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[Retired Sticky]My guide to silent, high-performance air cooling

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So exactly what temps are you getting on that rig of yours?

A great way to keep the computer cool enough for operation and still retain silence! I like the guide, keep up the good work! :thup:
 
yeah, temps would be helpful to evaluate the effectiveness of your case cooling. getting silent components, tidying up cables and ensuring air flows in the right directions are very important. nice job! :clap:

a couple of comments:

first, i'm not sure the passive ventilation really does that much good. i've experimented with and without open pci slots in my own case and not found any real difference in temps. it might be worth trying out a slot blower either focused on your video card's or motherboard's heatsink, or facilitating ventilation out the back of the case.

second, it's worth pointing out that negative airflow means more dust inside your case over time, so some sort of filters are advisable.

lastly, replace that 80mm intake with a 120mm intake - you can run it at a slower speed and maintain the same cfm, thus cutting sound further.
 
For me, removing the rear slot covers dropped my video card temps (on both cards) 2°C. But now that I have a 120mm fan blowing on the cards and a 120mm blowing on the CPU, it doesn't make any difference whether or not the covers are there.
 
kovboi said:
first, i'm not sure the passive ventilation really does that much good. i've experimented with and without open pci slots in my own case and not found any real difference in temps. it might be worth trying out a slot blower either focused on your video card's or motherboard's heatsink, or facilitating ventilation out the back of the case.

Well, with air cooling there's two ways to look at it. One is to leave the case door on, seal everything up, and do a 'wind tunnel' type of config. My extreme air cooled case many machines ago followed this concept, and it was actually cooler to have the case door on than the take it off due to the 'wind tunnel' effect.

When you start getting silent many often find that removing the case door will drop temps slightly. This is because hot air builds up inside the case a bit. Unless you have a real bad setup it's not going to perpetually build in a major way, but it might be a few C higher compared to having the case door off. Lots of passive intakes essentially allows the computer to run 'open', so you're not forcing air in with case fans. The internal fans can pull in their own air without help from the case fans, thus less fans, thus quiet :) A few PCI slot covers won't do it, but my setup has a lot of passive intakes in addition to the slot covers.

And yes, dust may be a concern with negative pressure, but blowing in 100CFM with intake fans would suck up just as much! With a lot of passive intakes there's actually not so much suction in any one place, more of a slow-flow of air throughout the case, so I find that dust isn't really an issue. My intake fan gets *much* more dusty than the passive intake areas.

As for temps, I was getting 38-40C idle and 49-51C load @ 2750 1.5v, but I have very high ambient temps around 80F+. My place gets a lot of sun and mad greenhouse effect. In a cooler place those temps would be 2-3C lower (for example, on a cool morning when my ambient dropped to 69F it was around 46-47C load).

GPU does 46-47C idle and 65-68C load (not unusual temps for a 6800 series).

--Illah
 
Illah said:
When you start getting silent many often find that removing the case door will drop temps slightly. This is because hot air builds up inside the case a bit. Unless you have a real bad setup it's not going to perpetually build in a major way, but it might be a few C higher compared to having the case door off. Lots of passive intakes essentially allows the computer to run 'open', so you're not forcing air in with case fans. The internal fans can pull in their own air without help from the case fans, thus less fans, thus quiet :) A few PCI slot covers won't do it, but my setup has a lot of passive intakes in addition to the slot covers.
interesting, i hadn't thought about it that way. but it makes sense - less noise, but higher ambient temps since the air isn't going WHOOSH through the case. :p thanks again for sharing your hard work with us!
 
kovboi said:
second, it's worth pointing out that negative airflow means more dust inside your case over time, so some sort of filters are advisable.

^ That is not true. Dust enters your case whether there is negative pressure or not. The drawback of negative case pressure is that air will get sucked into the case through any small opening that exists-- and you can't filter those openings very well.
So you can try to tape off every little opening that exists and filter the designated intake openings (but GL with creaks between drive bays and such), or you can go positive pressure. With positive pressure, dust only enters through the intakes, which can be filtered.
 
FIZZ3 said:
^ That is not true. Dust enters your case whether there is negative pressure or not. The drawback of negative case pressure is that air will get sucked into the case through any small opening that exists-- and you can't filter those openings very well.
that's what i said: negative pressure = more dust. :shrug:
which i guess is another tradeoff for going silent, in addition to higher ambient temps.
 
kovboi said:
that's what i said: negative pressure = more dust. :shrug:
which i guess is another tradeoff for going silent, in addition to higher ambient temps.

No, there is nothing about negative pressure itself that makes it dusty. And the reason I point this out is that your advice was "some sort of filters", which is just the thing that won't get you the results you wanted in this case.
 
FIZZ3 said:
No, there is nothing about negative pressure itself that makes it dusty. And the reason I point this out is that your advice was "some sort of filters", which is just the thing that won't get you the results you wanted in this case.
because you can't filter every opening? i'm sorry, i don't want to hijack the thread but i just don't follow your logic. although it's pretty early and i'm still shaking out the cobwebs between my ears. :D
anyway, here's what's in the sticky regarding case pressure and dust buildup:
When building an effective cooling system you have to take into account the affects pressure has on a case, positive pressure (more airflow entering) will create a pressure of cool air and less dust will accumulate, however negative pressure (more airflow exhausting) with be exhausting more air than is available and thus as a result increases the dust level.
Therefore positive pressure is often the most preferred.
 
kovboi said:
because you can't filter every opening? i'm sorry, i don't want to hijack the thread but i just don't follow your logic. although it's pretty early and i'm still shaking out the cobwebs between my ears. :D

Yes... I don't mean to come across as being unfriendly, but I said that in my first reply to the topic.
 
well done. hope your mouth isnt too sore!

good guide, but im guessing its for office/home users. Gamers wouldnt be able to hear the sounds anyway (unless its on mute :p)

p.s. love the WC bong hehe
 
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nice guide. Although I'm not in need of silent cooling, I very much agree with your cold air in the bottom, hot air out the top, setup. I'm going to dremel a hold in the top of the full tower case I get and put a 120mm fan there for exhaust. I'm going to dremel 2 holes in the side of the case, for 2 120mm fans which will intake air, filtered by a circular shaped 15 inch fram auto filter and cover. I plan to have a positive pressure however to eliminate dust, hence the filter.
 
Me and a friend built a sealed system and filled it with cooking oil. runs very cool.
 
How powerful is that ninja cooler?

I know its meant for silence.. but if you whacked it on a hot chip with 2x120 at 125cfm each, would it work? Is the ninja good enough at taking the heat from the chip to the fins?

When used non silently, how does it stack up with a freezer 7 pro?
 
One thing i like to point out though. If you have a messy room and or carpet and you are like many who cleans your room once a month, then you will have dust in your case in no time, there for rendering cooling efficiency useless.

Just a thought.
 
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