Need input on Silent Air Cooling parts : Almost finalized list inside

[Dazed and Confused]

Thread lock pending, please do not reply to this topic anymore.

Heres the scenario. I need to cool a system for a friend that has his PC in a room that gets a bit warmer than the rest of his house which is mostly climate controlled to about 68 - 70* F . The room his PC/Drafting board is in faces south so during the day from spring to fall that room gets about 5* - 7* F warmer than the rest of his house. The problem there is I just went to his house today after he said his system died. Turns out the HSF was just clogged and the Tforce4 Sli wouldn't let him boot with the HSF being clogged ( thank god for temp shutdown ). After I cleaned his system out I reminded him that he needs to de-dustify his system at least once every 3 months.

Long story short. He wants a very low maintainance, silent cooling solution that will allow him to do his work without worrying about dusting out his PC while being as quiet as possible.

Here's what he needs to cool, all parts are run at 100% stock speed/voltage :

Opteron 170
Nforce4 Chipset
ATI FireGL V5200 ( I think )

The ambient temp he'll be cooling the parts at is gonna be close to 75 - 78* F starting in a couple of weeks. His current CPU temp at idle on his Opty 170 is about 39* C

Okay, for starters I'd like to keep all the parts below $300 if possible. Heres what We've come up with so far :

1x Can 'O' air

1x Noctua NH-U12F High Performance Cooler

1x Thermalright HR-05 IFX Chipset Cooler

1x CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply

1x ARCTIC COOLING ACCELS1 Rev 2 VGA Cooler

3x Scythe S-Flex SSF21E 120mm Case Fans

1x 120mm Aluminum Mesh Fan Filter (Black)



Op Requested his thread be locked since objective was met. So locking i do!

Case and Cooling Moderator Aigomorla

 

[WoodButcher]

No matter the cooling he still needs to dust, It's all stock so save some money and buy a can of air.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Originally posted by: WoodButcher
No matter the cooling he still needs to dust, It's all stock so save some money and buy a can of air.

Thats all fine and dandy but I still don't see how that's relevant to my OP as it kinda completely leaves out the silent bit.

Please read before you post everyone, I'd like to avoid all the pontiless remarks if at all possible. If you don't have something constructive to say or at least something 100% relevant to the OP then just go somewhere else to chime in. This is a serious topic and I got 2 days to find him a good WC setup as he's been getting annoyed by the noise one of his fans started making and he has no desire to replace it with another fan that will make any noise whatsoever so please keep all posts relevant to the OP.

 

[WoodButcher]

Water w/ fans is not any more quiet. Your thinking Zalman Reserator 2, Ok. Quiet? yes, aluminum and copper in the same loop? yes, You'll want to change the coolant every 6 months. And you said your pal doesn't want to dust. Keep in mind that dust on that reserator is a big time insulator, if he does not dust his temps will get hot sooner as there is no fan. I've seen PC's w/ stock cooling not opened for a year and more still run. I let my rads get dusty and performance drops fast. I took my kids comp off water for this very reason.
Sorry if you thought at first I was blowing smoke or being a smart-ass but water is not maintenence free and a loop w/ mixed metals is not a good idea from the start.

 

[EarthwormJim]

You'll still have noise from your hard drives and PSU.

A tuniq tower could easily cool a stock running opteron at near silent operation.

There's really no reason to go water cooling without overclocking. The best air coolers can be run near silently for cpu's at stock speeds.

 

[aigomorla]

*think happy thoughts.. think happy thoughts*

I dont like the reserator cuz of the reasons woodbutcher said, however i need to be a lot nicer then him in the way he said it.

But stay away from these companys in h2o products.

Innotek, Even on the EVGA stuff, stay AWAY FROM THEM!! <--- EVGA didnt learn there lesson on the corrosion problems with black peral + BFG DD fullcover cards. I hope they eat a TON of RMA from this and finally learn to get paired with a better company.

Zalman, the only good thing this korean company has right now is the 120mm F3 fan.

Thermaltake: The only good thing this company has is the Big Tygphoon, and the 1kw Truepower series.

Gigabyte is OK, but its still poor quality water.

Coolermaster, i have no idea what this company is trying to do. There doing everyything wrong with water.



Otherwise no, no, no, no and most definitely no to the top three on water products.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
You'll still have noise from your hard drives and PSU.

