Hi,
I would like to hear about possible ways to cool water below
room-temperature, preferably without using too much energy and without
producing any noise?
Background:
This question is in relation to my quest for a completely quiet PC
and, accordingly, my plans for making my own "passive radiator" (aka.
"cooling tower") for my current, already watercooled PC.
While watercooling typically provides more than enough heat-transfer
capability to keep the various components of even a performance PC
much cooler than even the best air-based solutions, I still have one
problem to solve to get the last bit of the way:
In my hunt for absolute silence, I aim to eliminate the single fan
currently present in my, otherwise completely watercooled PC, namely
the one responsible for cooling my PSU (power supply unit), which is
at the same time responsible for the air circulation in the PC case,
by removing air from the rear of the case, causing fresh (room-temp)
air to be taken in at the front.
A further reason for this are the massive ammounts of dust (and, in my
case, tar from cigarrette smoke) that tend to gather in any PC case
with even a moderate air-flow. The near-elimination of air exchange
with the surroundings should provide a near dust-free PC, and thus
prolong both the lifetime of its hardware and the time between
necessary cleanings, while preventing increasing temperatures as the
various parts clog up with dust and grime.
The PSU itself is not a problem as there have recently been introduced
a number of watercooled models on the market. The problem is the air
inside the case, which is heated by the numerous components and
devices not directly cooled by the water. Thus the usual solution,
using a fan like I do now, is not a bad solution at all. But as I
said, I aim to eliminate ALL noise from my PC, and this fan, no matter
how slow it may turn, still does produce an audible noise (and with
the heat generated by even the smaller components on a modern
performance mainboard when working hard, it can't be made to turn all
that slow, especially not when the PC is working hard for extended
periods, causing the water temperature, and thus the overall
temperature inside the case, to rise).
Thus I find myself in need of some alternative means of keeping the
air inside my PC case cool?
My first thought then, was to make something akin to an
air-conditioner inside the case, such as a small (passive) radiator.
Only I realise this would never be able to bring the inside
air-temperature lower than the water temperature, probably even a few
degrees higher due various losses and heat gradients etc. in the
radiator. Unfortunatly my experience with my current setup, is that
the water temperature will be around 30-35 deg. C. (at least), which
would make the air in the case something like 30-40 deg. C. in a best
case scenario, which simply isn't cold enough :(
I then considered if it would somehow be possible to obtain
temperatures LOWER than the actual water temperature, so as to make it
possible to either cool the air further this way, or alternativly make
a "dual-loop" system, where the water going through the PC is
(somehow) cooled below the temperature of the secondary loop, which
would go through the radiator, and then (somehow) exchange heat-energy
with the water in the primary loop.
I started by rejecting various designs involving consumption of water
(ie. "evaporative cooling"), as I don't want a system that need
frequent re-filling. I likewise rejected solutions using
evaporative/condensation cooling (ie. as used in household
refrigerators, using a special "evaporation fluid" in a closed system,
typically driven by a compressor) as being both too expensive and WAY
too noisy.
For a while I considered if it would be possible to make some kind of
vacuum-based system, where the water itself is evaporated, by
maintaining a sufficiently low pressure to make it "boil" at room
temperature, before being led into the radiator where it would
condense, releasing a lot of heat in the process. Only I am quite
unsure about how feasible it is to achieve this kind of vacuum, which
I must assume is quite a lot to bring the boiling point of water down
by so many degrees?
The only other way I know of achiveing this then, would be to use a
(probably rather large) Peltier device, either mounted inside the
case, between a waterblock and some kind of radiator (such as a large
CPU cooler), or in the case of a dual-loop system, mounted between the
two water-loops. The problem with Peltier devices are their enormous
power-usage, thus I would probably have to put something like 250 or
even 500 Watts through it, in order to move a decent amount of heat,
while keeping the temperature difference at a reasonable level.
A final idea was to use two completely separate water-loops (and thus
also two radiators and two sets of tubes) and use one only for cooling
the air in the case. This should (if my logic isn't flawed?) allow the
water in the case-loop to remain much closer to room-temperature, as
it moves relativly little heat, compared to the other loop which would
handle the CPU, GPU, VRAM and the Chipset (possibly the main RAM as
well). Still I fear this would still make the case temperature a bit
higher than I would like (which is something very close to room
temperature, ideally even a few degrees below that!)
