Cooling dual athlons quietly
 

I do a lot of music production with my box, so I need quiet.
I have a dual athlon computer that has had heating problems in the past. I bought better fans,

2x Cooler Master CPU Cooler HSC-V62

but they are LOUD. They were rated best on Tom's Hardware for quiet fans. HAHAHAH. They are SOOO loud. I don't have dB measurement device, otherwise I would tell you.

What fans are good for a VERY QUIET (near silent) computer and can still really attack heat?

I hear the new stock AMD fans are really good, but you can't buy them unless you buy a chip, and I don't need new chips. I got the old version with the normal silver heatsink and green fan, now they are black and curved and sound quiet.

Anyway, I have had heating problems, and it is in a rackmounted enclosed case, and that causes more heat. Any suggestions?

do your own research
 

;-) just teasing.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=har...=20&fl=0&x=wrt

the one i thougth would come in handy was this site cuz there's quite a few amd approve fans there. Hope that helps

http://www.cablesnmor.com/cpufan.html

I've seen a fanless DIY water cooling system before in some mag - it used a small central heating circulation pump and standard 15mm copper tube. He'd modded the heatsinks on the processors, GPU, hard disks and inside the PSU by fitting loops of 8mm copper tube to them with thermal epoxy, then connected them with extraflex hose to some DIY manifolds inside the case, on top of his case is the pump and a large coil of copper tube, this is good enough for convection cooling alone so there are NO fans anywhere in his system and the pump is silent (no, really - and decent ones, e.g. Grundfoss, last for years)

It didn't cose too much either, just plumbing parts and the pump, which he salvaged from an old boiler...

hey i want one! LOL
 

By chance remember what mag that was? That's a really brilliant idea :)

:scratch: Sorry, No idea, it might have been an emag - a quick search on google should spit out a bunch of water cooling-related stuff.

I thought it was uberleet too, and now that my new box has so many fans it sounds like a train I'm going for it too - I've got the pump, heat exchangers and I'm collecting the last few parts I need now - I'll put it all on line when I get my website up...

Hmm, I personally wouldn't go for that water-thing. It can do more damage than good for ya... A friend of mine tried; there came a small leak, and it destroyed allmost everything that was connected into the motherboard..

But If ya want to go for it, just do a triple, no a qadriple-check for the system before installing it...

the bigger the fan, the less noise for the amount of air.
also, more fins on the fan is quieter. i have a normal, wide
heatsink that came with a 60mm fan. i bent the fins out
a little, and attached a galaxy 80mm fan that has 9 fins.
it cools well, and makes little noise, even with the
case open.

Yeah, leaks are a problem...
 

Hmm, I know, but the thing is that many water cooling kits are a bit, um, crap.

I reccomend anyone who wants water cooling to use proper plumbing parts and get a little plumbing practice before you actually go filling your expensive computer with cooling water, and it's only worth it if you need it (or if you're a geek like me with a window in the side of yer case)

You could try putting dynamat (heavy matting used in cars for sound deadening (sp?)) in and around your case. It will make your case very heavy but it should kill almost all the sound and it's easy to use, just peal and stick.

some things people forget is to keep the towers off the carpet where the carpet can block the input air from your front lower fan. A cut piece of pine wood from your local Menards hardware will adequately keep the tower away from carpet and give the little bit of space your front fan(s) need. Then of course is air conditioning in your computer room or if you have a finished basement like I do thats an ideal spot for it.

The computer is rack mounted. It is a 4U high case. Carpet sure isn't the issue. I have looked at water cooling, but I am pretty much out of space in the case, and I am scared to try it cause knowing my luck, it would leak.

I am still looking for some good ideas..... :(

Thermoelectric cooling
 

Peltier heefect heat pumps placed between the processors and heatsinks will keep them cool. They can be pricey but they rule.

They're large P-N junctions that move heat from one side to the other or visa-versa depending on which way you pass the current through them. You can get 12V models that'll work from a PC power supply...

what temperatures are your CPUs actually running at while idling and while flat out??

are there any other components that are causing a lot of heat? hard disks? graphics/sound card?

Also, which Athlon CPU do you actually have?

I have dual athlons 1800+ MPs

The other components don't seem to be giving off as much heat.

Temps are usually

CPU0 and 1: 40-44C
AGP 46C
Memory Area 47C

Thats about it.

I really just need things quieter. Thanks for your help.

Soundcard/Firewire card area has no measurement, but it never seems too warm.

I don't have any advice for you except to look at this website if you haven't already. There's tons of people facing the same problem as you.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Myself, I've given up on fans and cooling and am saving up to buy a VIA Mini-ATX chipset which requires no fan whatsoever.

I fabricated air box to lift the fan away from the heat-sink. A centimeter of distance between the fins/pins and the blades of the fan will cut the noise by better than half.

I did it for an over-clocked P-IV which sounded like a vacuum cleaner. It was so loud that it interfered with phone conversations.

The air-box has to be made of something sturdy and has to wrap around the top 1/8 inch (4 mm) of the heat-sink. I also got about 15% more cooling efficiency. If you have the room in your case, between the air box and "potting" the fan speed you won't get silence, but you should be able to ignore it. The end result was quieter than the stock unit by far.

Also, get dead case fans, break out the middle, and use those for air boxes/spacers for your case fans--this will improve the airflow and cut down the noise for them as well. There is no reason to put up with a box that roars.

try passive cooling
 

well 44 degs is not bad for athlons. but if u need more try a program called athcool. it reduced my idle temp from 50 to 35 degs. u'll find the info on the website

http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/jacob...softwares.html



usually the hardisks make a lot of noise too. so what u can do is play with hdparm utility. it has a option that turns off the motor spindle in the hd when idle and there is also an option for how loud the hardisk is.

http://www.rt.com/man/hdparm.8.html

I kind of forgot about this thread. I ended purchasing a few different fans from Cooler Master. The ones I kept are called Aero7's or something like that. They basically take a fan and make it perpendicular to the chip. It cools much more efficiently. It's also varaiable speed, and they include a 3.5" panel to put a knob on. I drilled it out for a second fan and put two in. They work great. Now the loudest part of my rig is a "Whisper Quiet" Antec Power Supply....it's also the hottest.

I do not know how much space you have between the processor and the case. There is heatsinks that does not need any fan, but some of them will look like China towers. I suggest laying down the motherboard horizontal and using some rubber standoffs around the processor to make sure the motherboard does not break from the heavy heatsinks. You probably want to put some around the memory and expansion cards too.

With water cooling you will have to do a dry run. Meaning you will have to run only the watercooling system for atleast 24 hours to make sure there is no leaks by checking every hour. You should not turn your computer on or even have standby current running through the motherboard during the dry run.

Using dynamat throughout the chassis will not work very well. The case also helps the computer to cool off the components in the system, so do not use dynamat all over the case. You can use dynamat around the fans and the power supply.

Using peltiers are ok if you take some precautions like keeping it at a constant temperature so that it does not get any condensation on any components. Second you will have to cool off the peltier too not just the processor.

I do not care if anybody disagrees with me but 44 degrees C is way too hot for any processor.