0 db system...is possible?

[kurt10]

sorry for the english...but..is possible put a Thermochill PA120with 3 fan in the oil...20l?

i want a liquid system...of 0 db.....thanks:)

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/5933/untitledvu0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[HaxR3]

wel the oil still has to disapate heat so you would be better off with 20m of copper tubing & 2 delta or tornado fans

or just 2 fanless rads

EDIT:

Inaudible Background vibration in ANY room that has particles in is ussualy 18dB MINIMUM

even professional sound power testing labs ussually have a background noise of 17dB

Also, the pump will make more noise than quiet fans

[eXa]

yeah, slap 3 yates @ 5v on it and concentrate on silencing the hdds insted(wich should be pretty easy!

[bestmancajun]

There is no point to cooling a rad with oil. You might as well replace the rad with a bucket of water... Diffusing the heat into water, then using a rad to diffuse the heat into oil, then using a oil and fans to diffuse heat into air IS not efficiant. You might as well puy on the stock heat sink and submerge the entire system in non-conductive oil.

[inntruzion]

It's impossible...even in a liquid cooling system there's still some sound rolling bout somewhere.

Your pump and rad will defo make some noise - and in a complete rig your GPU and HDD especially will make noise. It's impossible to make a completely 0dB computer.

However, I'm guessing that anything under about 20dB your ear can't pick up (I've been searching around for a real figure but hearing varies), I'm not an expert at this by any means but that's my guess. So if you get the exact dBA from each of your components, and total it up, then if you've got a low enough figure your golden.

I can't give u recommendations on what to get cos quite frankly i suck at liquid cooling and the like but I'm sure someone here can help you.

To start you off though...

Here's a video step thingy that explains watercooling and how it works and stuff: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11319_7-6291064-1.html

Just if u need it ^

And a few review sites...

www.trustedreviews.com
www.bit-tech.net
www.extremetech.com

Just google about and stuff there's quite a lot of help out there lol.

Hope that helps and i'll try and get back with that silent figure thingy lol soon.


EDIT: Here we are might help...

194 Maximum possible (from atmospheric 14.7psi down to 0psi)
177 Record for car audio!
170 Shotgun blast up close
160 Perforation of eardrum
140 Jet Aircraft Taking Off
120 Human Threshold of Pain - 1 watt/sq. meter
120 Loud Rock Concert
110 Moderate rock concert, dance club
100 Motorcycle
-- extended listening above 85-90dB leads to hearing loss --
90 Lawnmower, loud home stereo
85 Jackhammer at 15 meters (50 feet)
80 Moderate home stereo, ringing telephone
75 Average City Street
70 Freeway traffic, TV audio
60 Normal Conversation
50 Large office background noise
40 Quiet office or residential area
30 Whisper at 3 meters (10 feet), Very soft music
20 "Silent" TV Studio, Whisper at 1 meter, Quiet living room
10 Soft rustling of leaves
0 Human threshold of hearing (youths)
10 to the -12 Watts per square metre

From here...boring science and maths of sound lol.

http://www.geocities.com/rf-man/db.html

[heydo6]

quiet fans will work great and water cooling is great quiet cooling .

[Turok]

You would have to isolate your cooling solution with an air tight wall and put your fans and pump on the other side of that wall.

0 db is nearly impossible with conventional methods of cooling processors, because there's always a gear turning

[Nanometer]

use heatpipes attached to hot running components and bolt them to a big metal case. It won't have top notch running components but it will be silent.. minus the hard drives.

[NickS]

Yeah shell out for that huge Zalman heatsink case :)

[Batman!]

There will always be some noise of the pump...VERY VERY little but some. 0db system is very hard, and impossible if you plan on overclocking...

[tdunks]

0db is not very hars...it is IMPOSSIBLE there will ALWAYS be something turning or moving which makes noise..even if you can't hear it.

[ReD.SkY]

0db is not very hars...it is IMPOSSIBLE there will ALWAYS be something turning or moving which makes noise..even if you can't hear it.

YOu would need a Passive designed case.. and solid state hdd's ... no disc drives.