My question(s) are as follows:
- Are there any other ways, apart from those described and rejected
above, to obtain such a "negative thermal gradient" (if that is the
correct term?) Either between the (room) air and a body of water,
between two seperate bodies of water, or between a body of water and
the (case) air?
- If none, which of the above methods would you recommend as being the
most feasible and/or effective, and have you any suggestions for how
to best implement it?
- Any suggestions for how to make a good (passive) radiator (either in
the form of a tower, or a radiator suitable for wall- or
case-mounting) is more than welcome, as is any suggestions about how
to make water cooling work better / more quiet?
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Inventus-ga
P.S. Please excuse my numerous spelling and gramatical mistakes. My
spell-checker is currently not functioning. |
Clarification of Question by
inventus-ga
on
09 May 2005 22:41 PDT
Hi again,
Wow, great response! I have tried to respond to all your various
comments and suggestions below (my comments are between "="'s for
clarity):
From: byeater-ga on 08 May 2005 03:13 PDT
If you just want the water reasonably higher than or equal to room temperature:
=
Actually, this is what I have now. Apart from the fact that there is
nothing, except from the water tubes, to exchange heat between the
water and the case air.
While I could theoretically loop this water (30-35 deg. C.) through
some kind of, internally mounted, radiator (preferably one designed to
work passivly, unlike the car-radiator type, which requires a certain
forced air-flow to work effectively), it would be quite difficult to
keep the inside temperature much below 35-40 deg. C. as my experience
with this kind of thing is that you will get at least a 5 deg. C.
difference (probably more like 10), whenever you "move" heat from one
medium (the water) to another (the air inside the case). This is
further supported by the fact that my CPU is about 10 deg. warmer than
the water, and the water again 10 deg. warmer than room temp. (give or
take 5 deg.)
This is way too high, as the air must itself be able to carry heat
away from all those, even if they are minor, heatproducing components,
not covered by the various water-blocks (which are feasible, indeed
possible, only for a few of the largest heat-producers).
I am aiming to keep any and all my hardware well below the 40 deg. C.
mark (with the possible exception of a hard-working CPU or GPU, which
might be allowed to rise to 45, even 50 deg. C. in extreme cases, as
these chips are designed to run at such temperatures). This will be
quite difficult to achieve if the air around the components is already
around 40 deg. when it arrives to cool them!
=
An inefficient idea I can think of would be to create a certain length
tubing loop (say 3 feet total) inside the case and a significantly
larger tubing loop (lets say, 20 feet) outside the case and move the
water slowly through it, it will extract heat along the internal 3
feet from the case and then radiate the extra heat it as it moves
along the external 20 feet. I couldn't tell you how much heat this
will get rid of, but it should work. The assumption is that the room
temperature cannot be significanly affected by the heat of the
computer.
Obviously the larger the loop outside and the slower the water moves
through it, the closer to room temperature the incoming water will
get, but that doesn't mean it will remove the desired amount of heat.
Reading your post, you might have already mentioned this.
=
Yep, I do mention using two separate loops, one reserved for cooling
the case air. While I would probably choose a different radiator than
your "length of tubing" suggestion (say a tower, like my "Reserator
1", or a wall- or case-mounted flat, rectangular type passive
radiator), I do agree that for passive appliactions, a slow water-flow
seem like the better choice, although my experiments seem to show
that, at least with my minute pump, lowering the flow rate invariably
cause a rise in temperature in the cooled devices? Perhaps with a
bigger pump, I would start to see a drop in performance at some point,
I would just have thought it was much lower than even my little pump
doing its best? Or perhaps it is simply the case that the benefits
gained from a higher flow-rate (which I guess happens mainly in the
water-blocks, especially the modern "impingement" types) far outweigh
the benefits gain from a slow one (which would be the preference for
most passive radiator designs).
The problem(s) with this approach is foremost something as simple as
the added tubing, in an already crowded space. Also it would be a huge
setup, with two passive (=large) radiators, two pumps and twice the
amount of tubing you would normally expect..?
Still it seems to be one of the most plausible solutions, so far!
=
However, it sounds like you want to go lower than room temperature
without energy input, which would be a violation of Thermodynamics if
I am not mistaken. Obviously, if you want the water to be lower than
room temperature you MUST input energy, most likely by compressing
air, bleeding off heat, and then decompressing it. Obviously, a
mechanical pumping device will most likely generate noise.
