fanless power supply

Is it a bad idea to combine a fanless power supply like the one on

http://www.silentmaxx.net/silent_pro..._supplies.html

with watercooling? Is it a bad idea to have practically no airflow in the
case?

<Nittaku> wrote in message
news:3fad1d6c$0$32206$ .be...
> Is it a bad idea to combine a fanless power supply like the one on
>
>
http://www.silentmaxx.net/silent_pro..._supplies.html
>
> with watercooling? Is it a bad idea to have practically no airflow in the
> case?

Just about everything requires air flow. Get a couple of 80mm 21db Panaflos
to keep your case cool or check your manual.

http://www.formfactors.org/formfactor.asp


Lane

On Sat, 8 Nov 2003 17:46:34 +0100, <Nittaku> wrote:

>Is it a bad idea to combine a fanless power supply like the one on
>
>http://www.silentmaxx.net/silent_pro..._supplies.html
>
>with watercooling? Is it a bad idea to have practically no airflow in the
>case?
>

IF you were to build an entirely-passively cooled system, it would be
of benefit to have a power supply like that, which 'sinks more heat
external to the power supply casing. It's still somewhat of a
marketing gimmick though, using a far lower priced quality power
supply with a quieter fan would result in inaudible noise level with
similar or lower internal temp and the added benefit of moving some
air through the system. If you already have a system producing less
than 28db overall and find it too loud, then you may be wanting more
passive components, but if you're contrasting with a louder system you
might find a 22db power supply quiet enough.

Water-cooling is in itself a bad idea if you don't also have a fan
blowing on the motherboard. It's not only the CPU that needs airflow,
albeit the most airflow. If the system is to be considered
throw-away, only needed for a year or two, it may not matter as much.

It is MUCH easier to cool a system with few low airflow fans, than no
airflow. Water-cooling requires pump (noise) and still a fan unless
it's a very large, obtrusive radiator. The key is to have relatively
large heatsinks on parts that need them, large enough to remove enough
heat with quiet fans.

Of course it depends on the whole system too, it's a lot easier to
make a low-performance, highly-integrated system quiet compared to the
higher-performance or higher component-count alternatives.


Dave

"kony" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 8 Nov 2003 17:46:34 +0100, <Nittaku> wrote:
>
> >Is it a bad idea to combine a fanless power supply like the one on
> >
>
>http://www.silentmaxx.net/silent_pro...r_supplies.htm
l
> >
> >with watercooling? Is it a bad idea to have practically no airflow in the
> >case?
> >
>
> IF you were to build an entirely-passively cooled system, it would be
> of benefit to have a power supply like that, which 'sinks more heat
> external to the power supply casing. It's still somewhat of a
> marketing gimmick though, using a far lower priced quality power
> supply with a quieter fan would result in inaudible noise level with
> similar or lower internal temp and the added benefit of moving some
> air through the system.
> If you already have a system producing less
> than 28db overall and find it too loud, then you may be wanting more
> passive components, but if you're contrasting with a louder system you
> might find a 22db power supply quiet enough.

I really have no clue about what noise levels to expect or what noise levels
are unattainable. All I know is my current but old system irritates me, I
want something new and I want to do it "right". OK, maybe watercooling is a
little bit over the top, but I can have some fun, can't I? Or do you really
advise me to stick to fan cooling...

> Water-cooling is in itself a bad idea if you don't also have a fan
> blowing on the motherboard. It's not only the CPU that needs airflow,
> albeit the most airflow. If the system is to be considered
> throw-away, only needed for a year or two, it may not matter as much.

I was thinking of buying a Koolance case with CPU, video and northbridge
watercoolers (and maybe harddisk watercoolers too)
Does that still require airflow over the motherboard?

> It is MUCH easier to cool a system with few low airflow fans, than no
> airflow. Water-cooling requires pump (noise) and still a fan unless
> it's a very large, obtrusive radiator. The key is to have relatively
> large heatsinks on parts that need them, large enough to remove enough
> heat with quiet fans.