Solid state HDD = like ram but used as a hdd.

you would need fanless psu

you would need fanless heatsinks on everything and good airflow thru ur room.

even my GPU makes noise... as it buzzes. 0dba is IMPOSSIBLE but silent is pretty easy

[Kain XS]

Are you overclocking your machine?
Becuase you can build a 0 fan system even with aIR COOLING, BUT THE TEMPS WOULD BE BAD FOR OVERCLOCK.

[septim]

to summarize, there is absolutely no 0db system for now...

a few yates on 4 to 7volts is pretty quiet already
the only noise you'd have if running all 120mm fans undervolted would be your HardDrives/Optical Drives.

[Xeon th MG Pony]

YOu would need a Passive designed case.. and solid state hdd's ... no disc drives.

Solid state HDD = like ram but used as a hdd.

you would need fanless psu

you would need fanless heatsinks on everything and good airflow thru ur room.

even my GPU makes noise... as it buzzes. 0dba is IMPOSSIBLE but silent is pretty easy

Nope he'd still hear the noise of the switching circuitry inside the PSU

100% silent = 100% impossible

He how ever can get it percivably silent like that

[NickS]

Sigh, super insulate the inside of the case and hear nothing. :D

Like three layers of that noise deadening stuff, including around the PSU & pump.

[ReD.SkY]

Sigh, super insulate the inside of the case and hear nothing. :D

Like three layers of that noise deadening stuff, including around the PSU & pump.


turn your case into an anechoic chamber :D

[Nanometer]

Actually, you could just run pool water instead of running a usual water loop. At least you wouldn't need a pump in your computer. And hey you wouldn't need a rad or a t-line/res.

[HaxR3]

or you could make the inside of ur pc case a vacuum

[ewsforos]

Hello everybody, this is my first post on this forum. Even though I am watching it closely for a year or so now, I finally decided to register. So here goes :)

Building a 0db system is pretty much impossible as everybody has already said. However, there are some ways of getting single-digit db (on the low side) which in real world is not audible. What you need is a special case that is totally passive. These come along with passive PSUs as well and their main purpose is to be used in high-tech recording studios where silence is paramount. One example is this one from zalman: link (http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=151).

The way these cases work, is that they are built in such a way that the whole case is practically acting like a huge heatsink, and internally they have attachments where heatpipes that are connected on the case body are mounted on the CPU and GPU, thus removing the heat from the processor and the video card, and transfering it to the case. These can be EXTREMELY expensive, but absolutely silent.

Finally you can use CF memory cards with ATA controllers (not sure if there are any CF -> SATA adaptors yet, but quite probably there are) and use 8Gb (highest capacity at the moment) CF cards as permanent disk space. These can also work in a RAID array, so you can pretty much stack up 8Gb * 8/12/16 (depending on how much you are willing to invest on a multi-disk raid controller, and CF cards), giving you a total of permanent storage, between 64 and 128Gb. After that you can also use a ramdisk/solid state disk, for swapping/temporary data since this kind of storage is volatile, and if the power goes down, their internal battery only lasts a few hours before you loose your data. (Hence not the best place to keep an OS installation)

Total sum of components with moving parts: 0

The only noise you will be able to hear is a slight buzzing sound from the coils etc of your motherboard and PSU which can be reduced and or almost eliminated by using good quality components and insulation.

At the end of the day, for all intents and purposes, this will be an absolutely silent system given that you have the money to invest on it. ;)

However, for normal users, watercooling, given that you use the appropriate components, can be perfectly silent since the ambient noice is a quiet room is about 24-26db, and if your system's noise output is around that, it will be indistinguishable.

PS: As far as additional storage goes, a file server located in another room/basement/somewhere where it can not be heard, is also a viable alternative

[septim]

that case looks nice...
nice enough to mod for water cooling...

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

or you could make the inside of ur pc case a vacuum
that'd be such a horrible idea... then *anything* that produces even a milliwatt of heat would die in short order, as there would be no air to passively cool such components.

want silence? take any computer, throw it 2 rooms away, and buy a KVM.

[KaptCrunch]

zalman passive cooling (http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/view.asp?idx=151&code=) total fanless system and sure dig deep in your pockets for silence, USD $1,143.00.

[ewsforos]

Hehehe... As I said before, it is very very expensive. It really is only viable as a solution for recording studios etc where silence (well as close as you can get to it, since total silence is unachievable) is critical. And that doesn't include just the case... A guestimate on the storage system alone (CF cards RAIDed + controller) would be somewhere in the range of ~$8000 / £5200.