In short, to my knowledge, no device exists to meet all of your desires.
=
I am familiar with the (second I think is the relevant one here?)
law(s) of thermodynamics, if by no means an expert on the subject. And
no, of course we can't plan on breaking this particular law ;)
The short answer is: I AM willing to input (spend) "extra" energy on
cooling my water and/or my case air below the temperature of the room,
or if that is infeasible, on lowering the "gap" between the water and
the room temperatures (which, with my current passive setup, gets up
to around 15 deg. C. when the PC is working hard). Only I would like
to do this quietly, and hopefully with greater "efficency" (deg. temp.
diff. per energy used) than provided by Peltier devices.
For example, if the "evaporative" concept could be made to work with
water, using a very quiet pump or compressor, and in a simple to
construct, closed-loop system, it would be a possible answer to my
question. Only I canīt see how you'd get the vacuum needed for this to
work, without some huge noisy pump? (Or alternativly, by opening the
system, and letting the water evaporate to the surroundings, which is
also problematic.)
=
My honest recommendation would be to use a more quiet fan!
=
Hehe, excellent choice. Only, I've kind of been there and done that
(what PC owner hasn't?), and it just isn't an option when your work PC
is placed in your living room, and you smoke 20+ cigarettes a day. At
least not while performance PC hardware produce so much waste-heat as
is currently the case.
I have learned (the hard way), that if I pull the necessary amount of
air through my PC, I can't expect its performance and stability to
stay within tolerable limits for more than a couple of months, before
I need to clean all the fans and associated "cooling-surfaces" (the
fact is that I tend to forego this chore, and instead choose to run my
PC hot, or underclocked. The former causing stability problems, the
latter merely being annoying, when having to wait even longer for
projects to compile and so on, not to mention not getting my moneys
worth out of my hardware!)
I have thus come to the conclusion, that in order to make a PC
"maintenance free", in a dust and smoke filled environment (aka. "my
living room"), I need to limit the amount of air drawn into the case
as much as possible. Which, in my book, translates to reusing (most
of) the internal air by activly cooling it, possibly combined with a
slow and quiet "cirulation fan", while specifically avoiding any
active intake or exhaust of air to/from the case (although I think it
will probably be wise not to make the case too air-tight, as some
exchange of air is probably advisable?)
=
=
From: myoarin-ga on 08 May 2005 06:24 PDT
Turn up the music ...!
=
Oh I do, I do, only I sometimes find that I need silence to really
concentrate fully on the harder "mental nuts" I sometimes have to
crack in my work as a programmer.
Also, if I watch a movie with "silent passages" (= most movies), I
think playing music would add to, rather than remove (or cover) the
noise that is interfering with the movie-watching?
=
Byeater is right, of course, you can't get the water below room
temperature without some energy, and how are you going to move the
water?
=
See my comment to his post about this.
=
If you have a room airconditioning unit (noise?), maybe you could plug
in to its cooling system.
=
Nope, where I live we have radiators (running most of the time), and
very little use for AC units (I think some hotels have them, and they
have recently become popular in cars for unknown reasons? Very few
people in this country have one in their home, including me.)
What I actually HAVE considered, is making use of our cold outside
temperatures, with some kind of (possibly noisy) "backup" for those
few, hot summer-days that we DO get from time to time. The problem
with this, otherwise great, solution, is that I currently live in an
apartment, which apart from being located in a big city (= somewhat
higher air-temps.) also makes it a bit problematic for me to "mount"
anything outside?
=
Theoretically, the water in a closed circuit loop could circulate by
the warm water rising as it comes from the computer, but I don't know
how effective this would be, or whether the flow could be enhanced in
some way by the layout of the tube or using different diameter tubing
(copper or aluminum, good heat conductors) in different parts of the
circuit, or cool it with auto radiator sitting in from of the
airconditioner.
=
This is also about as far as I get, when considering this kind of
solution, where the water-pump is replaced by the natural convection
of hot and cold water. I actually plan, at some undetermined point in
time, to do a few experiments of this kind, to learn about the
magintude of this kind of convection, given the relevant temperature
differences etc.
