Watercooling for *absolute* silence

[Darthwhite]

I've been reading some very informative posts on this forum for a while now but this is the first time i've felt the need to sign up and as a question.

In short, my question is this; is watercooling the best way to go to silence my machine? I don't mean "quiet", i want complete silence from the machine.

I've recently built a new machine (specs below), which i am very happy with overall, but my problem is that it's still a bit noisy for my needs. I do use the machine for gaming after work but primarily i use it for editing and mastering audio for clients. Because of this i need a machine which is as silent as physically possible.

I am using speedfan to control the on board fans on the graphics card and CPU and i use a fan controller to control the case fans. All of these are at their quietest (slowest) possible setting.

In terms of temperatures, currently the CPU hovers around the 32-36'c range while idle, and the gpu at around 33-36'c idle. Under load (1hour of gaming on saints row 3 on maximum settings @ 1920x1080) the CPU is around 50'c and the GPU at around 65'c, which i understand is normal for this kind of set-up.

Money isn't much of a concern here and i am more than happy to replace existing parts if you think that would make the machine quieter. I am confident that i can install the watercooling in the rig should that be the best route.

I've seen very large radiators like this one, could they be used without fans on my rig?

I've attached my current specs below should they be needed.

My full current spec is;

Mobo: Gigabyte Z68X-UD4-B3

CPU: i7 2600k

CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 PRO

GPU: Asus GTX 560 TI Direct CU II

RAM: 16gb Corsair Vengeance (4 sticks)

PSU: Antec Truepower 550w

SSD: Crucial c300 64gb (os & programs)

HDD: 4x 2TB WD Green

Case: Fractal designs R3 & 3x Noctura NF-S12B 120mm fans (front, side, rear)

Many thanks

 

[SieB]

You will never get complete silence, you can have a quiet PC but you will never have a silent one.

With water cooling you still have the noise of the pump, the coolant going around the loop, fans, even on low they still make some noise. Also, there is some electrical noise from the motherboard, GPU and PSU.

The only way to get a rig silent, or should I say close enough to silent as you can, would be to have everything with passive heatsinks.

 

[killablade]

You will never get complete silence, you can have a quiet PC but you will never have a silent one.

With water cooling you still have the noise of the pump, the coolant going around the loop, fans, even on low they still make some noise. Also, there is some electrical noise from the motherboard, GPU and PSU.

The only way to get a rig silent, or should I say close enough to silent as you can, would be to have everything with passive heatsinks.

And to have a case with bitumen (or w/e it's called) on every panel ;p

 

[jonnyfgm]

Yeah I doubt you will ever get total silence as moving parts = some level of noise

Having said that, i'm sure it's possible to get a rig that runs at below the threshold of human hearing, but it would require some very large (probably external) radiators and a very well dampened pump.

Even then you will still have potential for cap squeel which is the most annoying noise you can get from a PC IMO

 

[Darthwhite]

Yeah I doubt you will ever get total silence as moving parts = some level of noise

Having said that, i'm sure it's possible to get a rig that runs at below the threshold of human hearing, but it would require some very large (probably external) radiators and a very well dampened pump.

Even then you will still have potential for cap squeel which is the most annoying noise you can get from a PC IMO

Thanks for the advice so far, sorry for the newbie question but what's cap squeel?

I don't mind external large radiators, do you mean something like this? In terms of pump dampening, would that be a case of mounting the pump in such a way that is doesn't vibrate against the case?

I understand that there will be some noise from moving parts in hard drives and electrical components, i was looking to eliminate or make inaudible the cooling noise from the CPU/GPU. Perhaps i should have made my original post clearer in that respect.

 

[jonnyfgm]

cap squeel is a very high pitched noise that come originate from electrical components, usually capacitors.

Sometimes you'll get lucky and you wont get this, I only seem to get it after i've been pushing my system quite hard for a while.

Yes that rad looks like it could do the job, I presume you have your system set at stock volts?

