Building an all passive cooled pc. What do you think?

Hello All,

New here at Tom's. Ran into this website in researching a little project I'm working on. I'd like to put it out to the community and see what ideas or input you all may have. Thanks in advance!

I'm working on an all passive cooled pc build/mod. Better even, a no moving parts full pc (optical drives excluded, of course). Here's what I have and at the end are the parts I'm still trying to figure out.

* I went back and forth between the hardest resolve, that being the CPU cooling. Being passively cooled it had to be a heatsink and the only two competitors at a decent price range were the HR-02 by Thermaltek and the CR-95 by Nofen. In the end, the CR-95 by Nofen won because it seemed to be a more proven system. They have their own line of passively cooled computers which have proven this heatsink works long term. It's GINORMOUS , but it works, here's a link for a visual, http://photos.pcpro.co.uk/images/f [...] 283_52.jpg

* The CPU: I wanted to go AMD however, it seems Intel is much better at providing cooler running CPUs . Didn't want to sacrifice performance nor burn out my board/chip. The balance was Intel's i7 2600s. At 2.8 GHz for four cores seems pretty competitive and I think it will remain competitive for some time to come. The heatsink is rated for CPU's not to exceed 100W. The 2600s has a TDP of 65W (not to be confused with its cousin, the 2600K, which pulls a TDP of 95W).

* Motherboard. Since the heatsink is so MASSIVE , I thought it safe to go with Nofen's recommendation of boards. For LGA socket 1155 that was ASUS P8P67 PRO. Again, it seems competitive and I'm trying to not compromise too much in performance going down this venture.

* RAM. Again with the heatsink being so massive , the ram sticks had to be low profile (I wish I could give you the pick which I saw that proves this but, trust me, must be low profile). I chose Corsair Vengeance. A reliable brand, comes with heat spreaders, working at 1600, at a speed of 9-9-9-24 and XMP ready. I'll be putting 16 GB (4 X 4GB).

* GPU. Fanless, Asus ENGT440 DC SL/DI/1GD3. 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card.

* Power supply, fanless, 500W made by Kingwin.

* Optical Drives: Both ASUS, will be blu-ray writer and the other a blu-ray reader both at 12X. For the quality it was a decent price and they seem to have a reputation for the quiet operation.

* I'll be putting Window's 7, haven't figured out yet where the best place to get that.

* I'll also be putting in a solid state drive (of course). But haven't figured out which yet.

* The pc enclosure. Still wrestling with that one . I was going to go with Altec's new Lanboy, with the mesh build I figured it would help with heat dissipation. But it just so happens I saw a German attempting this same build on that case. He ran into an issue with the fitting, ultimately he chopped a section at the top of the case to make room for the heatsink, lol. THAT DAMN HEATSINK IS HUUUUGE! I'm not against modding however, I feel a hole on the top with the heatsink sticking out is just asking for problems. Presently I'm thinking a cube dual chamber home server (here's a link, http://www.circotech.com/cubeservercase.html ), that may help with heat and room. I'm pretty undecided right now. What I need is a deep case with the mother board sitting in the middle with room spared at top. Maybe you guys might know of a better solution. I've been trying to figure out which case Nofen uses on their C60 model, maybe you might know, here's a link. http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CS-60.php

* Also, need to find a good blu-ray player software . . . I have no clue.

* Last but, definitely not least. I realize many of you are just twitching in your seats saying this fool is gonna regret no putting at least case fans in . Well, I am, sort of. I'm working on a build to have ionic fans built just for this baby . In case you don't know, thrust can be generated by placing to metal objects at a distant with good high amperage of negative and postive flow, i.e. it's a fan with no moving parts . . . . Ever heard of an air ioniser? That's what this is, at a smaller scale. Yes, they're not as efficient as a fan but I'm staying true to no moving parts and hence, a silent pc. I won't need much airflow if any but, it would not be a bad idea, can never have enough cooling. They sell already to go ion generators (12V even, so I can steal the power from a molex, lol). Anyways, I'll throw some links at the end to those interested in this. As you will see by the links, computer applications have already been modded.

Well, that's all I got. Any ideas, criticism, gripes, add ons, twists, different directions, anything at all . . . it's greatly appreciated. Thanks again.


http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects [...] rview.aspx
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects [...] rview.aspx
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects [...] rview.aspx
http://www.amazing1.com/negative_ion.htm

Sounds interesting, in terms of the SSD I always recommend Crucial and Samsung because they seem incredibly reliable and still very fast. They don't have as much of a price premium as Intel do either.

Just a thought too, most passive PSU's and GPU's require a case with very good ventilation to work. If you're going to put these parts under any stress I don't think it will work. To give it the best chance of success I would at least try to find a fully perforated case otherwise the case will just fill with hot air and it will have nowhere to go. The top of the case especially should have some vents.

Looking for best pc case??

Cosmos 2 - go for it~

maybe a HAF932 case? that seems to have a lot of mesh. I'm wondering if 500W is going to be enough to power that rig, AND an ionic fan.

Andy, thanks for the input. I had looked into Cooler Master's Cosmos 2 already. The price was a bit high imho. Cheaper than the Cosmos is Cubitek's Cube Series at about $300. A completely separated pc into 3 individual compartments, novel idea. But I think that's still to high. The HAF932 case sounds promising, I will look into that more. You're probably right on the psu, if I go with seasonic's 400w, I could save $40. But I'm concerned with the modding (that is including the ionic fan builds which may take up two 12v molex) that if I'll have enough. Any thoughts?

One of the best web sites for info on quiet computing is www.silentpcreview.com.

If you want silent, that is one thing.
If inaudible, or quiet, that is another.

If performance matters, you may have an issue without at least one very quiet fan to provide some airflow.

22nm ivy bridge is coming in april. I would expect them to require less power than anything you can buy today that had decent desktop performance.

Here's a passive 400 watter

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Seas [...] anless_PSU

read this also ...specifically "Notes on fanless PSU's"

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs

Oh pual one more stuff.

If you having a hard to research for you own Power Supply please visit here

http://images10.newegg.com/BizInte [...] index.html

What ever number you get it from there please add 150W for your total power need.

Most of all advanced user said that site only calculate 12V but fan and other hard device some time need 3v and 5v there for add another 150W for max out 3v and 5v so you will get some estimate for what you need.

good luck ~ !! ^^