I am, however, pretty sure it will turn out to be necessary (somehow?)
to increase the temperature difference, between the water and the
cooled components (ie. using a Peltier device or similar?) In order to
be able to remove the necessary amount of heat, with what I would
expect to be very (possibly VERY) slow moving water? And that brings
us right back to my original question: How could this "increase in
temperature difference" be achieved without a Pletier device (and
perferably with less energy-waste as well?) while still keeping the
process noisless (or at least low-noise)?
=
Turn up the music! :-)
=
Hmm, I'm actually starting to think this will turn out be the only
solution that both works and is workable?
Still, I DO like a bit of silence (and there is the other issue, of
preventing dust/grime buildup inside the case!)
=
=
From: qed100-ga on 08 May 2005 16:19 PDT
If this is a high enough priority for you, then you might consider
removing the actual refrigeration system from the room altogether. The
water would then flow through the PC, gathering heat, then exit the PC
and wander into the next room, where it'd shed the excess heat and
proceed back to the PC for more of the same. The actual machinery for
removing the unwanted heat and for pumping the water would be in this
other room, remote from your workstation and the noise insulated by
the walls themselves.
=
I have considered this as well, and it might well turn out to be the way to go.
On the plus side:
- My PC is reasonably close to my bedroom, where I even tend/try to
keep a low(er) temperature than in my living room, most of the time at
least.
- I could use a rather noisy water-cooling setup, without being
bothered by it (though my walls are somewhat "thin", noise-wise at
least).
- Having to do some plumbing already, I could possibly plan to carry
the cooling-loop through to my other PCs as well, making it a
"centralised cooling system", for the whole appartment (or at least
extend it to the second PC in the other end of my living room).
On the minus side:
- I have, so far at least, shied away from the plumbing and masonry
involved in such a, litteraly "breakthrough", project.
However, if no further suggestions are made, providing an easier
solution... Well, I just might have to take a second look at how
difficult it actually would be, to make one or two small holes in my
bedroom wall, and put in some suitably plumbing..?
=
=
From: quantumdot-ga on 09 May 2005 06:09 PDT
To peltier cool something with that amount of heat build up would be
prohibitivly expensive. You're going to need some way to circulate air
or water around. The "ideal" way would be to use convection, having
the PC below what would be a large column of cold water- as the colder
denser water sinks, the hotter water is carried up thru the rest of
the system where it can equilibrate to Room temp, or your roof
refigerator. Clealy not practical. Way to big, and the heat exchange
would be too slow. What would be the most practial system is to run a
water line to the plumbing, and dump the hot water. We use this for
laser system and vacuum pump cooling. It would certainly up the water
bill, but it would be the only way to do what you want. You;d have to
cost compare to see if this open loop would be cheaper than closed
loop. A bonus is that if the power goes out, you'd still get cooling
of the system, and a closed loop (air or water) would simply stop,
without dumping that residual heat.
=
I suspected that the "Pletier solution" would be too expensive (and
too energy consuming probably). I appreciate getting this confirmed
however, so I won't waste more time on that particular posibility.
The "open loop" (plumbing) concept must be able to provide an
exceptional amount of heat-transfer? However, aside from the fact that
I suspect my country to have laws against such use of the water
utilities, it will be rather difficult, the way my appartment is laid
out, to run plumbing from the nearest existing water line, to where my
PC is (and needs to be) located. Finally, while this might well be
bogus as the alternative is to spend some other resource on cooling,
it does at least seem like this aproach is especially "wasteful" of
resources?
Your third (well, actually the second) suggestion might actually be
workable. It is mentioned shortly above, where something like this
(natural convection of the water) is suggested by myoarin-ga.
My reservations are a bit different from yours though: I actually do
think it would be quite possible to make some kind of passive radiator
(loops/spirals of cobber tubing, instead of a large reservoir, for
instance). What I have a problem with, is rather this: How fast would
such a convection system actually make the water move?
While a lot can be done, to lower the water-speed requirements of the
water-blocks used to cool the various chips and devices, there is
probably a limit where the necessary temperature difference between
the water and the device being cooled becomes to small to facilitate
the necessary heat-transport (removal).
I might well be underestimating the power of water convection though?
You wording of this suggestion (probably the use of "large" and
"column") made me think however:
If I am correct in my assumptions, it is as much the vertical distance
(between where the water is heated and where it is cooled), as it is
the temperature difference of the water, that decides how much
convection is achieved.