Already thought of that and gonna have him go with an EarthWatts 430w quiet PSU and he has a Seagate HDD that's pretty damned quiet.

A tuniq tower could easily cool a stock running opteron at near silent operation.

Still louder than a Zalman Rezerator.

There's really no reason to go water cooling without overclocking. The best air coolers can be run near silently for cpu's at stock speeds.

Unless you want a silent system as stated in the OP.

Originally posted by: aigomorla
*think happy thoughts.. think happy thoughts*

I dont like the reserator cuz of the reasons woodbutcher said, however i need to be a lot nicer then him in the way he said it.

But stay away from these companys in h2o products.

Innotek, Even on the EVGA stuff, stay AWAY FROM THEM!! <--- EVGA didnt learn there lesson on the corrosion problems with black peral + BFG DD fullcover cards. I hope they eat a TON of RMA from this and finally learn to get paired with a better company.

Zalman, the only good thing this korean company has right now is the 120mm F3 fan.

Thermaltake: The only good thing this company has is the Big Tygphoon, and the 1kw Truepower series.

Gigabyte is OK, but its still poor quality water.

Coolermaster, i have no idea what this company is trying to do. There doing everyything wrong with water.



Otherwise no, no, no, no and most definitely no to the top three on water products.

So Swiftech then ? Do they make a silent system that is low maintainance ?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
You'll still have noise from your hard drives and PSU.

Already thought of that and gonna have him go with an EarthWatts 430w quiet PSU and he has a Seagate HDD that's pretty damned quiet.

A tuniq tower could easily cool a stock running opteron at near silent operation.

Still louder than a Zalman Rezerator.

There's really no reason to go water cooling without overclocking. The best air coolers can be run near silently for cpu's at stock speeds.

Unless you want a silent system as stated in the OP.

Dazed, the reserator isnt worth it at its price tag.

You'll match performance area with air. And A tuniq or a TRUE with a zalman fan will probably generate less noise then your Hard drives.

Also the reserator has massive pump problems

We gave you all the warnings associated with it. If your buying one for a friend, your not buying one for his regard but more on yours because you think its fun.

If your really a friend you wont buy him that problem waiting to happen.

This is our 2 cents.


If i may, why dont you PM Zepper.

He knows a lot of mods that you can impliment to fix this issue. And he can probably set you straight without having to dip into water to begin with.

Im just trying to save you from an accident waiting to happen like my cousin. He had a reserator, tried to get smart, and ended up with a pin hole leak. Later on it saturated his carpet and then he lost his videocard in the process.

This is what im trying to save you from.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Well, how's this for an air cooled alternative ?

From Xoxide.com

1x Noctua NH-U12F High Performance Cooler

3x Noctua NF-S12-1200 120mm Fan ( for the case )


From NewEgg.com :


1x ZALMAN ZM - NBF 47 Aluminum Heatsink

1x ZALMAN VF700-CU 2 Ball VGA COOLER

1x MASSCOOL SYTRIN Kuformula SHF1 Ultra HDD Cooler

 

[EarthwormJim]

Don't really see the need for the HDD cooler.

The Noctua NH-U12P is supposed to be the king of air coolers right now (much better than the zalman) , and would probably be your best bet for silent air cooling on the cpu.

If it'll fit, the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 would be a better GPU cooler. It's fully passive stock, and only a few bucks more than the zalman.

Firegl is I think an x1600 basically, so the S1 should fit.

Don't get me wrong Zalman does make some nice things, but they're not really class leading.

It's good you're steering away from water cooling, it is not low maintenance by any means (compared to air cooling at least).

If you're friend can't dust his computer, I'd be afraid to water cool his computer.

 

[WoodButcher]

Allright, now that zalman is set aside here is ny 2 cents for dust/ noise low maintenence,
only the vid needs aftermarket cooling, the afore mentioned coolers will do fine, set the fan speed to run slow unless needed, rivatuner perhaps? Replace the stock cpu heatsink fan w/ a quality fan, Yates, Scythe, Nexus, noctuas don't push much air, Silenx are ok but overpriced, Replace the rear exhaust, and the PSU fan also if it is noisy. Use only wire fan grills if needed and cut out all the stamped steel grills of the case, these create noise and block airflow. The rear fan and front (if needed) for hard drives should be tempurature controlled by the mobo bios.
You can get sound proofing mats or use roofers tape for the large side panels, ond use rubber grommets to isolate the drives, a little mod req there. Lastly lift the case 6-8" off the floor and this will alleviate dusting. He might get a year w/o dusting like this if the fans are set to run slow unless needed. when they speed up all the time, it's time to dust. By using the bios to run the fans slow you get less airflow and less dust, when it gets dusty the fans ramp up because they need to work harder.