I can personally recommend the phobyia 1080 extreme radiator. Most of the time while i'm just browsing the system will happily run totally passively, when gaming i tend to run the 4 180mm fans at max, but they do not make any noise, I have my fans set to auto kick in when the CPU hits about 65c and only indication i get that they come on is a waft of warm air blowing over my legs lol

 

[Darthwhite]

cap squeel is a very high pitched noise that come originate from electrical components, usually capacitors.

Sometimes you'll get lucky and you wont get this, I only seem to get it after i've been pushing my system quite hard for a while.

Yes that rad looks like it could do the job, I presume you have your system set at stock volts?

I can personally recommend the phobyia 1080 extreme radiator. Most of the time while i'm just browsing the system will happily run totally passively, when gaming i tend to run the 4 180mm fans at max, but they do not make any noise, I have my fans set to auto kick in when the CPU hits about 65c and only indication i get that they come on is a waft of warm air blowing over my legs lol

That radiator looks really good, i'm guessing you run it externally (?).

The system is completely stock at the moment but i will be overclocking it at some point.

 

[jonnyfgm]

yeah I have it run externally, propped up ontop of an old dell case and against the wall lol

 

[Perturabo]

If you go external you could always have a long run of tubing and put the rad in the next room or something. Then you can have the fans spinning as fast as you like and it wont matter. Having said that whether its worth doing would depend on how loud the other components are, the PSU fan can be pretty noisy on its own.

 

[Jamsand]

What about those 4 mechanical drives, sort of eliminates the external option unless you want to get some usb extension cables for keyboard and mouse and extra extra long dvi/hdmi cable and just have the whole pc in another room?

There are cases that come pre-sound-proofed such as the CM silentio 550 which has a review here and the cosmos 1000, would help contain the noise a bit. Going on an all out war on noise use rubber washers between all your crews like fan screws and even possibly get some rubber mounts like these

http://www.cclonline.com/product/63...3-Rubber-Case-Fan-Mounts-Pack-of-20-/ACC0235/

then can get hard drive internal enclosures that are watercooled and help stop noise but they run at like 60+ quid each

fullcover block for that 560 ti would be good if you go watercooling which is a lot quieter than air.

So something like a cosmos 1000 plus watercooling and some OCD levels of vibration prevention think you could get near silent?

 

[Bullmecha]

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/systems/quietpc_nofan_icepipe_a40-z68_silent_pc_review/1

TTL did a review on a passive cooled PC awhile ago, maybe that kind of system would benefit you. Just a thought.

 

[Azurite]

So you should tell us if this is a machine for gaming or small tasks/big tasks. You can build a pc with passive heatsink on the cpu, gpu and psu. That would be a very silent pc, but it might not play games on best settings and highest resolution. Also you might not be able to use a cpu with more than 95Tdp and a psu higher than 500w with this solution. Still could get a pretty decent gaming rigg/workstation. You could sounddamping the case also

If you wanna WC then i suggest you get silent fans and radiators with low finns per inch(fpi). If you get a radiator for 140-250mm fans that should help reduce fan noise a lot compared to 120mm rads/fans. Select a pump that doesnt buzz to mutch and also sound dampening it. Using fan control on the fans is a must, imo. Select a controller witch can turn of the fans completetly.

 

[mayhem]

Low noise fans down to 500 to 700 RPM , quad flow rad 3 x 120mm (360) with 6 fans on push pull, D5 vairo pump set on 3 to 4, SSD The GPU you need quietening down so consider water cooling that again on a Quad pass rad. Fully lined case. You don't very often hear cap squeal unless the MB is rubbish.

Im running my system near silent at the moment (near silent cos all i can hear is my 18 DDC running at 1800 RPM wich i need to change to a D5 vario), My fans are running at 500, to 700 RPM, Over clocked to Intel 950 running at 4.8 Ghz. Im running 2 x 360 Experimental quad pass Mayhems rads at 14 FPI (v3). my temps are around 38c. No noise dampening though on the case which would help. Ive all so got fitted a Christal fontz LCD with Fan controller so when i start gaming the fans automatically ramp up to 1200 RPM (which is not to loud) to keep my temps steady.