Project: Silent Overkill

Cenedd said:
It's good. Big, but that is sort of the point. I tend to run mine passively most of the time and a Aquaero kicks the fans in for a bit when the coolant gets up to near 40°C and stops once it's cooled a few degrees. The one thing I'd say is that the grill is a necessity - if it's on the floor, at some point you're going to kick it. Maybe they've changed the design slightly since I bought it but the gap between the rad and the grill is quite slim. This means there aren't many 200mm fans that will fit in the gap - hence why my 200mm fans are off most of the time. They're not loud exactly but louder than a decent fan would be at that speed but all the decent ones are too thick. You could, of course, mount the grill on washers or pieces of tube to space it off the rad a bit. That would let you put thicker fans in but leave a gap between the rad and grill that I didn't want. If you're looking at 200mm fans (4x200 fans are cheaper than 9x120) let me know and I'll measure the clearance between grill and rad for you.
The other thing to note is that you'll need a bit more coolant than a small rad. Mine takes slightly more than 2 litres from a casual drain (not trying to get all of it dry) and the res is 880ml if 100% full.
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Cheers for the information, I have just looked on their site and they do a high rise one, takes up to 38mm fans.
I do have 2x480 rads, I might strap them together in the same style and mount the res and pump on the side.
Then at a later date buy the mora 420 and 9x 140mm fans.
Passively sounds ace for reading and watching iplayer etc. Been a bit obsessed with having a silent pc since i got into watercooling 5 years ago :D
 
Passive is definitely a bonus. I've been similarly obsessed with silence since I had a particularly noisy small form-factor PC. The only trouble is that when you quieten something, you usually end up hearing something else that bothers you instead. This is why my wife's PC is now watercooled and blessed with a new PSU!

I checked and my fans start running at 36°C at 1/3rd speed, ramp up to full speed at 37°C (which has never happened) and stop running again at 35°C. The room is currently at 21°C and over the last hour the rad fans haven't spun up once (there are others that run quietly inside the case to cool things like SSDs). If I start a game the rad fans will run now and again but it's not constant. If they were decent (ie quiet) fans I'd probably run them at a steady slow speed for silence but these ones are just a bit disappointing if I'm honest. Just checked and these Aerocool ones are 20mm thick (22 if you count the head of the screws that hold them in) and there's a total of 26mm of space...so you'd just about be able to squeeze in a 25mm fan with this grill. If I remember correctly, most were 30mm or 35mm so the high-rise grill would be your best bet by the sound of it.
 
Only way you can mount it really. Nothing stopping you from having it free standing, of course. I think that was Watercool's intention originally. You'd just need some form of entry/exit for tubing (some bulkhead connectors would work) and then have it stand next to the PC.....or even through a wall in another room, outside wherever. Depends on the lengths you're willing to go to for the peace and quiet. Mine's bolted to the side because I'm married...and I like peace and quiet too! ;)
 
Well, I said I'd get around to it eventually!



The little soldering sponge was a revelation. I watched a YouTube video of a Girl Guide making woggles out of paracord (had to make one for my son) and it dawned on me then that yeah, only an idiot wouldn't have thought of that basic precaution to provide temporary immunity to the molten paracord! :rolleyes:
Flush cutters with blades that aren't made of cheese help too. These make a nice neat cut through paracord. The last ones? Well, one blade is embedded in a wall somewhere after I dared cut something as substantial as a 16 gauge wire!
 
That looks really nice, not fun though. So do you just pull out the core of the paracord and replace it with cable?
 
DJai said:
That looks really nice, not fun though. So do you just pull out the core of the paracord and replace it with cable?
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Yup, cut the paracord to length, slightly singe the ends to stop fraying and pull all of the inner strands out.

Cenedd, how did you find measuring up the paracord? I've just started working on individually-sleeved front panel connectors (yes, I'm insane, but for a reason) and my paracord is actually a pain to retain dimensions on measure and stretch.
 
