Water cooling or alternative to fan noise?

Myriad_Rocker

New member
I'd like to discuss this or just get people opinions on it. This winter I'm probably going to be building a new computer especially for recording and I want it to be a 3U rack mount. I will have 3 hard drives (one for system, one for sampes, another for recorded audio) and probably just one optical drive, which will be a DVD Rom or burner.

But here's the thing. I want to keep the system very cool so that it runs real smooth and will not have any issues....but I don't want a bunch of fan noise. Am I worrying over nothing? Will it really be an issue? Should I look into water cooling?

Or should I scrap the whole idea of building one and just buy a pre-made rack mount PC from a manufacturer?
 
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Well I've heard water cooling can be pretty loud also. In fact I brought up this exact topic months ago and everyone pretty much said that water cooling was just as loud. I think a couple places make silencing material for pc's. Google it and see what you come up with.
 
Once you outfit your case with quiet fans, the hard drives will be the loudest component, especially with 3 of them. Instead of the trouble of water cooling, I recommend a fanless video card (or get one of those wraparound heat sinks), quiet PSU, quiet fans, gaskets everywhere, a heavy steel case, and this product:

http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showd...acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=48&CATID=6

As you know, it takes mass to absorb sound, and this product is a lot heavier than it looks. Note the total weight of the package at 3 kg!

As an aside, I really recommend a 4u case, gives a lot more internal space for cooling (and foam kits on the lid).
 
Have you considered building some sort of isolation box for the computer or placing it outside your recording space?
 
I have Silenx case fans that are really quiet. The original fans would drown out the all the airplanes flying over my house :D.

CPU fans can be pretty noisy too. If you want something that is really quiet, you're probably going to want a pretty large heat sink on the CPU, so you may want to get a 4U case just for that reason aloan. I have the thermaltake heatsink with a 12cm fan on mine and the thing is huge. Some of the larger heat sinks don't even need a CPU fan, though I haven't used them and you'd still need case fans in a rack mount case.

Larger fans move more air and stay quieter than smaller fans. If you can, find a case with 12cm fans only. They have a MUCH higher air flow to noise ration than smaller fans. Finding a case like that can be difficult though and I can't think of one off the top of my head. But you definitely don't want anything smaller than 8cm, and even that can be too much.

I've never used water cooling before, but I've heard that the radiators tend to make some noise. They're supposed to cool better though, but I've never used water cooling before so I can't confirm that.

I've read about some tower cases that don't need fans and just allow the heat to rise out of the case. It may be worth looking into.
 
I have to agree that water cooling is just as loud/soft as a regular "quite" pc using Zalman fans or what have you, I've got water cooling and it's pretty quite, but now my power supply is the loudest part, I'll be getting a fanless power supply and actally be getting rid of the watercooling in favor of a Zalman CPU fan because I take my PC to record in different venues (my form of moble recording) and watercooling doesn't like to be moved around.
 
I built a PC a year or two ago with Seagate hard drives and a 450w Vantec power supply that has a built in fan blowing into the computer. Both are dead silent. In fact, the first time I powered the computer up I thought it was busted because we couldn't hear it, and this was with the side of the case removed.
 
Seasonic PSU's are the closest to inaudible.

If you don't mind switching to a mid-tower case, the Antec P180 gets really nice reviews on it's ability to deliver silence.
 
I use to run a custom built water cooler in my rig back in the day. Water cooling is usualy for overclocking.

The blocks currently for 64 bit cpus suck balls and the 32 bit the maze3 is the best from www.dangerden.com.

Id reccomend dealing with the noise tho id hate to see you fuck up and a hose come undone and fuck your system over.

The stitilled (cant spell it) water wont fuck up your componets as you might of heard but nearly 10 seconds after it spills on your shit the dust and all that will mix and bam fryed to hell.

You might have seen cases with water cooling in them they are so overpriced and suck a custom system does better but anyhoo id say stick with fans and get some dampening pads for the case or upgrade to a nice lian li case.
 
zappo said:
I use to run a custom built water cooler in my rig back in the day. Water cooling is usualy for overclocking.

The blocks currently for 64 bit cpus suck balls and the 32 bit the maze3 is the best from www.dangerden.com.

Id reccomend dealing with the noise tho id hate to see you fuck up and a hose come undone and fuck your system over.

The stitilled (cant spell it) water wont fuck up your componets as you might of heard but nearly 10 seconds after it spills on your shit the dust and all that will mix and bam fryed to hell.

You might have seen cases with water cooling in them they are so overpriced and suck a custom system does better but anyhoo id say stick with fans and get some dampening pads for the case or upgrade to a nice lian li case.



Wouldn't dampening causing a heat issue? Wouldn't the inside of the computer get too hot? I'd always be worried about my CPU getting too hot.
 
mshilarious said:
...and this product:

http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showd...acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=48&CATID=6

As you know, it takes mass to absorb sound, and this product is a lot heavier than it looks. Note the total weight of the package at 3 kg!

this product does get rid of some of the high frequencies, but a lot of the mids to mid-lows still escape. I bought this exact product awhile back and wasn't all that impressed with it. it may work well if you buy extremely quiet fans and drives first...but don't expect miracles from it. and yes, it is quite heavy...your case will gain a few pounds from it.

I bought this realtively cheap case from Antec and was extremely impressed by how quiet it was. The stock case fan and Power supply are very quiet, I wasn't even sure it was on. Fit it with a nice quiet CPU fan/heatsink and you'll be golden:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0174618
 
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bennychico11 said:
this product does get rid of some of the high frequencies, but a lot of the mids to mid-lows still escape. I bought this exact product awhile back and wasn't all that impressed with it. it may work well if you buy extremely quiet fans and drives first...but don't expect miracles from it. and yes, it is quiet heavy...your case will gain a few pounds from it.

Yes, that's about right. To kill the lows, you need to physically isolate the case so the lows aren't transmitted your furniture, floor, etc.
 
while we're on the topic,
what exactly is a healthy temperature for your CPU and case? I've looked around the net and really can't get a definitive answer.
 
bennychico11 said:
while we're on the topic,
what exactly is a healthy temperature for your CPU and case? I've looked around the net and really can't get a definitive answer.

I try to keep my CPU below 40 and my case about 10 degrees cooler than that (all temps in C). You don't have to really worry about overheating unless your idle temperature is >60 C.

As a side note, never wrap your computer up in foam (like the type used on your bed) and travel in a car for 3 hours, it killed my system drive.
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
Wouldn't dampening causing a heat issue? Wouldn't the inside of the computer get too hot? I'd always be worried about my CPU getting too hot.
cut holes for where the blow out fans are :eek:
 
zalman shit is a ripoff and it sucks

if i knew how to post pics in here i would but i dont so click the hyperlink

bench

Water coolers are not loud at all compared to fans. Water kits are only loud when the pump vibrates which you can fix by putting foam around the pump and it will not make that noise. Then in the hoses the only nose youll get is if you have air bubbles.
 
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