Do water pumps really make that much noise?

> Of course it depends on the whole system too, it's a lot easier to
> make a low-performance, highly-integrated system quiet compared to the
> higher-performance or higher component-count alternatives.

And I am thinking of a "more or less" high-performance system, with a 3GHz
P4, 1GHz of RAM, 2 HDD's in RAID 0, and a decent (but not the best) graphics
card.

To give you an idea, I hear ALL current hard disk activity VERY clearly.
Last month I bought my girlfriend an extra hard drive, a Maxtor DiamondMax8
40GB 2MB cache 7200rpm and I don't really hear anything.

And since word goes that hard disks are the most noise producing things in
current systems, maybe that says a lot about my old system. And that's why
I'm so afraid

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:21:10 +0100, <Nittaku> wrote:

>To give you an idea, I hear ALL current hard disk activity VERY clearly.
>Last month I bought my girlfriend an extra hard drive, a Maxtor DiamondMax8
>40GB 2MB cache 7200rpm and I don't really hear anything.
>
>And since word goes that hard disks are the most noise producing things in
>current systems, maybe that says a lot about my old system. And that's why
>I'm so afraid
>

Passive power supplies and water cooling has no effect on HDD noise,
on the contrary, if you quiet down the rest of the system the HDD
noise will be all the more noticable.

Old HDDs often get annoyingly whiney. Personnally I can accept seek
noise but hate the whiney noise of ball-bearings, so for the systems I
sit in front of, I use drives with fluid-bearings, Maxtor (or
Seagate). Even so, new ball-bearing drives (like Western Digital's)
are a lot quieter than "some" of the whiney old drives I have sitting
around unused.

Hard drives also need the airflow, is yet another reason why passive
cooling is much more difficult if you want system component longevity.
For a very quiet system you might want to mount HDDs in a rack that
has a 80-92mm fan in front of it, either a low-RPM fan, possibly
further reduced in RPM by voltage reduction to 7V, or a higher RPM fan
reduced to 5V. Either will be inaduible or nearly so, but if the
front bezel has a lot of air-intake holes/vents directly in front of
the HDD & fan, a little more noise will escape, but on the other hand
such a direct air intake allows more efficient use of fans, lower RPM
and noise from the fan itself.

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:16:46 +0100, <Nittaku> wrote:


>I really have no clue about what noise levels to expect or what noise levels
>are unattainable. All I know is my current but old system irritates me, I
>want something new and I want to do it "right". OK, maybe watercooling is a
>little bit over the top, but I can have some fun, can't I? Or do you really
>advise me to stick to fan cooling...

Watercooling is good for extreme overclocking or severe environments,
like the middle of a desert. It has no benefit otherwise. Use of a
higher-end quality cooler, large and with at least an all-copper
baseplate, coupled with a large 80-92mm low-RPM fan on top, can
achieve same or lower noise levels, at lower cost, lower system
complexity, takes up less room in the case, elimination of
water-leakage risk, and lower maintenance. Water-cooling is best left
to those who think having the lowest CPU temp possible is some kind of
contest or have a quest to get the last 3% performance out of a
system, and are of course spending top-dollar on other components like
video card, memory, and SCSI-RAID.

If you really just want to play around with mods and water-cooling is
the next big step, hey, it's your hobby, done right there's nothing
wrong with using water cooling, it just doesn't have any benefits for
normal system, even high-performance ones.

>> Water-cooling is in itself a bad idea if you don't also have a fan
>> blowing on the motherboard. It's not only the CPU that needs airflow,
>> albeit the most airflow. If the system is to be considered
>> throw-away, only needed for a year or two, it may not matter as much.
>
>I was thinking of buying a Koolance case with CPU, video and northbridge
>watercoolers (and maybe harddisk watercoolers too)
>Does that still require airflow over the motherboard?

Reread above paragraph.
Next consider that the same applies to a video card, reduced life if
all you're cooling is the GPU, not the rest of the card.
If you want to spend the time it's not too hard to mod any kind of
cooler or make a bracket to put a large quiet fan wherever you want
it.