In that case, one could consider the possibilties for maximising this
distance, say by placing the PC on, or near, the floor, while mounting
the radiator in the cieling (although the air will be hotter up there
unfortunatly), or even better, on the attic (which is not an option
for me though).
As with a previous suggestion, this comes back to my original
question, as the best way to make this work, would be to increase the
temperature difference between the water and the device(s) it is
cooling.
Unfortunatly, as nobody seem to come up with any further alternatives,
it seems that Peltier devices and compressor driven evaporators (using
water or other fluids) are the only known way of doing this trick?
And again I must conclude that, as Peltiers probably won't be a
feasible solution, and nothing else has come up, it (quite litteraly)
"boils down" to making a simple, quiet and closed-loop "fresh water
evaporator"?
Again, my best suggestion for how this could be done, is to use (a
rather hard, I suspect) vacuum, thus lowering the boiling point of
water below the temperature it has, as it leaves the PC (which is only
something like 30-35 deg. C. Rather a long way down from 100!)
=
=
Once again thanks for all your comments.
I am still hoping that someone will know about a way, other than using
Pletiers, of creating a temperature difference?
Until someone posts something here, about such an alternative, I guess
I will continue my plans for improving the performance of my radiator,
while I play around with the concept of introducing a second
water-loop, exclusivly for cooling the air in the case.
If my recently invented radiator design turns out as efficent as I
hope it will, it might well be the easiest solution, simply to place a
small version of such a radiator inside the case, and then loop the
water through a similar (perhaps larger) radiator outside the case
(that is, a second outside radiator, not otherwise used for cooling
the heat-producing devices, equipped with their own water-blocks,
which would be on the first loop and this going to the first/original
outside radiator).
While this does not in any way work towards "lowering the water
temperature below the room temperature", as originally intended, it
should at least ensure that the water used to cool the inside air will
be as near to room temperature as possible (and hopefully no where
near the 10-15 deg. C. above it, that is the the case if the primary
water-loop is used.)
As the abovementioned recent invention of mine, is not only hoped to
work better than existing "passive radiators", but even promise to be
a lot cheaper to produce, this solution might turn out to work much
better than expected (or so I hope?)
Regards,
Inventus-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
inventus-ga
on
10 May 2005 11:54 PDT
Hi again,
I just couldn't resist responding to this, second, comment from myoarin-ga:
HI, how many cigs was that?
=
I think I said 20+, which is probably more like 30 in reality (not
withstanding the ones with "improved" tobacco ;) Notably, I have a bad
tendency to smoke even more than usual, when I sit for extended
periods behind my monitor.
=
A whole new tack: a noise cancellation device. The site below
[... removed for compactness! See below for full comment text]
technology exists. A small loudspeaker would sure be neater than all
the plumbing.
=
Now THIS is what I call a creative suggestion (even if it has very
little to do with what I asked about).
Yes, I know about the use of "inverted sound" to silence noise.
Specifically I am aware of at least one producer of commercial
airplanes (AirBus I think?) who use this to lessen the engine noise
(at/around the passenger seats), and furthermore I have heard of a
small gadget (made by Fiat, I think?) that will either cancel the
engine noise of your car (well, your Fiat, as they would have it?) or,
by throwing a switch on this dash-mounted device, make the engine
sound like that of a Ferrari! (I am guessing this is only audible
INSIDE the car, so no driving around and trying to tell people outside
that you have a Ferrari engine under the hood! At least not without
mounting a powerful, external loudspeaker, which would probably
interfere with the correct functioning of the device anyway?!?)
Both these implementations of this concept, works without need for
headphones. Although I get the feeling that this will never be as good
as headphones (as assumptions about your head/ear position(s) have to
be made), it would appear possible to get some effect, especially in
applications where you can make such assumptions about the head/ear
position(s), which, to some extent, would be the case with a
stationary PC, I guess?
What makes this idea even greater, at least in my ears, is that it
should be quite possible for a decent programmer (such as I, if I can
find the time?) to make this entirely in software.
While I will probably still be trying to eliminate more noise "at the
source", I will certainly consider (and very seriously at that) making
such "noise cancellation" software, specifically intended for this use
(should make it simpler and better, knowing what kind of noise is to
be expected?)