 

[MarcVenice]

I'd say antec p182, replace the tricooles with sflex fans, passive cooling on the CPU, like a scythe ninja, s1 on the videocard, corsair 450vx/seasonic s12 II 380w. That should make for a pretty, near silent rig. Oh and depending on the mobo you might want to go with some aftermarket chipset cooler as well, the chipset cooler on my nforce 4 mobo was the loudest component in my pc at one point in time.

 

[Zepper]

Zalman F3 fans nice for exhaust and/or CPU heatsink - Noctua = overpriced boutique products. Do positive pressure to keep the dust out - use cooler master 110 CFM fan for intake properly moderated (comes with its own controller or use 3rd-party fan controller.

.bh.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

ZM-F3'sw on 7V with a ninja for the cpu and accelero on the graphics. If you can figure the total PSU requirements for his system and just less than double the power supply you can keep it from ever having to spin up the fan beyond 50%. Suspend the hard drives in 5.25" bays with heavy duty elastic or surgical rubber tubing.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
without worrying about dusting out his PC

That isn't going to happen. However, it can be minimized greatly.

#1 Start with a clean PC (as in dust out his current PC).

#2 The computer needs to be on a desk and not on or near the ground.

#3 Keep the room clean and vacuumed.

#4 Change to a case that comes with filters, and re-design airflow so that the case has POSITIVE pressure using the fans behind the filters.

As for QUIET, start with the smallest fans and move up from there, eventually to the hard drives.

#1 Replace chipset fan/heatsink with a heatpipe heatsink such as the ThermalRight units. The Zalman NB47J is insufficient to keep an Nforce4 chipset cool enough. Okay, it works, but barely. I know because I had two such setups.

#2 If the video card fan is noisy, replace it with an Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 (the cheaper one). It should be able to be run passively since if my sources are correct the V5200 is the same GPU as the Radeon x1600 series, a decidedly cool running midrange solution.

#3 Replace the CPU HSF with a tower heatpipe unit. My favorite for quiet computing is the Scythe Ninja, though just about any that uses a 120mm fan will suffice.

#4 Replace the PSU with a Seasonic S12-II model, or any lower end Corsair unit.

#5 Replace the case with something that has a filter, some kind of "soft" drive mounting and which can be configured with positive air pressure. My choice (not the only one) would be the Antec Solo. The reasons are that it has two different "soft" hard drive mounting schemes, has sound-deadening materials pre-applied to the three largest sheets of metal, has a filter in front and can be configured for positive airflow. To do this, get two 92mm slow/medium fans for the front, and a 120mm Yate Loon low speed fan undervolted to 5-7v in the rear. "Soft" mount all the fans using silicone-style fan mounts.

 

[WoodButcher]

http://www.frozencpu.com/produ...ring.html?tl=g36c15s60 if you have mobo speed control or choose from the medium or low speed for less noise if they can't.
Canned air, buy what is cheap or on sale, I and many others use an air compressor. I find that if I run the vacum at the same first and then use the air it will help to keep the dust from getting all over the room. Bring it outside if you ambitious that's best. Keep the fans from spinning w/ a pencil or paintbrush to avoid damage to the bearings by overspinning.


Hey Dazed, glad you read my first post and saved a few bucks w/ the canned air

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Well, gonna make the decision tomorrow.

I just noticed these 120mm TT fans . Anyone got any ideas on those ?

He has the $50 Raidmax case from newegg that had the pop out front filter built in. I'ma get him the black wire mesh aluminum 120mm filter from Xoxide when I get the Noctua HSF and the 3x Noctua fans. If newegg doesn't get the Thermalright NB Heatpipe tower in by tomorrow then I'll have to go w the Zalman or the next best thing I can find.

His case is already on his desk so the dust buildup that stopped his system from booting due to heat will hopefully go away as with the Noctua fans he'll be bringing in about 90cfm and only exhausting 70 or so. I can also lock the rear 120mm to the 23cfm setting to increase the positive pressure and reduce the noise even further.