>
>> It is MUCH easier to cool a system with few low airflow fans, than no
>> airflow. Water-cooling requires pump (noise) and still a fan unless
>> it's a very large, obtrusive radiator. The key is to have relatively
>> large heatsinks on parts that need them, large enough to remove enough
>> heat with quiet fans.
>
>Do water pumps really make that much noise?

Generally not loud, but it is additional noise. The same low-RPM fan
used to cool a water radiator could be cooling a CPU heatsink instead,
so water-cooling pump adds extra noise. Again this is only when
considering decent CPU heatsink paired with a quiet fan.
>
>> Of course it depends on the whole system too, it's a lot easier to
>> make a low-performance, highly-integrated system quiet compared to the
>> higher-performance or higher component-count alternatives.
>
>And I am thinking of a "more or less" high-performance system, with a 3GHz
>P4, 1GHz of RAM, 2 HDD's in RAID 0, and a decent (but not the best) graphics
>card.
>

It's your call.... You're doing the opposite of what's best to achieve
a quiet system, using parts that create more heat. Even so, low noise
is an attainable goal. The soluytion is always the same, use large
efficient heatsinks, low RPM quiet fans, and a case that allows and
makes good use of airflow, especially for components more subject to
differences between different cases' airflow, like the hard drives.
Use multiplie lowest RPM fans instead of fewer, higher RPM fans.


Dave

> >To give you an idea, I hear ALL current hard disk activity VERY clearly.
> >Last month I bought my girlfriend an extra hard drive, a Maxtor
DiamondMax8
> >40GB 2MB cache 7200rpm and I don't really hear anything.
> >
> >And since word goes that hard disks are the most noise producing things
in
> >current systems, maybe that says a lot about my old system. And that's
why
> >I'm so afraid
> >
>
> Passive power supplies and water cooling has no effect on HDD noise,
> on the contrary, if you quiet down the rest of the system the HDD
> noise will be all the more noticable.
>
> Old HDDs often get annoyingly whiney. Personnally I can accept seek
> noise but hate the whiney noise of ball-bearings, so for the systems I
> sit in front of, I use drives with fluid-bearings, Maxtor (or
> Seagate). Even so, new ball-bearing drives (like Western Digital's)
> are a lot quieter than "some" of the whiney old drives I have sitting
> around unused.
>
> Hard drives also need the airflow, is yet another reason why passive
> cooling is much more difficult if you want system component longevity.
> For a very quiet system you might want to mount HDDs in a rack that
> has a 80-92mm fan in front of it, either a low-RPM fan, possibly
> further reduced in RPM by voltage reduction to 7V, or a higher RPM fan
> reduced to 5V. Either will be inaduible or nearly so, but if the
> front bezel has a lot of air-intake holes/vents directly in front of
> the HDD & fan, a little more noise will escape, but on the other hand
> such a direct air intake allows more efficient use of fans, lower RPM
> and noise from the fan itself.

Thank you very much for all your replies!