Pretty much, yes.
  1. Pull the core threads out (being careful not to fray either end),
  2. lightly melt both ends so it doesn't fray
  3. Use the threading tool (gold and silver stick in picture above) which was very generously gifted to me by ALXAndy to get it on over the spiky parts of the pin
  4. dip fingers in water!
  5. melt the pin end of the paracord and smush it into the pin so that it stays there - this is the method without heatshrink.
LePhuronn: I'll confess to cheating there. I'm measuring 20cm lengths with the scale on the silicone mat but the three different colours are all slightly different diameters and stretchiness - like nominally the same but you can definitely get more wires down one colour than another. They also melt slightly differently....even though they're from the same brand. That's why one end is heatshrinked - it allows the lengths to be slightly different, means I don't have to remove the pins from that end (it started as a pre-made extension) and you'll never see that end once it's in. The reason I'm going with the extension is that on my PSU, I can't get the pins out of the ATX connector - some were glued in and others, well it could just be me being inept....but they weren't coming out. There's a crimped and moulded ring there anyway and the pins aren't one-to-one so it's easier to slap a sleeved extension on it and make the visible part look nice.
 
Gotcha

I'm doing all my wiring from scratch so I can melt the paracord over the ATX and SATA crimps and be done with it because the housing has sufficient depth to conceal the melt. The fans and Dupont connectors however don't have such a luxury so it's more tricky, especially when there's no metal for the molten paracord to hook onto. Tiny dab of superglue does hold it in place, but it's too easy for it to seep through the weave and you get ugly crusty bits, and then it doesn't melt into the lovely cone shape when using sacrificial heatshrink.

I'm making up some combs for the 8-pin Dupont assembly so I may just make 2 extra and use them as vanity covers directly next to the Dupont housings to hide the nastiness :D

Good to know I'm not going mad with the paracord changing lengths all the time :p I got a load of black from China and it does annoying things. Stretch it off the bundle to wire length and it will shrink 4% once the cord is removed. Stretch it again when the wire is in and it's only 3% too short, but too short nonetheless. Compensate with 3% extra when the cord is still in and the uncorded length stretched over the wire is now 5% too long!

I know you can't train cables well with paracord as you can with PET sleeving but I still want my paracord nice and tight over the wires!
 
It's incredible the amount of attention to detail with cabling that you guys are putting in. It's more of an art form.
 
DJai said:
It's incredible the amount of attention to detail with cabling that you guys are putting in. It's more of an art form.
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There are 2 ways of looking at cables: you either hide them completely or you make them as pretty as the rest of the build. And yes, if done properly cables and cable management is an art form.
 
I just want to make it clear I am not knocking either of you about this. It's true commitment. That's why I don't get cases with windows on the side any more!
 
DJai said:
I just want to make it clear I am not knocking either of you about this. It's true commitment. That's why I don't get cases with windows on the side any more!
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On a more practical note, cable management is important, even if you can't see it. Certainly in the main compartment tidy cables can help with airflow and ease of maintenance. I built a quick system for a friend of mine and there was no windows, but I still sleeved all of her front panel cables just so they were more manageable (plus she was a guinea pig for sleeving with paracord :P )
 
DJai said:
I just want to make it clear I am not knocking either of you about this. It's true commitment. That's why I don't get cases with windows on the side any more!
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No offense taken - hadn't even thought you meant any. As you can tell, LePhuronn and I have been kicking around here a while so we feel safe enough taking the mickey a little in a jokey way.

Cable management is also something you can drive yourself slowly nuts with....or quite quickly, with practice! Cabling between PC and monitors, keyboard, mice etc can all be tidied and you can put in as much time/money as you like. My wife recently decided to move this room around and refurb it. The cabling for two PCs filled a 6 gallon crate and she was under the mistaken impression that it'd be easy. It took me two days of re-cabling to get things plugged back in and tidy again.....and then work gave her a MacBook *spit* to put on the desk.

You should have a go at tidy cabling. You get a massive headstart by using an M.2 disk instead of SATA. The rest you can probably sort out with cable ties and my patented OOSOOM methodology - that's Out Of Sigh, Out Of Mind: stuff it somewhere that won't be seen and doesn't impede airflow and it looks fabulous! :D
 
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