Slashdot Mirror
Off-The-Rack Liquid-Cooled PC Case
hummer357 writes: "A Korean company is making a computer case with a nifty liquid-cooling system (for psu, video and processor) that doesn't use any fans or motors. The CalmPC. Here's a review. Maybe this is the thing we have been waiting for ... finally silence on the desktop. Too bad the supplied case is extremely ugly"
If you want something for the higher-end CPUs, Koolance has had a pre-built waterblock tower case for a few months now. Try one of those.
RW
Koolance have been doing this for the past year or so. Their cases look *alright*, but not great :( They have two models, the 'silent' model and the overclockers model. Both are at least "pretty decent." [H]ard OCP have a review of the first one, and I think the overclockers model too.
a couple of days ago.
:o)
I didn't have a problem with the max. of a 1Ghz PIII processor,- this puppy is going in my AV rack, so all I care about is noise. (or lack of)
However, it is but-ugly, and since I saw the same enclosure for sale in the non-Calm-PC version, I had hoped that I could rip out the cooling system and place it in an other enclosure.
Well, it seems to be possible,- the PS has normal dimensions. The rest of the cooling system isn't all that crazy either. BUT, the cooling elements are mounted on the side panel of the enclosure. The thing is that this is a customized side panel. It's about twice as thick as the original one.
This got me a little worried about heat distribution if I mounted the elements on a surface that does not have the same 'body' as this panel. So now I'm thinking, maybe I'll keep the original construction, cut off some of it, and fit the entire thing in an other enclosure.
I had hoped to creat a horizontal enclosure, but I'm worried that cooling system might not work if the elements aren't mounted in the right orientation.
Anyways, waiting for my solid-state disk and CPU to arrive so I can start playing around with it. I'll post my findings.
Looking through the DigiKey catalog, I've noticed that small fans cost anywhere from $10 to $50. Instead of paying extra money for a water-cooled case, why not just buy fans with better bearings, closer tolerances, and whatnot to make them more quiet? I'm sure there are very quiet fans available.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I bought a dual AMD for a while ago. I thought I could make it silent enough, but I'll probably have to sell it now. The noise, although only moderate due to the slowly rotating fans, is still too much even for a daytime working. The hum of two Miprocool CPU fans (80 mm, 1300-3000 rpm and huge heat sink) and a power source was too much even after I padded the case with carpet and soft foam.
The problem is the huge 60+ W power consumption of the processor. Intel's new Tualatin PIII line has only is rated at only 27 W and I've been thinking about building a new machine based on those and Zalman's passive heat sinks. If the passive cooling isn't enough, I'll get a large, slow and silent fan to move the air around a bit.
I own four of these Koolance cases and I can say that they are NOT loud. For one thing, the pump is damn near noiseless unless you physically open the case and put your ear on it. Even then it's more of a vibration than a noise.
The fans on the top are low-RPM ducted fans that are thermostatically controlled. You can set the fans to one of three preset temperature gradients that ramp up fan speed to deal with increased temps. I leave mine on setting 1 (the quietest) and even with four systems in one room the noise doesn't approach even the quietest standard air cooled PC I've ever heard. Although I don't have a noise meter handy, I've got a good deal of experience in dealing with sound levels (I do audio/video work). I'd estimate that the cases produce at best 32dBa of noise.
Sure, no fans and no moving parts is nirvana, but for heavy duty systems (all of mine are dual Athlon 1800+ XP's) the heat load will overwhelm passive cooling. I give the Koolance cases 3 out of 4 stars for the overall engineering.
Cons? Well, to start with, the waterblocks they supply are far too fragile. The polycarbonate top portion cracks very easily and overenthusiastic hose clamping will crack it in a heartbeat. I've broken three of them so far (out of 8), all replaced with much better sub-mini copper blocks obtained from Chip at www.overclock-watercool.com. The original rev1 Koolance cases came with all copper blocks that were bulletproof, I wish they'd switch back.
BTW, my 1800+ dual systems running 3D Studio Max 4 rendering like mad (and running distributed.net clients) heat the water temps up to 92F in a 72F ambient air temp room. I think the best possible air cooling you're ever going to find (even with a screaming 7000RPM Delta fan) couldn't hope to cool one of these puppies down below 100F. In fact, most of them can't keep 'em below 110F.
Give Koolance a try, your ears will thank you. Just go easy on the hose clamps and you'll be just fine.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The liquid cooling system mentioned in this article doesn't use a pump, read the article and visit the site :).
An electric motor with good bearings and clean (sinusoidal) power is virtually silent. The noise a fan makes depends almost entirely on how fast the tips of the blades are moving.