[Radwen]

Ok, at first I was just asking quesitons here and there, thinking about it. The oil PC interested me because it consisted of a PC with almost 0 dba. But considering the hassle and all, I thought of updrading my air cooling. Then I calculated that a BT for my cpy, a artic sliencer for my gpu would cost me a lot and that my psu would still make a lot of sound.

So then I thought, maybe I could use oil for my psu (taking the fan out) and buy a low dba cooler for my cpu (maybe a BT, depends of my budget, or else Artic Freezer 64). Then add 2 low dba case fan (cooler master 13dba 120mm). Then if my stock X800 cooling is the only thing above 20 dba, I would buy a Artic Silencer which is supposed to be good and quiet.

Now I'm at the stage that I'm waiting for my credit card (should arrive any day now) to buy my parts off newegg. So I prepared my psu right away. I took the fan out and stuck it in the only leak proof container I had at hand. A picnic cooler >_>. Not the greatest at all since it keeps all the heat inside.

Tomorrow I will go hunting for a small rectangular aluminium leak proof container at master vox. Because right now my psu temp is 24C over it's limit ! (74C, the max is supposed to be 50C lol). By having a aluminium container, it should be enough to spread the heat out and keep to psu and it's oil under 50C.
(It's been running for 6 hours at 74C now .. I'll let it rest for the night and try to get my hands on an aluminium box soon.)

This way not only will I be able to fit my psu back into my tower, but it will be running at acceptable temps and soundless ! Then I would buy 2 13dba case fans + what ever cpu cooler my budget allows me.

Do you guys have any suggestions ?

Here are the links to the newegg products.

Case fan : Cooler Master 120mm 13dba
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999072

Cpu cooler : Big Typhoon 16dba
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106061

Artich Freezer 64 "very silent"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185125

Vga Cooler : Artic Silencer "quiet"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186133

 

[pbasil1]

why not just mod the PSU case itself and make it airtight for the oil, then attack some cheap fins,or heatsinks to the outside of it to help (silently) dissapate more heat,maybe you can use parts of the stock cpu and gpu heatsinks,like cut them up into smaller heatsinks... and get the BT not the arctic freezer, you still want great cooling with quiteness.... and if you have a few dollers left over i may suggest going to bestbuy or local autoshop and getting a small Dynomat kit and line the insides of the case with it, its sound obsorbing material,works wonders!

other than that,looks awesome and we wanna see build project pics!!! so take lots! good luck

 

[Radwen]

I'll be sure to take a pic of my psu right now before I mod it in my case

. It's pretty funny to have it in a cooler outsite my PC case lol.

I thought of modding the psu box itself, but then there are a few large holes that would be somewhat of a pain to cover. I saw at mastervox some nice psu size aluminium boxes (I'm not sure is psu are made of aluminium of not .. if not, then It would help to the head conductivity.) for 8.99$ CAN. So I'll see what I can get today. I'll still keep in mind your suggestion though.

I think the dynomat is a good idea, since my cases "heat holes" are probably just a source of turbulence ..

 

[Radwen]

**** .. I didn't know newegg was US only .. why not canada too ?

.

You guys have any other good online stores that ship to canada ?

 

[r3tard]

Thermaltake purepower. Not the most powerful powersupply, but I believe it's completely passive. The 120 mm fan's seem good, May want to get a suspended mount for your harddrive to minimize on the vibration, and the thermaltake big typhoon will definitely make stuff quiet

And if you can't use newegg, Next best thing is either www.ncix.com OR www.tigerdirect.ca I hate the latter but love ncix.

 

[pbasil1]

hows that PSU mod comin, i really like the idea of sealing it and filling it with the dielectric oil, and having fins/coolers attached to the outside of it...

 

[Radwen]

Thanks, I'll check the sites out.

Do you guys know xioxide ? Is it good/safe ?

As for the rubber bands, it was already planned.

For now my power supply is running 76C lol, MasterVox didn't have the aluminium box I was looking for in stock. I'll have to order it online. I bought A huge aluminium cooler though. I'll see what I can manage to do with that.

I'm trying to make it with the less purchased items possible .. so then I could maybe create a FAQ on how to built a cheap silent PC

. If I end up blowing my psu up though, I'll probably go for a passive cooled one.

I'm going to test a aluminium cookie box I have. I've cleaned it up and tested it, but after 10 minutes or so I got minor leaks. So I re-transfered my psu in the cooler again .. god, I spent like 2 hours cleaning oil today

. God bless vim and pinesol !
I'll test the siliconed sealed aluminium box tomorrow (I can leave my pc on for 8 hours without problems with my psu at 76C .. I close it down at night to give it a break though lol). It should prove a lot better and reduce the heat by 20C I would guess. Then with some added coolers .. maybe I could get it down to 40-45C without fans. Then once it would be mounted in the case, it would get some air circulation and it could go down some more

.

Anyways, I'm looking for what I can get from NCIX now ..
I hope xioxide is reliable .. because they have sound dampening lining kit for 17$~ that'll cover the whole case and they ship to canada !

I'll check up tomorrow and give news about the aluminium cookie box

.

edit : Oh and should I go for 13dba 11.7CFM or 22dba 42.734CFM for my 120 mm case fan ?

 

[pbasil1]

i have used xoxide and they were quick (in the same state as me) and reliable for me,still a small company bet they are good....be careful where u put the sound deadening, it insulates heat, so u will have to be temp concious! all sounds well and i cant wait to see your finished product....

 

[Radwen]

You'll have to wait a little lol, I don't have my credit card yet .. it should be in any day now.

