Commercial Water Cooling, And Quiet

Aleaxander writes: "I followed this link about three weeks ago and may have found something I've been looking for for a long time; a way to make my PC's quieter while still keeping my systems cool. A commercially available case that is water cooled, and which according to the above review seems to perform well on the cooling front, while also running quietly? Will I be able to finally stand having an overclocked PC running in the room while I am watching TV, listening to MP3's or simply waiting out a long download while doing something else? I hope so. Anyone who has bought or tested one of these cases should post their impressions, because the specifications listed on their site probably don't tell the whole story (the chart on cooling in the Comparison section that uses a graph from Tom's Hardware, and tags their Ambient Temperature on the bottom scares me)." And really, there's no reason that water-cooled computers should be any more exotic than radiators in cars (well, except for the energy-chuggin' high power use they would imply).

Comments

WHO NEEDS THIS?

[aiken_d]

I RUN A DUAL PROCESSOR DESKTOP WITH 3 HARD DRIVES AND I DON'T SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT . MY SYSTEM IS VERY VERY QUIET. THE WEIRD THING IS THAT EVERYONE I KNOW SEEMS TO TALK REALLY QUIETLY, TOO.

-b

Instead of Exotic, be practical

[krystal_blade]

So many people today simply don't cross over into other areas when they are looking for something.

The best item I've found (I'm not an overclocker, mind you) to quiet hard drives, and CD roms are the following items...

1. Teflon tape. Wrap it around the head of mounting screws. It will act as a "threadlocker" for high RPM CD-Roms (which can loosen the screws through vibration.

2. Thin rubber mat. See above.

3. DynaMat, or another acoustic absorbing material.

In fact, the ultimate way to quiet a PC is to make a "snorkle, over the top side of the PC. Take some sheet tin, available at any hardware store, use a razor blade, and a pair of tin snips, or heavy duty scissors. Leave small fins for mounting it to the back of your PC, line it with DynaMat, and you've just knocked out about 60 to 70 percent of your PC's noise, the cooling fans. Make sure you use a rubber, or teflon washer when mounting it.

Line the inside of the PC with DynaMat, (leave room for vents, of course) and the only sound you'll hear from your PC is when you're swearing at it.

krystal_blade

First Impression

[Papa Legba]

After reading the site and poking at the specs I have some misgivings, some of the specs seemed cooked in their favor to me, for one I noticed that the SCSI hard drive in dual fan case is listed as running at 138 degrees Farenheit, making their HD cooling solution beat it by 34 degrees. The fact is that ALL of my SCSI enclosures run at 125 to 130 degrees. They start to alarm at 130 and warn me of failure. The average is around 127 degrees across about 30 drives. This means that they are beating the HD fan solution by 13 degrees. This also makes me wonder if that is the case since they pushed the higher numeber up did they also push the lower number down, is the total savings closer to 5 or 6 degrees? With this noted, that they are playing with the HD cooling numbers, how many of the other numbers they list are being played with?
With the fact that their solution can only handle 3 devices total this does not make HD cooling overly practical.

I also noticed that their case did not contain any case fans for other circulation, with their solution only providing cooling for three devices (let's pick CPU, Power Supply and one HD) That means you have to air cool the rest. Their case does not seem to have good ariflow, and if I am having to add case fans then I am loosing the quieting fucntionalty that is desired.
this looks like a good idea , and from reading the FAQ they have put some thought into this (especially in the area of condensation) but until they can handle more device off of the pump in the case I think I would personally give this a miss.