Convective silence

Posted:
April 22nd 2008
Updated:
Viewed:
11,300 times
Rating:
Superb (8.0)
Voting Graph 9 votes total
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Key Features:
High Rated AMD CPU NVIDIA Graphics Water-cooled
System Specs:
  • ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe
  • AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
  • Asus EN7600GT
  • 2GB RAM
  • Antec P182 case
  • Antec Phantom 500 Passive PSU
  • DIY Passive Radiator
  • 2x samsung 22" LCD's
Performed Mods:
Watercooling, DIY passive radiator, Switchpanel for the pre assembled (and quite unnecessary) case fans.
The idea was to make a pc that would be totally silent. I also wanted a somewhat Darth Vaderish look since Las-Vegas-in-a-box like LED pollution annoys me a bit. I constructed a passive heat exchanger for my old watercooling rig so I could get rid of all the fans in the system. Of course, it also required a power supply that had no actively rotating fans (the Antec Phantom). I mounted the Eheim pump and Innovatek tank on top of the DIY radiator, so it is a separate module with shut off valves and quick connectors and can be disconnected easily for maintenance. This thing turned out to be quite good, the noisiest part of the system is now my second monitor (old 17" CRT) that keeps a slight humming sound. Update: the second CRT broke, so I swapped to 2 x 22" LCD:s, totally silent now....
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16 Comments on Convective silence

#1
AsRock
TPU addict
Welcome to the TPU forum..


Looks good like to see more pics though ones that show more of what you have done.
Posted on Reply
#2
Unregistered
AsRockWelcome to the TPU forum..
Looks good like to see more pics though ones that show more of what you have done.
Thanks,
I added one picture , and I will post more when I get a decent cam.
Dont want to snap the new ones with a crappy cell phone camera...
Posted on Edit | Reply
#3
AsRock
TPU addict
I am not on about the quality of the pics but how close the camera is. Like to see some taken further away from the computer.
Posted on Reply
#4
steelkane
hope your planing on upgrading your hardware, just seems like a bit much of a water cooling setup, for your hardware, other then that WOW nice job on the water setup looks,, AWESOME.
Posted on Reply
#5
intel igent
Welcome to TPU!

Nice rig! Care to share some more details about your rad?
Posted on Reply
#6
Unregistered
steelkanehope your planing on upgrading your hardware, just seems like a bit much of a water cooling setup, for your hardware, other then that WOW nice job on the water setup looks,, AWESOME.
I am not planning to upgrade the hardware because there is no need for me to do so at the moment. If I want / need more juice I will simply overclock, the rad is quite effective ...
This will do for a one more year or so, after that, I will a replace these with the best MOBO, CPU, RAM & 3D card that i can find and so we go for another few years....
The watercooling parts (except the rad) in this setup date back to 2001 and have seen 24/7 use in three setups before this.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#7
AsRock
TPU addict
steelkanehope your planing on upgrading your hardware, just seems like a bit much of a water cooling setup, for your hardware, other then that WOW nice job on the water setup looks,, AWESOME.
Just becouse hardware is not the latest and greatest it should NOT go against the actual mod.. I hate it when ppl put down a modded case \ system due to old \ older hardware.
Posted on Reply
#8
Unregistered
intel igentWelcome to TPU!
Nice rig! Care to share some more details about your rad?
Thanks,
The rad itself is an old crude aluminium 20kW DC power supply cooling profile.
The rounded aluminium corner pieces and backplate are made from a
telecommunications cabinet manufactured in the 70's. Four meters of copper tubing is connected using silver soldered capillary T-pieces that i bought for about 2$.
The copper tubes are soldered to silvered flat copper pieces used to link battery terminals
and screwed in to the rad (with some heat sink paste).
After this, I painted it with acrylic silk black (for the not so glossy finish).
Posted on Edit | Reply
#9
anticlutch
I have to say, you did an awesome job with this. Have you tried overclocking this rig yet?
Posted on Reply
#10
Unregistered
anticlutchI have to say, you did an awesome job with this. Have you tried overclocking this rig yet?
Yes, 10-20% CPU & GPU overclock is reasonable , but after this you might get crashes & lockups etc..as usual, these values are from my pages for comparison:

Convection rad
idle CPU 30C, GPU 35C, MOBO 26C, full overnight torture CPU 40C, GPU 55C, MOBO 28C
Old rad
idle CPU 26C, GPU 32C, MOBO 26C, full overnight torture CPU 38C, GPU 50C, MOBO 28C

You can see that with the old radiator the temps were few degrees lower than with this, but hey...the old one had four 120mm fans on it .....
Also, the hotter this gets, the more efficient it is as it is not cooled by force.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#11
steelkane
I use old hardware all the time, not putting his mod down, just asked if he was planing to upgrade,, & he said his computer runs fine with the old hardware. the computer I'm using right now is an old 2.6 P4 with 1.5gb of PC133 memory, but I dont think I would spend all that time building a kick-ass water cooling setup for it,, Just my opinion. it's his time not mine. still think he did a awesome job on it.
Posted on Reply
#12
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
Looks wicked man! I love it! If I was going to setup a lc rig, I'd have the same outcome! Love it! 10/10 flat!
Posted on Reply
#16
Silverel
I voted 10/10 because:

pShh, hardware is unimportant in a good mod. There's a lot of work done to this thing, I see it, and much appreciate it. Making your own rad out of copper tubing, and silver solder is worthy of a 10 to me.
Posted on Reply
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