But with xioxide I can use a paypal account .. but they are out of Big Typhoons .. I guess I'll order it later.

 

[pbasil1]

ya i can wait, i geuss

this just sounds like a neat project to me,and who knows i may do some similar mods if all goes pretty well for ya...

oh and about the psu running hot untill u finish modding it, why not just hook the fans back up to it untill you get all u need for the mod completion, or just have a small fan blowing on it temporarily as to not damage/fry it....

 

[Radwen]

I had to cut the fan wires to take it off. I don't feel like putting it back on.

Depends of the results I get tomorrow with my cookie box. If it doesn't work, I'll just put the fan back until I get my credit card and all.

 

[Radwen]

Good news !
The siliconed cookie box (used Silicone II) leaks no more and no my temps reduced by 26C. After 3 hours up time I think it reached it's peak of 50C. Considering I was able to run 8-10 hours at 76C without problems .. I'm quite happy with this.

But it gets better ! Once this will have proved good for a few days of testing, I will put it inside my case. Why is this good ? Because it will benefit from air circulation !
It get's even better. Now my psu is only 90% covered in oil, so I haven't set up my heatsinks yet because they wouldn't be too usefull the way it's built. I did so because this way it's easier to move the box if I have to.
If this proves to go well, I built higher walls to my box so that I can raise the level of oil without having it too border line with the edges. Once this is done I will add etheir a huge aluminium heatsink on top, so buy 2-4 1.5$ heatsinks and mount them on the box.
This should get my temps down under 45C, Maybe even lower.

Now I'm wondering about two things.
First :
Where should I place the heatsink/s for optimal heat dispersion.

Second :
Where should I place the box ?

My current thoughts for #1 are that since a psu box is made of sheet metal, it would be better to have the aluminium heatsink placed on top of the box and have the level of oil a little higher, this way the oil directly contacts the heatsinks and it should transfer the heat out more effeciently. (I'm assuming that oil and aluminium conduct heat better than sheet metal ..)

As for #2, I thought of three places. The best/easiest would be outside the case, but then I'd take all the challenge away lol

. So Option 1 would be sticking if where the power supply normally goes .. but this would require some important case modifications. Since the box will soon be ~1 inch higher then the psu (it is now only 1 cm higher), it's going to need more height. It would also require some sort of support, since the oil makes it heavy.
Option 2 is to build a support for it in a 5.25" bay. This is also good since I have 2 of my 4 bays free. I could put it on top, this way the heat goes up and doesn't affect the drives (certainly if I put a fan where the psu is supposed to be).
Option 3 would be the easiest, but I dislike it since heat moves up. I would make place for it where my 3.5" bays are, this would be easy and fast. But then I get all the heat moving up to my HD's (2) and CD/DVD (2). Even If I move my HD's in 5.25" bays, they still get too much heat for my liking ...

So what do you guys think ?

 

[Radwen]

Follow up :

What ended up happening was that the silicone dettached itself with time due to constant exposure to 45-50C temps and then I got slow leeks .. which where a pain in the ass.

My psu is still in my sink right now .. it's been for a week ..
I'll repair it when I get some free time.

I ended up buying a ThermalTake TR2 430W psu with 19 dba for sound .. funny thing is that it sounds like 10-

. The fans barely rotate and everything is clear .. anyways. I'm satisfied.

So the 20dba- project is going to end up a lot less geek modded then first thought. I also don't have much time these days due to new events in my life.

I purchased a BT, and all I have left that is noisy is my VGA fan. I'm getting a Zalman cooler that runs a 18 dba idle ..

After that my PC should be pretty much soundless .. and it's after all of this that I'll finaly get my credit card (i'm supposed to get it by mail on friday .. I hate my bank, they messed up twice ..).

I might build some sort of home made lining to insolate sound and avoid turbulence.

I'll follow up some day.

To bad the project will have ended up costing 200-250$ ..

 

[Chosen]

I ordered from xoxide my box looked like it was ran over by a car... or stomped on my cathodes were smashed into bits

 

[Radwen]

Humm .. I suddenly don't feel like buying from there anymore ..

Do they have some sort of warranty ?

 

[Radwen]

Should I buy 2 HD sound dampeners for 16.99$ each ?

Or just mount my HD on rubber bands ? Or some other ghetto style mod you guys might have in store for me ?

(all of this in the 5.25" bays)

And generaly, vibration wise. Any good tips on how to reduce vibration without using dampening pads and rubber screws ?
Will elevating my PC off the floor and on a rubberised object also help ?
Because the tower does vibrate a ltitle, so I guess it's heard if it's on a wooden floor...

I finaly got my credit card, so I can order my case noise dampening linings from xoxide.

I should be finished all of this by next thursday !
I'll prepare a summary then.

 

[witchhunter]

zalman hdd heatpipe coolers included sound dampening attatchments, havent tried them, but they look good if you want your hdd cooler, they take up a 5.25" bay though. silicone washers work ok, just remember to put them on both sides (so the screw is isolated from the case as well). the elastic suspension method works best for silence - basically get some elastic from a sewing store, loop it through your 5.25" slot and put your hdd in it - but doesnt cool your drives as well as even the standard 3.5" mount.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is good but horribly out of date.
anyone got a better silent pc website?

 

[Radwen]

I ended up cutting up elastic bands and taping them to the sides of my two HD's.

I actually hear a difference. it's not the best, but this way they stay in their 3.5" bays ^^.

I'll post pics when I'm finished .. I'm just awaiting my ever so long taking zalman vf700cu to arrive lol.