Of course the temps will not be anything to write home about, and overclocking is just out of the question, so not really viable for most people's in this forum needs :)

I only mentioned it cause we were talking for a 0db system, well, as close as someone can get to that...

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

i still say a KVM on *any* system at sufficient distances will be quieter than any computer you can come up with period. :)

[ewsforos]

Sure it is... but what about the "coolness" factor? This is xtreme systems after all ;)

Imaging someone walking into your room, seeing that zalman case looking like a huge cheese-grater, trying to figure out desperately what just happened :p:

[NickS]

How come Dell PC's are so quiet? :p:

It's true. Ever fire up a newer dell? You can barely hear it. I guess if you want real silence, buy a Dell.

[2fink]

i still say a KVM on *any* system at sufficient distances will be quieter than any computer you can come up with period. :)

or using fanless and hdd less thinclients booting via network ;)

[ewsforos]

Not if you want it to do anything with decent speed :p:

Thin clients are fine for blond secretaries wanting to use Word to type a report... However, for whatever application which needs to fetch/access a lot of data, this is a no-no... Still though can be useful in some environments :)

The kvm solution is also nice, but I hate it when I want to watch a DVD or something and I have to go to another room to change the disk on it...

Anyway, there are tons of ways to go around the noise problem, most of which are dependant on the needs of each individual... so take your pick :p:

[2fink]

Not if you want it to do anything with decent speed :p:

Thin clients are fine for blond secretaries wanting to use Word to type a report... However, for whatever application which needs to fetch/access a lot of data, this is a no-no... Still though can be useful in some environments :)

The kvm solution is also nice, but I hate it when I want to watch a DVD or something and I have to go to another room to change the disk on it...

Anyway, there are tons of ways to go around the noise problem, most of which are dependant on the needs of each individual... so take your pick :p:

right, but i normaly use my computer only for office and inet. when i want to game i dont care if my computer has 10db or 30db, because i normally use a headset :)
another possibility is, buying a fanless buisness laptop. expensive as hell but fast and quiet.

kmv-solution. no problem with dvd changing. most of the new kmv-switches have an usb-port where you can plug in a usb-dvd. ;)

[Xeon th MG Pony]

befor my water cooling system was out side in a shadey spot, very quiet, well don so many ways but most have worked.

[Serra]

How come Dell PC's are so quiet? :p:

It's true. Ever fire up a newer dell? You can barely hear it. I guess if you want real silence, buy a Dell.

I'd disagree... I built a computer for my in-laws about a month ago. They had bought a Dell not long ago at all (a number of months) and when I had them up side by side, the Dell was a typhoon in comparison. That being said, they *were* each fairly silent machines... but the one I built had a Zalman 7700 heat sink, a proper PSU with a 120mm fan on it, and a single exhaust fan (which was itself louder than all the other components put together, due to it being the only crappy LED 80mm I had lying around... which was what they wanted).

When I unplugged that 80mm fan to test it without that (which didn't really do anything for temps, I just included it for those hot summer days and peace of mind) the system was pretty well DEAD silent... the CPU fan on the 7700 only made a full revolution about once per minute (being that it shuts off at 25 degrees and the OC'd Opteron 170 in the rig never got above that temp idling).

Using nicer air cooling towers like Scythes Ninja or the Tuniq Tower, suddenly you get decent temps and 0 to minimal dB if you don't mind sacrificing a little OC room.

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

after experiencing stock coolers recently and aftermarket coolers with silent fans, dells feel *loud*. my temp system was a seasonic S-12 600watt and 2 coolermaster silent fans that i bought in a 6-pack for ten bucks (now 15 bucks) form frozencpu. the system was entirely inaudible except for the disk drives. the coolermaster fans are specced at 24.4 dBa and ~28 cfm. totally and absolutely inaudible at ~one meter.

Dells are *loud* compared to that stuff :)

also, coolness factor with a KVM setup increases manyfold. absolute silence at -100C anybody? :cool:
also, with adequate storage capacity, it'd be easier to just emulate DVD drives and such... heck, i do that even when my computer is sitting right next to me.