Unlike a Hurricane: IFX14 and ducted Kama Bay in Antec Solo

maf718 · Post by **maf718** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:38 pm

Hi, my name is Maf and I am a PC silencer.

My story is a familiar one; many years ago I realised my PC was too loud and whilst trying to solve the problem I stumbled upon this website: silentpcreview.com, I think you know the place. I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was back in the days even before the 80mm fan roundup was published.

I guess I went through a similar apprenticeship of silencing as many here, at first I replaced some fans with quieter versions and when that wasn't enough I moved on to fan controllers to limit the rpm, and flanges and grommets to limit the vibration. I tried to find out which hard drives were the quietest. But still it wasn't enough: I could hear my PC when I was trying to listen to music quietly late at night and at other times when ambient noise was low. I needed more help.

At some point in the process I went from simply visiting the SPCR site to browsing the forums, but did not officially join the forum till earlier this year.

Eventually I came to realise that my thin Aluminium case was inherantly resonant and a big cause of my noise, and so a couple of years ago I replaced it with the Antec Solo. It was a big improvement. Since then I have been refining my system irregularly with new fans and hard drives etc.

Recently I had to replace my PSU so I took the opportunity to remove the motherboard for cleaning and replace the cpu heatsink (my old one used pushpins but the new one needed a backplate). At the same time I decided to take some pictures of my system and I will display them here for the benefit of any SPCRers who might be interested.

A general picture of my system:

My current specs:
Intel E2140 @ 2.8 ghz @ stock volts with speedstep working properly
Gigabyte P35C- DS3R motherboard
4 GB OCZ gold 800mhz RAM (2x2GB)
Palit Radeon 4670 with fan replaced by 80mm Panaflo
Corsair CX400 power supply
Thermalright IFX14 cpu cooler
Hard disk drives:
WD 640BG blue(AAKS) (system partition plus backups)
Samsung HD501LJ 500GB (documents)
Seagate 7200.10 250GB slim (scratch partition and games partition)
Fans:
Scythe PWM 92mm front mounted controlled by BIOS (400-1300rpm)
Scythe Kama Flex 92mm front mounted controlled by fanmate (900rpm)
Scythe Slipstream mid mounted (5v ~ 740rpm)
Scythe Slipstream rear mounted controlled by BIOS via CPU header (600-1100rpm)

Where my Solo deviates from standard the most is in the mid-mounted 120mm fan ducted to a Kama Bay at the front. I first decided to use a fan here when I realised my old PSU had vents expelling hot air in this area between the PSU and the optical drive, with nowhere for the heat to go in a low turbulence, low airflow, negative pressure setup. I have a new power supply now but I prefer positive pressure from a dust management perspective and I am running my CPU cooler passive so this is a big help. The fan is mounted in foam at the rear of the 5.25 bays under the single optical drive:

Because of all the holes in the metalwork I realised I would need a duct to supply fresh and cool exterior air to the fan for best performance. Using the Kama Bay, the drive rails from the Solo and some cardboard I constructed this unit:

At first I secured it with electrical tape but once I was sure of its fit and function I strengthened all the joints with flexible glue.

Luckily the stops for the drive rails are exactly one inch from the interior end of the drive bay, so can also act as stops for the fan mount foam. The duct and the fan meet very closely but it is impossible for one to contact or interfere with the other, note the three folded metal tabs in this picture:

A view of the mid-mounted Scythe Slipstream from inside the computer:

The other cooling at the front and the HDDs:

A view of the Kama Bay installed but the front of the PC still open. In case you were wondering the green strips are the backing on 1mm thick double sided tape I installed on the sides of the Kama Bay to make it fill its space more fully. (This is the only criticism I could genuinely level at the Kama Bay; it should be 2mm taller and 3mm wider) You cannot see the green from outside the case.

At the same time as installing my new Corsair CX400 power supply I upgraded my CPU heatsink to the Thermalright IFX14. This is a large heatsink, weighing 860g, with two stacks of fins and four large heatpipes. It has relatively tightly packed fins so on the face of it would not seem ideal for low airflow cooling. However at xbitlabs it beat the HR01 in a head to head passive cooling contest so I figured it must have some potential.The name stands for Inferno Fire eXtinguisher which if I am perfectly honest is a bit shite. I was planning on installing it in the "normal" orientation, even though it was going to be run without a fan, but I was prevented from doing so by the "fat" part of the crossbar in the top left of the following picture:

It also comes with a "backside heatsink" which is an even worse name: most people in my neighbourhood would punch me if I told them I was preparing to mount their backside heatsink. Here is a picture, but keep it quiet:

Luckily the two stacks of heatsink fins line up perfectly so that the hub of the rear Slipstream fan, and thus the dead spot for airflow, is exactly between the two stacks:

I never thought I would say this about a PC component, but the patterns the fins of this heatsink make are strangely beautiful, they remind me of ocean waves and other natural patterns, but not flames as I presume the manufacturer intended. There is about 3mm clearance between the edges of the fins and the rear fan:

The graphics card is a Palit Radeon HD4670. I would have put an Accelero S2 cooler on it but that would have interfered with the VGA socket on the second level of the backplate, which I am using, so I slapped an 80mm Panaflo fan on instead, running it off the VGA fan header. The nominal speed of the fan is 2000 rpm and if I leave the fan speed at auto it runs 27% idle and 56% full load, more than enough to keep the card cool and probably about 1100 rpm load, 550rpm idle.

