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n3wb watercooling question about noise level.

purbeast0

purbeast0

No Lifer
i know watercooling systems also have fans, usually on the radiator.

my main reason for even thinking about water cooling is just to quiet my computer down. it is pretty close to my tv and i would like to just keep it as quiet as possible so it doesn't have that white noise when watching my tv.

my question is, how much more quiet are the fans on the radiator than the typical 80cm fans. i currently have some whisper fans in my PC but they still give off a sound. i also have the whisper series PSU by enermax in mine that has the fan speed control, and that is pretty quiet when turned down all the way. i just want to know how quiet water cooling actually is.
 
The main noise from watercooling is from the vibration of the pump. That can get annoying and it may be tricky to mount it so that there is no noise from the vibration. Other sources of noise are the hard drives, which become very noticable in a watercooled comp, and the noise from the internal workings of the pump. These can be alleviated through noise damping material packaged around the sources of noise or creative mounting. You can get a perfectly quiet fan cooled system by going all 120s. Eliminate all of your 80s and it should be silent save for the drives.
 
I think air cooling is still the better option, and 80mm fans work just fine, every fan in my case is 80mm and my system is ridiculously quiet.

Water cooling can be very quiet but you?ll end up spending $200+ to get there.
 
Originally posted by: Operandi
I think air cooling is still the better option, and 80mm fans work just fine, every fan in my case is 80mm and my system is ridiculously quiet.

Water cooling can be very quiet but you?ll end up spending $200+ to get there.
Click to expand...

what kind of 80mm fans do you have? i'm not going to be doing any over clocking or anything. i currently have some kind of quiet fans (i forget the actual name of them now) but they still make more noise than i would like, if its possible to make it quieter w/fans.
 
Casually looking at some water-cooling equipment, I found many radiators which took a 120mm fan. That sort of fan would be quiet to begin with, have higher throughput, and there are some excellent choices "out there" that would only increase the noise of "AC draft".

If it vibrates, you can insulate its mountings from the case. The case is like a sound-board on a musical instrument, and sound bounces around inside a case in addition to the case transmitting vibrations of anything anchored to it.

Operandi has his own preferences and I'm sure his fans are very quiet, but I'd like to get rid of every 80mm fan in every computer case I own. Unfortunately, the 80mm size is used in just about every PSU I've ever seen, so I have to live with at least one per PC.

I don't even want to use 92mm fans anymore if I can help it. I'm going to disassemble my machine after Xmas -- put everything in anti-static wrap for a couple days, and make my rear case-panel 120mm-fan-compatible.

[What a pain in da tucas. Mashuginah. My great sufferingk.]
 
Water cooling can be very quiet but you?ll end up spending $200+ to get there.
[/quote]

what kind of 80mm fans do you have? i'm not going to be doing any over clocking or anything. i currently have some kind of quiet fans (i forget the actual name of them now) but they still make more noise than i would like, if its possible to make it quieter w/fans.[/quote]

I have 3 80mm Panaflow L1A?s running at 60% with cases temp under 35C in my Lian Li. On my Alpha I have 1 Sanyo Denki Petit Ace running also 60% (1500 RPM) with a CPU temp under 50C.

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuckOperandi has his own preferences and I'm sure his fans are very quiet, but I'd like to get rid of every 80mm fan in every computer case I own. Unfortunately, the 80mm size is used in just about every PSU I've ever seen, so I have to live with at least one per PC..]
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I never said it was my preference I just stated 80mm fans work fine. There seem to be a lot of ppl that think low noise = 120mm fans, which is wrong.

As far as PSU fans go there are plenty of them that use 120mm fans, check out Seasonic, Antec?s Neo Power and Nexus.

 
your right low noise does not always mean 120mm fans. But 120mm fans push the most air with the least amount of noise
 
Originally posted by: weirdologist
I was wondering if anyone knows which is the quietest pump for a low flowrate system.
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The new +12 volt DC pumps are very quiet and really effeicient. Switftec and Dangerden have nice ones. Get one now!
 
i've heard that zalman makes a fanless watercooling fin tower... too lazy to find it and link. But i remember seeing it.. somewhere.

unless you want to heavily overclock i find a watercool to not be cost/noise effective. one or even two 120mm fans with a controller for low speeds will be MUCH cheaper and VERY quiet.
 
I think the main problem is the cpu fan noise, I have a prescott core and the fan gets pretty loud using a vantec stealth 80mm fan. I was also using the HUGE Thermaltake Tower112.

Finally finished installing the watercooling system after 2 days. I say I am very happy with the results. The smaller swiftech pump is very quiet. I bought a huge tractor radiator and the computer runs stable without a fan on the radiator even at full loads for more then 2 hours. At full load the temp stops at 61 degrees celsius which is still within the cpu limit.

I am still using one 120mm fan inside my case as the northbridge, hd, and various other stuff still needs cooling. I can not hear the 120mm from where I am sitting right now. I guess its hard to rid ALL the fans! Even though there are hd, northbridge water coolers, there are many other things I need to cool. My computer uses an Antec Phantom silent power supply and THAT thing gets HOT if I don't have that one fan in there.

My next upgrade will be water blocking most of the heat generating components. Video, MOSFET's for the cpu's power, HD, northbridge, and also PSU water block. Getting more or bigger radiators so I don't have to use a fan. More powerful pump(I will have to use one) and hopefully the pump doesn't generate much noise or it defeats the whole purpose.

If anyone is interested in seeing a pic, just ask!

mordanmonkey: there is such a zalman prodect, but its expensive and HUGE. I have attached my radiator to the side of my case.

steven: thx, ive noticed that its not too.
 
depends where you have the fans, and size. 120mm u can get quiet and low rpm fans. if your case doesn't need to be moved you can even hide the radiators behind the case somewhere...they have up to 3x120mm radiators.. big and slow fans for quiet i guess.

theres a zalman passive tower resorator. takes the guess work out. but it costs 300? and won't be as good as a 3x120mm setup, which is also costly though...and def more trouble. whether your system justifies the extra extreme cooling.. thats ur call
 
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