Who knows, if it works decently, I might even consider selling this
software, and/or making a small bundle (such as with the software, a
small, cheap USB soundcard, and some suitable speaker(s) and mike(s)).
I should think many owners of noisy PCs, would welcome the oppertunity
to remove some noise, without suffering the consequences of lowering
their air-flow? Especially if a "kit" with all the necessary parts,
for easy in-case mounting, were made comercially available, thus also
removing the need to use the existing soundcard and other
audio-equipment in the PC!
=
Just wait a decade or two. I have mild tinitis and am accustomed to
ignoring background noise.
=
Heh, I'm getting there myself, although the "ignoring" part still
fails me most of the time.
Perhaps it is vain, to think I can prevent my tinitis to develop
further, but still, one has to try ;)
=
Once again thanks for the comments, yours as well as the others.
Regards,
Adam.
P.S. A follow-up question (not specifically to myoarin-ga though): I
know about several sites dedicated to water-cooling and related stuff.
I was wondering if anyone know of one that is especially "good", say
with an active forum and a lot of "innovative" ideas being exchanged?
Any suggestions are welcome...
|
Clarification of Question by
inventus-ga
on
13 May 2005 11:05 PDT
Hi again,
Some further responses to the recently posted comments:
From: myoarin-ga on 10 May 2005 17:05 PDT
If you can make the thing, or just program it with a mike in you
computer, maybe the contra-noise can come out of your monitor or
attached loudspeakers...
=
That might well be possible, at least the part about using the
attached loudspeakers. The mike would probably be best placed inside
the computer. It will probably not be possible not to use a microphone
in realtime, as the technology relies on precisely generating the
anti-noise, by analysis of the noise recorded by the mike.
=
Second idea: longer cables, remote CD-drive(s) and put the computer in
your bedroom, where it is cooler, anyway? But then you'd have to turn
it off at night*, but that would also get it away from the smoke. I
know what that's like, being a pipe smoker, and - like you - more of
one at the keyboard.
=
At least you won't have the problem of ashes in the keyboard, as your
pipe probably won't "spill" if you forget it for a while!
Actually, you could still have the best of both worlds with this
solution, as you could simply use external, USB drives (available both
in as CD and Floppy drives, as well as various card readers etc.)
In fact, these days, with everything being available in USB versions,
even graphic adaptors (although not very good ones, performance wise),
you could probably get a long way by simply running a long USB
extension cable (available in 20+ meter lengths, without any need for
repeaters or the like) to a multi-ported USB 2.0 hub. To this you
could then attach a keyboard, a mouse, whatever Floppy, CD- and/or
DVD-Drive(s) you need and any scanners, printers and other devices you
want close at hand.
If you can't get what you need by way of USB graphic adaptors, or I am
wrong about these being in existence(?) There are various solutions
for piping monitor signals through long cables, one being your average
PC-switchbox (you know for using one monitor for several PCs or vice
versa), which typically perform the necessary signal-conversion to
allow longer cables to be used without ruining the image (too much at
least), another being some kind of wireless transmitter, which I
assume exists for presentation-rooms and the like?
All this being said, I must admit that I can't see myself implementing
this particular solution, even if I can't come up with any particular
good reasons for it? Some, less good, reasons are: I don't want to
bother with running water pipes or tubes through walls and into other
rooms, at least not until I live in a house of my own, where I might
consider this alternative. Also, knowing how frequently I need to open
my case, to exchange some piece of hardware (due failure or upgrade),
I would at least need to ensure that the new PC location was usable
for performing "field repair", which might be a problem in my current
situation.
Come to think of it, I actually DO use something along these lines already!
When I made my water-cooled PC, I became aware of the inherent problem
in properly silencing the large number of harddisks I use for my two
RAID5 arrays (480Gb each, consisting of 4x 160Gb disks for a total of
eight drives), not to mention getting them into a reasonably sized
desktop case, along with all the water related "plumbing"?!?
I therefore decided to introduce a file-server in my home-network,
which is now placed in a dining-room closet. Thus you could say that
my current PC is mainly an advanced terminal for my file-server.
The main thing here, is that I successfully moved the most noisy, and
hard to silence, components (the 8 harddisks) out of my workstation
and placed them in another room, where the many blowers in the hotswap
drawers won't bother me!
=
*or you chuck it out of the bedroom (gently) before sleeping.
