Advice on first Custom Loop - silence is priority

toontoonizer · 13 Nov 2017 at 16:34

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well!

I've been an avid PC enthusiast for a while now. I recently went all out and made an X299 build. As part of this build I chose an AIO for CPU cooling (bequiet silent loop 360) and a GPU with an AIO (EVGA 1080ti SC2 Hybrid) to meet my need for low temps and noise. I understand a fan based system can be quieter at idle, but I don't think they would be acoustically pleasing under load, and not the best way to go for overclocking (which i have done - 4.5ghz on an i7 7820x). This system was pretty much silent when it was on, and quiet during gaming. It would only sound like a hurricane under stress testing and rendering which is fine.

The reason I'm making this thread is that last week the CPU AIO started to develop an awful grinding sound that could clearly be heard over every other component in the system. No amount of tilting or rotating alleviated the sound so it wasn't trapped air. In fact, it was even louder than the GPU pump which buzzed like a beehive.

I am therefore considering a custom loop to cool both the GPU and CPU and hopefully, avoid cheap noise pumps altogether. I have a budget of around £500 to do this and wanted to get your advice on what would be the best way to get the quietest watercooling loop.

in terms of noise, I'm very sensitive to buzzing/rattling/grinding especially when that is the only noise coming out of the PC.

I have an intel 7820x and a Phanteks enthoo atx (tempered glass). I will probably use the 1080ti with a GPU core water block rather than a full coverage one (mainly because there is no full cover block for the EVGA 1080 ti SC2)

I understand the main principles of building a loop and i know that i need a reservoir, pump, CPU block, rad(s) and a gpu block but wanted to get the advice of anyone who has had experience with trying to build the quietest waterloop they can.

I think the pump will probably be the loudest thing, but running that as low RPM as possible should address that, along with mounting it on foam etc. Would be good to get thoughts, especially on things like would it be better to have 2 radiators in the loop (can run fans slower) or one large rad?

chroniclard · 13 Nov 2017 at 16:46

I have two pumps, set on the lowest setting and they are inaudible. So one low speed pump should give near silence for that part. For me its the fans that cause the noise so as much rad space as possible with decent fans on lowest possible settings should give near silence. Mine is not totally silent, however its very quiet in normal use. The fans are set at 30% by default and only ramp up when the CPU hits 60 degrees. I believe I could get it quieter with different fans but I fell into the Noctua trap, I dont believe they are as good as they make out and think alternate fans would be quieter. Also consider push/pull as you could run fans even slower.

toontoonizer · 15 Nov 2017 at 08:08

chroniclard said:
I have two pumps, set on the lowest setting and they are inaudible. So one low speed pump should give near silence for that part. For me its the fans that cause the noise so as much rad space as possible with decent fans on lowest possible settings should give near silence. Mine is not totally silent, however its very quiet in normal use. The fans are set at 30% by default and only ramp up when the CPU hits 60 degrees. I believe I could get it quieter with different fans but I fell into the Noctua trap, I dont believe they are as good as they make out and think alternate fans would be quieter. Also consider push/pull as you could run fans even slower.

Thanks! One of my main noise concerns is with the pump so that is reassuring to know.

Yeah I also got some Noctua fans and to be fair they are quieter than the bequiet silent wings that came with the CPU cooler but I don't doubt there may be quieter fans. I'm currently looking at the aerocool dead silence fans. They are flipping ugly though

chroniclard · 15 Nov 2017 at 08:52

So I have 5 x Noctua NF-F12 fans on my radiators(360 and a 240).
1 x 140mm Noctua NF-A14 pulling air in from the bottom
1 x 120mm Noctua case fan, forgot the model, pulling air in from the rear.

At the lowest speed(about 20%) they are all very quiet, not totally silent, but quiet. While that level of cooling is adequate for your average everyday use its not enough, in my case, for more intensive tasks so the fans do need to ramp up a bit when gaming/whatever. However once I am in a game with the sound on I dont really notice it and its certainly not intrusive.

Though one mans hurricane is another mans "yeah thats fine".

Pocah · 15 Nov 2017 at 12:56

I would, recommend a Corsair Commander Pro, so you have absolute control and monitoring over everything. You can do the same without it, but it just makes life easy for a system where you really want the right performance. With it you can do nice things like switching some of the fans off completely until you are gaming.
I think it is always better the err on the side of caution with the radiators. The more the better. You can always leave fans switched off if you don't need them, but that's better than having not enough area to properly cool the system.
If the GPU and CPU are water cooled then I prefer the idea of all radiators as inputs. In other words all the radiator fans are blowing in to the case. This maintains positive pressure, and it really doesn't make a lot of difference to motherboard temps. If you don't mind negative pressure then have all the radiators set as outputs. You don't really need a separate exhaust fan either way as long as you have a good number of fans on the radiators.
I tend to prefer Noiseblockers PWM simply because their black shell and white blades look nicer than Noctua. They are German made, and absolutely silent. All you can hear is the air rushing through them. They're hybrid so they perform well as both case fans and radiator fans.
I would generally buy 1200RPM fans but there is always a danger you might need more RPM. But it's no good just buying the highest RPM you can ~ the higher the max RPM the higher the minimum RPM so it's always a compromise between enough cooling when the system is busy and reducing noise when the system is idle. This is where commander pro comes in though. With Commander Pro you can get slightly faster fans that you think you need, and just switch SOME of them off completely when the system is idle. So you could ( if you think you need it ) get the 2000RPM Noiseblockers, and switch all but one off when the system is idle.

Doobedoo · 15 Nov 2017 at 18:03

I'd go one futher and say forget the Corsair Commander Pro and pick an Aquaero 5 LT, It's cheaper and much better, unless you're one of those that is attracted to multi-colored lights.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua-computer-aquaero-5-lt-usb-fan-controller-wc-011-aq.html

Smffy · 15 Nov 2017 at 18:51

Doobedoo said:
I'd go one futher and say forget the Corsair Commander Pro and pick an Aquaero 5 LT, It's cheaper and much better, unless you're one of those that is attracted to multi-colored lights.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua-computer-aquaero-5-lt-usb-fan-controller-wc-011-aq.html

+1

Also would be good to know potential rad space, what you can do with a lot of radiator or larger thickness is run with zero fans until say 40c. Basic browsing would be silent then as the passive cooling and pump flow is adequate, Aquaero is good... I confess to having got the top version with LCD but I don’t really use the screen. You will probably run the pump at 30% most of the time I would guess with a stand alone D5 so it’s pretty quiet, mount it on a shoggy sandwich

.

You AIO pump is faulty (grinding sound) also so get a replacement or refund if new. When tweaking pump speed always try 1% increments as occasionally you find an odd speed where the noise is less noticeable.