The rubber grommets for the fans will be easy but the drives prob aren't happening as I dun think it's possible with his case for the small window he's giving me to upgrade his cooling. I'm only getting 3 hours as he is pretty much on a tight shedule with his current project and can't afford his PC to be down for too long.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
I just noticed these 120mm TT fans . Anyone got any ideas on those ?

Most likely overstated CFM and understated dBA.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

K, hopefully my semi-final list is suffecient. What do you guys think of :

1x Can 'O' air

1x Noctua NH-U12F High Performance Cooler

1x Thermalright HR-05 IFX Chipset Cooler

1x CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply

1x ARCTIC COOLING ACCELS1 Rev 2 VGA Cooler

3x Thermaltake A2329 120mm Case Fan

1x 120mm Aluminum Mesh Fan Filter (Black)

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Bad case fans with the thermaltake, their fans are piss poor IMHO, I'd suggest scythe slipstream 800's or SFF12D's for budget quiet.

 

[Jessica69]

I'd forget about those TT fans.....pretty horrible fans, completely lie about their sound generation. Think you'll find they actually produce over 30dBA at full speed.......at least the two variants of TT fans tested over at XtremeSystems did, and one was the Silent Wheel.

Quiet fans w/good output.....the aforementioned Zalman F3's, as long as you undervolt them to 7V. Then they're very quiet and still move good amounts of air.

Scythe S-Flex series.....for your use, the "E" fans. Very quiet at full speed @ 12V, utterly silent at 7V. And, unlike a lot of sleeved bearing fans, no positional weird noises.....sleeve bearing fans are pretty good in a vertical position, but when used horizontally, can become quite noticeable in sound generation. But that's simply a function of a sleeve bearing, which is nothing more than a hollow tube that a shaft runs through and rides inside of.

(Think the cardboard tube inside a roll of paper towels.....the cardboard tube is the sleeve bearing. The fan's shaft rides within that sleeve, or tube. Now, in a horizontal position, all the lube migrates down and out the end......leaving metal on metal. There are some advanced designs in sleeve bearings in which an end cap is placed at the sleeve/shaft's end to try to keep the lube inside the sleeve, but still is nowhere near as good a bearing system as a ball bearing. This from experience with production of both sleeve and roller bearings for Timken Corp. Sleeves are the absolute worst and cheapest way to produce a bearing surface for a moving part....balls and rollers are much more durable, longer lasting, and in the end quieter.)


Another decent fan is the Silverstone FN121, but only that particular Silverstone fan. Most all other Silverstones are just junk.

The new Noctuas should be quiet and not suffer from the horrible reduction in output when faced with any resistance at all like their older, original brothers suffer from.

Another is the Nexus......an all-time SPCR favorite....very quiet.

Add to that the Yate-Loon SL fans, but ONLY if gotten from Petra's. (Yate-Loons from anywhere else are sourced from middlemen that obtain their YL's from who knows where. Only Petra's sources their Yate-Loons directly from the manufacturer, and testing has shown that this makes a HUGE difference in their cfm and sound performance.)

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Either you are Vapor(which I kinda doubt) or thats almost a copy and paste from his fan review on XS. We should really get someone(aigomorla) to get permission to post his review in a sticky here.

 

[WoodButcher]

And you, ArtosDracon? I'm over there too but just a lurkin'.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

-_-

The rest of the parts are either coming from www.Xoxide.com or www.NewEgg.com . So someone find me a 45Cfm + fan at one of those sites that doesn't break 20 decibles and I'll get 3 of em reguardless of price as my friend makes too much money to give a shit about price.

 

[WoodButcher]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
-_-

The rest of the parts are either coming from www.Xoxide.com or www.NewEgg.com . So someone find me a 45Cfm + fan at one of those sites that doesn't break 20 decibles and I'll get 3 of em reguardless of price as my friend makes too much money to give a **** about price.

http://www.xoxide.com/scythe-s...120mm-mediumspeed.html
http://www.xoxide.com/nexus-120mm-fan-black-white.html
http://www.xoxide.com/xoxide-120mm-silent-fan.html

toss a coin or do the enie, meenie, minie, moe thing. If you pal wants to spend money, go nexus. I like the yates for your application.