Silence Thy Self

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
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Joined
May 18, 1997
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Zalman passively cooled computer cases do not come on the cheap. And they are not easy to find either, but at over a cool $1000 you have to wonder if you can do a better job at home. The crew at Metku Mods puts their best Dremel forward in an attempt to build the passively cooled computer.

It might not have been worth it, but it sure was weird watching the computer boot up with no sound at all.
Click to expand...
 
That case is sweet looking, but a cool grand??! Good read overall on the silent case mod.
 
Radiators are so yesterday...it might cool great, but it's got nothing in the looks department IMO.
 
He got it working, it would just randomly crash due to a faulty motherboard. Of course, he had problems with the PSU, too. But it is/was working.
 
The way I read it he never had it stable for long. Oh well.

Interesting concept, so so great an implementation.
 
I loved the article and the execution was well done. Too bad he was using crappy PSU's and a damaged mobo. And as for looks, it's not that bad. I wish he put some kind of cost to it.
 
25kg.. that's 55 pounds.. pretty heavy case there
 
To be honest, I need a bit of computer noise. I sleep better with it (while it's folding, of course ^^)
 
Just imagine if you built a case like that around a single 120mm or 200mm fan at the bottom; even with a very low voltage, you could likely use less than half of the radiator mass. Yes, then it wouldn't be noiseless, but it would be close enough for most folks seeking silence plus be cheaper and lighter.
 
It definitely conveys why the manufactured variants cost so much. That's ridiculous amounts of soon to be precious metals :) + the labor to get it right = most expensive case possible.
 
I can't wait until I can get my PC completely silent. As it stands I use nothing but 17db-19db fans and a sound insulated case. The only thing that stands out are my 8800GT cards in SLI, and even then it isn't very much. I would love it if I could get absolutely dead silent like my iMac and this Zalman case would get me a long way there, but the review has me leery. $1000 and no guarantees of stability? Eh.
 
An easy way to get silence while using your PC is to put it in another room. I played with a bunch of different options but there was always some degree of compromise. Finally I ordered 50' DVI and USB cable and put my PC in a spare room and shut the door. Perfect silence and I can cool the PC however I want.
 
rabident said:
An easy way to get silence while using your PC is to put it in another room. I played with a bunch of different options but there was always some degree of compromise. Finally I ordered 50' DVI and USB cable and put my PC in a spare room and shut the door. Perfect silence and I can cool the PC however I want.
Click to expand...

When I eventually build a house I will have a closet for the PC and networking. While I'm in my condo I guess I'll have to deal with it sitting in my office. :)
 
Term-X said:
To be honest, I need a bit of computer noise. I sleep better with it (while it's folding, of course ^^)
Click to expand...

Strange... me to, I have been around running equipment for the last 15 years that I "need" them in the background or it is "wrong"
 
A few years ago I saw someone perform a mod that held great promise for completely silent cooling. The site has long ago become nearly impossible to find, and I've lost the link myself, but the modder used water convection instead of air.

He bought a baseboard radiator at his local home improvement store, and chopped it into three or four sections. He then arranged all the parts so that the heat producers were near the bottom of one side of the loop and the radiators were near the top on the other side, like so:
Code: 
    +---+
    |   =
    |   = (radiator)
    |   =
    |   |
    |   |
CPU X   |
    +---+

The water on the bottom left would get warm, go up the tubing to the top, and would get cooled as it passed through the radiator. Cooler water is slightly more dense than warm water, so the water on the cool side would move down.

The original mod cooled the CPU and PSU--the modder made custom waterblocks for the PSU out of copper plate, copper tube, using a table saw. With some tweaking, the system worked quite well. Unfortunately, the northbridge, which no longer had any airflow, got too hot, so the modder had to add a slow-moving fan to push air across it.

The density of water only changes about 1% between 40C and 60C, so the force pushing the water around the loop is pretty minuscule. It was enough, though, and I've always wanted to do it ever since then.
 
Should've used solid state disk to be *completely* silent
 
I know [H] did a review on a completely silent PSU not too long ago, but I cannot find the article. This guy should have used that one instead. :p
 
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