question about watercooling

[Clear]

Can anyone answer one or both of these questions for me:

Question 1:
How loud (dB) are the Eheim or Hydor pumps? Every review I read will say their quiet or quiet if set to 7v, but they never give the decible rating or actually go more into detail about the noise.

Question 2:
Can the waterblock design add to the noise? What about the design of the radiator or heatercore, can that add to the noise?

I want to build a water cooling system to make my computer really quiet. So far all the information on the net I can find is performance reviews of popular watercooling kits. A handfull of them might actually mention that a kid is quiet but never mention anything more then that. I have a pretty large full tower case -- Thermaltake Xaser III to be exact, and right now i'm just using the intel stock hsf that came with my P4 2.8-Ghz cpu.

If you have a watercooling kit that you built yourself, would you mind telling me what you got?

Thanks,

- Chris

[shawners]

First building a water cooler for your pc is to make it run faster and have your computer not heat up. I dont think people build them to make them quiet. As far as overclocking with it.

[Krell]

Clear, they do make noise, which seems to be counter productive to sound dampening. Unless you plan to have this self contained in your case, you can put the pump in to a small igloo ice cooler surrounded by foam rubber etc, and you can find them cheap at Goodwill etc. (another mod)

The cooler core you select will lie flat on the floor, and since you will bleed the air out of the system, there will be a nominal amount of kick while running.

Have you gone in to your local aquarium and fish supply store?

.

[Clear]

No I havn't gone to any fish supply stores, not anytime within the last ten years anyway. I do plan to have the pump in my case. Originally I wan planning on just buying a Zalman 7000-cu but when I did more research I found that it only cools about 5 or so degrees better then the intel stock hsf. As of right now, the stock hsf is not doing a good job of keeping my cpu cool. Idle i'm getting around 40*C which isn't that bad I guess, but on max load I get around 75*C. My room gets very hot and there isn't good air circulation, so that is probably effecting the temps quite a bit.

I know the Thermaltake AqurirusII watercooling kit is made to be very quiet, but its not expandible and as far as watercooling goes its one of the weakest. I plan on spending $250-$300 now, and slowly upgrade. I'd like to cool my graphics card, northbridge chip, and even my hard drive. That way everything stays cool and lasts a very long time. But I'm not looking for die-hard extream cooling.

But if watercooling isn't really for me -- cuz after all I don't plan on overclocking -- then I'd probably think about either getting that zalman cooler or a Swiftech MCX467-V Heatsink with a quiet fan like a panflow or vantech stealth fan.

[Krell]

You have a problem inherently, and literally, built in. The cores that fit in to a case are so small, that in a hot room, they dont disipate enough heat. Even if you use a peltier to cool the water, you have to exhaust the heat away from the reverse side of that too.

I would be reluctant to do a watercooled system in phases, I see it being a lot of work .

Yes, you may be correct to consider using Zalman products with large heatsinks and a low rpm 120mm fan to pull air thru the case. You can also use other sound and vibration dampening methods. If you use one of these hefty Zalman beasts, you may want to rig a cable (non conductive) up to the PSU to help support the weight.


http://www.directron.com/smartcool12.html

http://www.directron.com/iso120mm.html

[beardedwonder]

First building a water cooler for your pc is to make it run faster and have your computer not heat up. I dont think people build them to make them quiet. As far as overclocking with it.

With a watercooled system you can eliminate two or three of the noisiest components (CPU fan, Graphics card fan & north bridge cooler) and replace them with one or two quiet fans on a radiator. The pump can be put inside the case on some sort of noise dampening pad, and the radiator can be inside the case and vent air out or can be completely outside the case.

You will find that a lot of people have a water cooled pc to cut down on noise because they want to sleep whilst the pc is on in their room.

[MikeHunt]

Here is a great site that has hardware & software info to help you.

www.subzeropc.com

[Clear]

Yeah thats what I thought, beardedwonder. Oh and MikeHunt, is there any particular item or article at that site you wanted me to look at. I visited it and didn't really find anything relating to watercooling. Although I did find a cool guide on applying thermal paste...lol.

[shawners]

wont the pump itself make noise?? And is all that money worth it when you can plug in a Headphone set and listen to MP3's while surfing the net?? And what if the plastic or something melts and water leaks on the system parts?

[CompuGeek]

Like I told Krell, a paid of headphones will take care of all PC noise problems.

Seriously though, those little refridgerators people use in dorm rooms are pretty quiet, just build a computer inside one of those.

:sw

[MikeHunt]

@ clear...yeah ..let me be more specific
www.subzeropc.com/store/casehd.htm
The SuperDuper fan has a .26db quiet "squirrel" fan. Great cooling specs.
I think this might be the way to go.
Also check the high performance fan section....
some interesting reviews / *articles ...check under navigation ( left side )
* check the articles on Peltiers cooling system as well

[isus]

wont the pump itself make noise?? And is all that money worth it when you can plug in a Headphone set and listen to MP3's while surfing the net?? And what if the plastic or something melts and water leaks on the system parts?

the plastic won't melt... the worst case scenario is something not being fitted properly and you turn on the system, and the pressures cause it to pop off and spray everywhere.

honestly, if you have to ask a question about watercooling, it's better to stick with air than to try to experiment... i'm not saying that to put you down, but if you put much money in your case, and you screw up one tiny thing, the whole thing can go.

[beardedwonder]

Why would the plastic melt if it's a copper/aluminium heatsink that's touching the CPU/GPU/NB??

If you are using de-ionised water there should be no problem as deionised water does not conduct electricity. Thousands of people across the world use water-cooling without any problem. I would say if you are a beginner you may want to opt for a kit. All you need to do is run it outside the computer for 24hrs or so to check for leaks and then put it in the case.

Most watercooling cores use screws to mount them through the 4 holes on the motherboard around the CPU (at least on AMDs anyway) although there are some that clip.

I would find it hard to go to sleep with my headphones on!

PS: If you're looking for ultra-silent fans panaflo are a very good make.

[isus]

unfortunately beardewonder, not many mobo makers still put the mounting holes around the cpu as they used too... it sucks, and i wanna know why they got rid of it.

[Clear]

I have a gigabyte 8knxp motherboard with a p4 2.8, it has mounting holes. As for water leaking, I'm not worried about that. As long as you follow the directions right and don't get a cheap kit, and you leak test it for a good 24 hours then that shouldn't even be a problem. As for water busting out of the hoses, I never even heard of anyone having that problem. So, again, not worried about that.

I don't really see it as a risk to go with watercooling, just more of a hassle setting it up, and expensive. As for why don't I just wear headphones or earplugs. I study in my room and my pc runs 24-7, I don't want to have to wear headphones to get ride of the noise.

Oh and speaking of little refridgerators, lol, I just bought one last week. $20 bucks used at a yard sale. My case is to big though to fit in it. Maybe for a future mod project...lol.