The graphics card installed in the system:

Forgive the SATA tagliatelle, it is made worse by two cables going to the eSATA backplate. I am sure some Cable Nazis might still be able to make some comparison to a disastrous Giant Squid attack.

And finally here is a picture of my PC back on my desk, as you can see it lives a couple of feet away from my head:

I have high standards when it comes to noise and I can honestly say my PC is not silent (It has three HDDs for a start and I am sure they make the majority of the idle noise) but is quiet and emits no noises that I consider objectionable or annoying. My house is normally very quiet, but as soon as there is any ambient noise at all I cannot hear my computer. Here is a Speedfan readout of fanspeeds and temps etc at idle/internet surfing levels:

The full load temps are about 50C on the cores after a couple of hours of Orthos which is not bad for a (semi) passive heatsink.

If anyone has any comments, suggestions or questions or even any criticisms please post them. I am sure I have missed out something that people wish to know, so feel free to ask.

Take care, quietly

roilev · Post by **roilev** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:44 am

It's a good build, Maf, congratulations.
And that's a huge CPU cooler there, it takes half of your case! No wonder you can run it passive.

I see you put a 12cm fan below the DVD, I've done it like this too, and it helps cooling the CPU and PSU. But I think you run it too fast, at 800rpm it is still audible, and the noise has direct escape path towards you.
Have you tried running the front fans slower, your system is over ventilated at idle?
But if you reached the sound level of the hard drives, you can't go lower. They are suspended on elastic, right?
I managed to leave only the hard disk spinning sound, but it is more obtrusive, probably because it is a single frequency, than the white noise the fans make - so I ramped up my fans, to reach and partially mask the hard disk sound.
You can probably go down on noise only if you put the case below your desk.
But it is a beauty to behold on its own

P.S. I don't like the ventilating holes above the slots, it is only cold air that escapes there. Or worse, hot air coming back in (but you have positive pressure inside). I have taped all the holes without a fan on them, on my case, and the temperatures went down a bit. You can see it few topics below yours.

Ed. Have you glued the Panaflo on the VGA sink? At first I thought it is sitting on the bottom PCI card (TV Tuner?)
I still think it is too close to it, can you swap the card with the eSATA, so the fan can have more breathing room.
The fan can spin slower at idle too, you are overcooling the VGA card too.

sanse · Post by **sanse** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:08 am

cool setup. i like the fan midship. normally the right-top area of the motherboard is waaay undercooled in a solo. a design flaw imho.

what is that 'backside' heatsink cooling? where is it attached too?

you don't want to know what 'maf' means in dutch.

maf718 · Post by **maf718** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:28 am

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments and will answer your questions.

The mid/front fan is already running at 5volts and I don't have any way of slowing it to a lower speed than its current 740rpm. A Slipstream is pretty quiet at this speed and the filter material in the Kama Bay also helps to prevent the noise reaching my ears. I also want to maintain a slight positive pressure in the case to help against dust. I taped up all small holes on the bottom of the case but left some open grill space at the back in the hope the video card heat could exhaust there.

The hard drives are suspended in elastic - all I can hear from them is a sort of low pitch motor noise, which I can easily tune out, the seeks are essentially inaudible.

As for putting the PC under the desk, this is already my plan but I need to build a new desk to allow it and I keep postponing it.

The Panaflo on the graphics card is stuck on with some double sided tape that is about 1mm thick and usually used for fixing trim onto cars. You cannot tell from the angle in the pictures but there is a one inch gap between the fan and the TV tuner card below it, I think this is enough for airflow. When I used CCC to slow down the Panaflo to 20% I could not hear a difference from 27% so I left it on auto. (at 20% fixed speed Furmark heats the VGA up to 84c, which is still ok but cooler is better)

Sanse, I agree about the possible design flaw of the Solo, otherwise it is the perfect case.

I forgot to explain about attaching the "backside" heatsink. The two flattened heatpipes run in an L shape to the rear of the CPU socket where they are joined to a plate that is sandwiched in the mounting mechanism for the main heatsink. In reviews at hardware sites it is reckoned to help with CPU temperature by about 1-2 degrees. In my experience it probably has a greater impact on motherboard temperatures; my system temp in Speedfan has gone down about 7 degrees but I can't be sure how much of this is due to the backside cooler. (btw I think it has a Thermalright codename like Hxx etc, but I don't know what it is)

Now all the Dutch people are going to be laughing at me, and I don't even know why. Great!

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:51 pm

I just got a big case of hardware envy, no matter the (questionable in some eyes - but function before form) cable job..

maf718 · Post by **maf718** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:50 pm

Hardware envy from Wibla? That is impossible judging by your systems....or is it just the IFX-14 catching your eye?

And the cable job is definitely function over form but I may return to tidy it up one day; as Mies van der Rohe said "God is in the details".

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:40 am

I've been wanting to do what you did there with the kama bay and a fan for a while, but i always forget to order one, actually just (30 minutes ago) ordered a replacement 1TB drive for the monster, and forgot about the kama bay again. Feh...