Re: going fanless?

["Tom Metro-12" <user=71@nabble.blu.org>]

 Ben Eisenbraun wrote: 
> ...I would read a bunch of the articles here: 
> http://www.silentpcreview.com/

I'd second that recommendation. I've used that site as a reference over 
the past several years when selecting components for minimal noise, as 
well as for techniques for modifying existing systems for reduced noise 
(such as running fans on reduced voltage). 


Stephen Adler wrote: 
> ...I'm just wondering if anyone really uses it today. 

I've never built a water cooled system, but it doesn't seem to be used 
for low noise as much as for high heat removal. It's popular with 
overclockers. SVC (http://svc.com/) is a good source for water cooling 
components. 

As I understand it, water cooled systems still produce noise from the 
circulating pump and the moving fluid, so they won't be as quiet a a 
passively cooled system. 


> http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/XFX_GeForce_8600_GT_Fatal1ty/
> It's got these big tubes on it... (Maybe I'm just being soooo neieve...) 

That's called a heatpipe. That technology shares some principles with 
refrigeration. The pipes are filled with a substance that absorbs heat, 
vaporizes, travels to the other end of the pipe, and then condenses 
while releasing the heat. It's a method used to transfer heat over a 
distance. Almost all of the current crop of CPU heatsinks incorporate 
heatpipes as a way to pull heat further away from the CPU and up into 
the radiator fins of the heatsink. 

You can find (see SVC again) CPU heatsinks made for passive cooling that 
use heatpipes and big tower radiators. Though "passive" is a misnomer as 
while they don't require a fan installed directly on them, they 
typically still require a case with good airflow, and thus fans. 

Someday we'll probably start to see some standard form around externally 
mounted heatsinks with heatpipes used to connect between the CPU and the 
external heatsink. Mounting the CPU on the underside of the motherboard 
would help facilitate this. External heatsinks are already starting to 
appear on some specialty small form factor systems. 


> ...couple of monster 24" monitors. (So I need the video power to 
> drive these things.) 

Screen real estate doesn't necessarily require high performance 
graphics. Of course if you're running both screens at high resolution 
and expect to render images of 4 to 6 million pixels at 30fps, then 
yeah, I guess you would need some graphics power. 

  -Tom 

-- 
Tom Metro 
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA 
"Enterprise solutions through open source." 
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/

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