System with no moving parts?

CryptKeeper

CryptKeeper

CryptKeeper

Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
3,216
Quick question. Is it possible to create a totally silent system with no fans? I'm not fussed about overclocking but would like to play games so would need a good graphics card. Am thinking about solid state hard drive and one of those cpu coolers with no fan.
 
Your best bet is to have a look over on silent pc review as they're experts on that kind of thing.

For the PSU you can get a passive antec phantom 350w one or it's big brother the 500w phantom that's passive up to ~350w, after which a fan kicks in.

For air cooling you could use something like the Sycthe Orochi, which uses a very low rpm fan (~600rpm 14cm fan iirc).

If you're willing to spend serious cash on solid state drives then you might be prepared to get a passive watercooled setup using innovatek konvect-o-matic/cape cora passive tubes. There are a couple of people on the forums who use such set-ups (WJA96 and shadowscotland off the top of my head). The only noise would be the pump; a foam mounted 10w DDC pro pump is pretty much inaudible. Alternatively you could use one of the zalman reserators.
 
It's possible yes, but if your putting a top end graphics card option then you're going to have an extremely difficult time cooling it down.

Most top end cards run very hot on stock coolers, and most specialist cooling solutions are fan based as the heatpipes themselves just can't do enough to cool them. You could try the Thermalright ones though, those can be used without a fan and are pretty good.

The problem you're going to face is that generally the better the component is the more heat it's going to produce.

If you use passive cooling on all the components you may also face the point that you're going to have a lot of heat just staying in the case which is going to be incredibly bad.

You may need at least 1 fan on the rear of the machine just to get some of the hot air out of the case, but you can get Noctua fans that are rated at under 10dBa.
 
I think you're on to a good idea here. I wouldn't mind trying to make a near completely inaudiable machine. The only sacrifice I would make is a decent size SATA harddrive over the price of a SSD.

Just have a low-mid intel with a massive Ninja sat on it and then a half decent graphics card such as a 4850, which running passively with an Accelero S1 get to about 70oc which is totaly acceptable.

Edit: Well here is one that got to 61oc (not mine) after artifact finding for 42 minutes.

gpuz1.gif

I consider 61oc to be perfectly fine. And yes that was with no fan what so ever.
 
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Thanks for the info guys. The 500w PSU with the fan that only comes on when needed seems like a cool (no pun intended) idea. Could I apply the same technology myself to a case fan? Have never played around with fan controllers or anything like that.
 
You could go for the following:

-Fanless Motherboard
-45nm Core 2 Duo (such as an e8200)
-TRUE or a different heatsink capable of passively running
-8800gt/4850 with accelero S1
-Zalman heatsink cooled PSU
-SSD harddrive
-lowspeed DVD burner?
-Replace all fans with these: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-001-NC
-Use a fan controller with them even though they are very quiet anyway.
 
The problem with passive heatsinks is that you are going to need some airflow over them to prevent heat build up.

You probably wont get away with no fans at all but done right and with the right case you can can get it so quiet you wont hear anything above the sounds of the hard drives. My system in my sig is like this, i only need to crank the fans up a bit after a good half hour or so of gaming.

Right now im sat here typing this and i simply cant hear a thing from my pc, certainy nothing above the sound of the windy day outside :p
 
CryptKeeper said:
Quick question. Is it possible to create a totally silent system with no fans? I'm not fussed about overclocking but would like to play games so would need a good graphics card. Am thinking about solid state hard drive and one of those cpu coolers with no fan.
Click to expand...

look for a mCubed HFX case/system:)
 
If you wanted to turn off any case fans you did install you could get a fan controller like the Zalman ZM-MFC1 Multi Fan Controller which can turn off fans altogether.
 
If looking at high performance GPU's and no fans - passive water cooling is your only real option - My system (with a single psu fan - will be getting a silverstone ST-30NF soon) is about as far as a small footprint passive system can go and keep sub 50c at load.

For serious gamers you'll need to look into Cape Corra and Konvekt-O-Matic rads

the mCubed is an excerlent case (if you've got the budget) but not capable of running the extream heat loads of the 8800GT and above without fan assistance.
 
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