> >I really have no clue about what noise levels to expect or what noise
levels
> >are unattainable. All I know is my current but old system irritates me, I
> >want something new and I want to do it "right". OK, maybe watercooling is
a
> >little bit over the top, but I can have some fun, can't I? Or do you
really
> >advise me to stick to fan cooling...
>
> Watercooling is good for extreme overclocking or severe environments,
> like the middle of a desert. It has no benefit otherwise. Use of a
> higher-end quality cooler, large and with at least an all-copper
> baseplate, coupled with a large 80-92mm low-RPM fan on top, can
> achieve same or lower noise levels, at lower cost, lower system
> complexity, takes up less room in the case, elimination of
> water-leakage risk, and lower maintenance. Water-cooling is best left
> to those who think having the lowest CPU temp possible is some kind of
> contest or have a quest to get the last 3% performance out of a
> system, and are of course spending top-dollar on other components like
> video card, memory, and SCSI-RAID.
>
> If you really just want to play around with mods and water-cooling is
> the next big step, hey, it's your hobby, done right there's nothing
> wrong with using water cooling, it just doesn't have any benefits for
> normal system, even high-performance ones.
>
> >> Water-cooling is in itself a bad idea if you don't also have a fan
> >> blowing on the motherboard. It's not only the CPU that needs airflow,
> >> albeit the most airflow. If the system is to be considered
> >> throw-away, only needed for a year or two, it may not matter as much.
> >
> >I was thinking of buying a Koolance case with CPU, video and northbridge
> >watercoolers (and maybe harddisk watercoolers too)
> >Does that still require airflow over the motherboard?
>
> Reread above paragraph.
> Next consider that the same applies to a video card, reduced life if
> all you're cooling is the GPU, not the rest of the card.
> If you want to spend the time it's not too hard to mod any kind of
> cooler or make a bracket to put a large quiet fan wherever you want
> it.
>
> >
> >> It is MUCH easier to cool a system with few low airflow fans, than no
> >> airflow. Water-cooling requires pump (noise) and still a fan unless
> >> it's a very large, obtrusive radiator. The key is to have relatively
> >> large heatsinks on parts that need them, large enough to remove enough
> >> heat with quiet fans.
> >
> >Do water pumps really make that much noise?
>
> Generally not loud, but it is additional noise. The same low-RPM fan
> used to cool a water radiator could be cooling a CPU heatsink instead,
> so water-cooling pump adds extra noise. Again this is only when
> considering decent CPU heatsink paired with a quiet fan.
> >
> >> Of course it depends on the whole system too, it's a lot easier to
> >> make a low-performance, highly-integrated system quiet compared to the
> >> higher-performance or higher component-count alternatives.
> >
> >And I am thinking of a "more or less" high-performance system, with a
3GHz
> >P4, 1GHz of RAM, 2 HDD's in RAID 0, and a decent (but not the best)
graphics
> >card.
> >
>
> It's your call.... You're doing the opposite of what's best to achieve
> a quiet system, using parts that create more heat. Even so, low noise
> is an attainable goal. The soluytion is always the same, use large
> efficient heatsinks, low RPM quiet fans, and a case that allows and
> makes good use of airflow, especially for components more subject to
> differences between different cases' airflow, like the hard drives.
> Use multiplie lowest RPM fans instead of fewer, higher RPM fans.

You're right. I think I'll buy a new CPU (cooler included), graphics card
(cooler included), motherboard, memory, hard disk and low-noise power supply
and put them all in my old case. Then the only thing I need extra are some
fans. And I'll just see what happens. If I still want watercooling, not much
money is lost, I can use the fans in summer for body cooling purposes...

<Nittaku> wrote in message news:<3fad1d6c$0$32206$ t.be>...

> Is it a bad idea to combine a fanless power supply like the one on
>
> http://www.silentmaxx.net/silent_pro..._supplies.html
>
> with watercooling?

I'd avoid that power supply because it's not UL approved, and it's
only made to CE standards, not tested by CE. My main worry is the
exposed heatsink, which is probably insulated from the high voltage
(over 300V) transistors by only thin silicone rubber sheets that
shouldn't be trusted with anyone's life, and a better design would use
very thick insulators, probably ceramic. In a typical fan-cooled
supply the heatsinks are entirely enclosed by the earth grounded metal
box, so there won't be shock hazard if the transistor insulation
fails. If you decide to buy this supply, use it only with a grounded
wall outlet, and do realize that not all 3-prong outlets have the 3rd
prong grounded to anything. Good supplies for home use are designed
to be safe even when run without a grounded outlet, but I don't trust
this supply enough to run it ungrounded.

I don't like water cooling because water and high voltage don't mix,
and I haven't seen any commercial water cooling systems guaranteed
leakproof even with water pump failure, which can cause temperatures
to rise enough to melt plastic hoses and spray water everywhere.

> Is it a bad idea to have practically no airflow in the case?

No, but some cases provide enough through gravity convection.

Try www.silentpcreview.com for information about making computers
quiet safely.