=
There is NO way I will make a setup requiring me to do anything before
I can go to sleep! It is hard enough for me, after a typical 24 hour
session in front of the monitor, to just get to the bathroom and brush
my teeth, not to mention reaching the bed before I keel over!
=
That is not an as elegant solution as the noise cancelation, but it
would absolutely work!!
=
Of that there can be no doubt, as this (also mentioned by
quantumdot-ga) is a long standing tradition, harking back to the glory
days of the mainframe.
=
From: quantumdot-ga on 13 May 2005 06:10 PDT
Try googleing "compact laser chiller". I have no idea how much an
independant unit would cost, b/c we get them as a package with laser
systems. Bastically, this will give you the professional version of
gutting a refriderator. I think it would still may have to be in
another room.
=
Hmm, the cooler I find this way seem to be of the Peltier kind,
rather than using "refrigeration technology" (fluid evaporation in a
closed loop, using a compressor), still it might well do the trick, if
not exactly being what I'm looking for.
=
I think (opinion) it would be more environmentally friendly to use the
city cold water, rather than cooling a closed loop system with
electricity. Water is the most renewable resource we have. Electricity
would require buring fuel or generating nuclear waste (unless you have
geo-thermal or some such!). I dont know about the legality or cost
effectiveness.
=
You might well be right, as it is notoriusly difficult to judge the (real)
environmental impact of a given technology! As you might have heard, some
time ago it was realised that the production of so called
"environmentally friendly" recycled paper actually used more resources
and had a much higher impact on the environment, than paper from a
well managed renewable forrest!
As it currently is implemented, my PC cooling-solution (using water,
passivly cooled by convection), is probably one of the least
environmentally impacting options available, as the only energy or
resource spent (discounting the yearly water-changes) is a few watts
for the pump.
This was one of the main reasons why I posed my original question, as
the alternatives, notably the one using Peltier devices, all seemed
excessivly wasteful (and/or had other problems or disadvantages).
Still, while it might not be, it seems wrong, somehow, having to run a
tap at all times, when the PC is on? Though I did consider wrapping
the (cold) water-mains with some copper pipe, hoping that the combined
water-usage of all the residents in my appartment complex would ensure
enough water-flow to allow my cooling-water to exchange its heat with
the city water in this manner. But aside from the problematic
construction (as there doesn't happen to be a water-mains close to my
PC), there is the whole issue of possibly enraging my fellow
appartment owners, as they discover that the already luke-warm (and,
in my country, quite drinkable) tap-water is being further warmed by
my PC :(
Btw.: No, I don't have geo-thermal or any such "renewable" (actually
nothing of the kind can exist in our univers, but still...)
enery-source. Luckily my country is quite well equipped with
windmills, and we have deals with our neighbouring countries to use
the excess energy produced at night by their water-dams (which can't
be turned off at night like our coal-turbines) in return for them
getting some of our electricity at peak hours during the day, so at
least I can soothe my environmental concience with the fact that at
least some of the city supplied electricity stems from renewable
sources.
=
I like myoarin's idea about the long cables. That way you're using
"electron tubing" which is a lot less messy if it leaks. There may be
some messy cabling, but it would almost be like using a VAX system
again. If you dont use the CD/ DVD drive with frequent changes, this
would seem to be a great option. Maybe get a blue tooth keyboard/mouse
to cut down on the wires, leaving only speakers and monitor. Probably
there are remote speakers that are not going to break the bank either.
=
See my reply to his comment for my (not very good) reasons for
skipping on this one... (Also for my answer to the CD/DVD/...
problem!)
=
As always, thanks a lot for your comments.
Though I think I have by now dropped the whole idea of cooling my
water (and/or air and/or chips) further than is possible with
"passive" methods, I still appreciate any ideas and suggestion
regarding this and other related topics, so keep those comments
comming...
One reason for my change of heart, apart from the apparant
impossibility of this idea, is that my latest invention, a new kind of
passive radiator (I hope you will understand, if I refrain from going
into details about this, so far patent-less idea), seem to have the
potential of out-performing not only my current radiator, but indeed
anything on the market, and by a great deal at that (although, so far
this is all theoretical, pending my construction of a working
prototype).
If this "question" is still open for comments/clarifications when I
have a prototype working, I will make sure to post some info about it
here.
Regards,
inventus-ga
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