobucket is up, my picture is) the info reads: 992638 non-duped in 8 min 25.2109999 secs

it simply makes lottery numbers. Use of threading in the language, is similar to cores, but not certain. I have this one using over 50% cpu, so it did find something extra threading. I look forward to trying it on i7 (my next system)


Now, I can mention: Next update in Spring.

waddya know, I made it to 3 years. here is some stats via the original hdd and hdtune:



Sadly my mv700 monitor, with a cost of 550 dollars in 1998 has passed away. No more cleanings, no more tap the statics out...it has died after over 100k hours and all the tortures I have put it through. It watched some famous news since 1998, americas first black president, first hd on the web, the birth of many video sites, and fed my disability with perfect vision. So what did I do? I browsed the salvation army and found an unused mv730i CRT also by compaq for four dollars. This particular model was 1 year newer than mine. The odss of finding as new as I did are phenomonal. That one is starting off new at 10 years old. If some remember the computer market crashes of 1999-2000 (including compaq), it is easy to know that what I purchased is all too possible. Meanwhile, the hours continue, next update in the summer...and my birthday has added another year since last update, I am now 36 with a stubborn first gray hair.

Wow... That's... impressive. 100K torture... You've really have chosen parts well with luck ^^

It really did end up being a bit of luck with the monitor. 7 video cards that I can remember,a 233 mhz, an athlon 900, several pentium fours, p2 350, and I even let a neighbor use it to test his own machines. 4 different addresses (houses, different powers and circuits) a lightning strike with no ups in 2000 struck the building it was in, amazing durability. and the biggest (the current dx 10 ) vidcard, I knew something was not going to make it. 11 years ago when I bought it, I also got a book about the history of computing. My faith stayed with the crt, long after the lcd came out, as the crt is part of the very engineering that helped disperse cpu mhz physics from the very beginning of modern computing as we know it.


The current monitor has larger heatsinks, very much undertands many colors, and it still runs on my 12v ups by battery (my whole machine including the internet modem stays running on a 500va ups!) also it is much much cooler than the mv700. If you have a card that is in the 9550se ati range of gpu chips, and smaller,it is still a masterpiece. After that, it is outdone.

I may post before summer, I want the 20k hours in a post. Right now the machine is showing 19791 hours. not far to go. I may let it run until then...

Hey the pc made it to 20k. Enough to make mom proud. maybe.

mother's day, 12:03 pm.




26th post here is a recap of system
Cpu: 3.4ghz prescott HT
ram: kingston 3gb, coolers (ebay cheap)
vid card: ati 2600 pro AGP, accelero cutomed to fit snug
fans: case/cpu: custom hybrid
front fan: 1400 rpm 80mm
pc case: antec 2600 amb
power supply: earthwatts 380
lan card: netgear cheap
cpu heatsink: xp90, slightly strengthened
cpu cool: case fan 92 mm, custom reverse duct, aluminum, pained with automotive
HDD: wd800jb IDE twins
antec cobra ide cable, grounded
A memorex dvd burner is on the way to replace the nu-global 8x (once upon a time the fastest dvd writer on planet earth)

Looking forward to a few more hours. 3 fans in all, runs excellent thermally.

cool cpu duct there, looks nice (y)

I wasn't for looks at first, but realized I did something nonchalantly powerful in the cooling department. It has about 30 rivets, doubled at the base of cpu, and taken out and put back in more than several times to get exacts. it was worth it.

this post is an update with the free dimaond ic7 thermal paste.

the idle is approx 4 degrees stable lower
the full temp is almost 20 degrees lower, and I let the machine do a difficult vid filter for 5 hours (encoding with sound, 10mbit mpeg2 to h.264). the soapstone effect is exactly as planned and it lasted for almost an hour afterwards. i found I was opening my window in the middle of the cool night, the pc heated the room. It is working better no doubt.The path of air was all warm with the duct. Hours are at
20325

next update summer time...

it has only been a month since my last post, added one for the diamond ic7 test. It has been good, better than what I was using.



I took a blurry photo, but it is the updated duct, now seeming very hardened (anodized?) with auto paint on for several months now.
last night popped a breaker on the ups...right at solstice (145am) kinda freaky...
the hours are at 20807.
next update, the fall.

differences noticed since ic7 last month, is volts for 12v are high at 11.78v. the cpu hangs onto 1.3v longer, and my 3.4v is a 3.41 at all times. the compound did fulfill yet another hunch about loss through heatsinks...altho this year is the first summer with earthwatts and 3400mhz, could be the way it goes into summer for I know. the ic7 is more resistant apparently. Last evening got a 5 hour encode in a humid environment, and it stays 10-15F cooler than last compound, same chores....
no post until fall.