PC with no moving parts: Crazy or brilliant?

[Stoffl]

http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/1...ealises-worth/

[Bielz]

what about some kind of thermoelectric cooling solution. When I finish paying of some of my student loans I plan on fooling around with some of that stuff, not because its more effective than air (probably isn't) but its just cooler.

Peltier elements ?
They're terrible and create additional heat, also doesn't work without fans and therefore defeats the purpose.

I was thinking an oversized water block and rad directly on it, and he would not need to cool to sub ambient like most people go for with peltiers just enough so it doesn't melt. Would require him to machine his own case though.

And you seriously can't see why this defeats the purpose ?

Not really, he is already going for an enthusiast build and acrylic is pretty easy to work with. I can't be fucked to do the math but I feel like it would allow for lower temps than the passive air heatsink, it would have no moving pumps like a standard water build, and mineral oil PCs tend to have fans in them.

I'll look at how to work when I'm onineffective it would be on my home comp, but I'm guessing a heat output of around 145 Watts under load.

[Joe Appleby]

EDIT: Looks like the old Apple Studio Display and Cinema Display don't use any buttons either. I could use that.

Nor does the Samsung SyncMaster P2470LHD (and by extension I would say all SycMasters) use buttons.

[Nordstern]

EDIT: Looks like the old Apple Studio Display and Cinema Display don't use any buttons either. I could use that.

Nor does the Samsung SyncMaster P2470LHD (and by extension I would say all SycMasters) use buttons.

SyncMaster 932B I'm staring at has 5 buttons underneath and one on front.

Fuck, beaten. But that still has buttons, so perhaps there is still hope?

[Stoffl]

what about some kind of thermoelectric cooling solution. When I finish paying of some of my student loans I plan on fooling around with some of that stuff, not because its more effective than air (probably isn't) but its just cooler.

Peltier elements ?
They're terrible and create additional heat, also doesn't work without fans and therefore defeats the purpose.

I was thinking an oversized water block and rad directly on it, and he would not need to cool to sub ambient like most people go for with peltiers just enough so it doesn't melt. Would require him to machine his own case though.

And you seriously can't see why this defeats the purpose ?

Not really, he is already going for an enthusiast build and acrylic is pretty easy to work with. I can't be fucked to do the math but I feel like it would allow for lower temps than the passive air heatsink, it would have no moving pumps like a standard water build, and mineral oil PCs tend to have fans in them.

I'll look at how to work when I'm onineffective it would be on my home comp, but I'm guessing a heat output of around 145 Watts under load.

Because he could just put "an oversized water block and rad directly on it", ignoring the peltier element, ending up with lower water temperatures, water and cost.
He's not looking for ridiculous overclocking attempts.

[Seamus]

what keyboard are you using? only keyless one i found is awesome looking, but expensive for a keyboard: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...oard-and-mouse

Is there an alternative?

[FourFiftyFour]

You could do the Fish Tank/Mineral Oil approach.

[Nordstern]

what keyboard are you using? only keyless one i found is awesome looking, but expensive for a keyboard: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...oard-and-mouse

Is there an alternative?

This.

[kopf]

This has made me think about some innovative cooling solutions that don't require movement.

Is there a way to induce a convection current sufficient for cooling purposes in oil for example?

It is possible. The problem is scale. High voltage transformers are cooled in this manner. Size ranging from the transformers hanging on power poles for house and business drops all the way to EHV substation transformers (138kV, 230kV, 345kV etc). The EHV transformers will also have fans hanging on their radiators for extremely high load hot summer days in hot climates, but they can survive without them.

[Cosmin]

I'm going to write a rather long input on this theme, as I'm a computer freak for more than 10 years, having experienced a lot of platform changes first hand and having "evolved" through different stages of mind states concerning the build-it-yourself PC.

I experimented with fully passive cooling (anyone remember Antec Phantom 500W?), air cooling, water cooling (+/- ice or TEC), TEC cooling, single stage and even LN2 (latter for experimental purposes only and only with several friends around).

Whilst all of these do qualify for 24/7 usage (excluding LN2, of course), there are specific problems for each of them. Let's analyse them throughly, going backwards

Single stage - there were end-user cases including a refrigeration unit - the first revisions of Asetek's Vapochill spring to mind - these migrated into the over-enthusiastic user's land. An excellent one runs pretty expensive and that is only the investment, as the power consumption over a month can very well ruin your wallet completely. There are other problems involved, the compressor's sound being annoying to say the least and the space that a unit takes up means that you need a ginormous case to accomodate it and also you need very efficient and reliable and high-flow fans (thus noisy). Then you need to consider insulating the CPU socket to prevent condensation, which is rather impossible with the LGA approach (on socket 939 for instance you could just fill the motherboard socket with Arctic Ceramique and then stuff some insulator around the socket and voila). Verdict: Performance +++, Efficiency ---, Silence ---, Cost +++.

Thermoelectric cooling - is an interesting approach, but you need one of the two classic solutions (air or water) to make it work. It's not impossible to make it work passively - I did it with an Alienware m11x R2 and a 55W Peltier element - but its efficiency is directly linked to the system you use to cool the Peltier element with (I used the lappies magnesium case in that particular example). Basically it's a good upgrade to what you are already using (active air or water cooling) if your system is oversized - it lowers the maximum temperature reached in full load and further lowers the minimum idle temperature. Or if you're a bit mad (me). Performance ++, Efficiency +, Silence +/-, Cost +.

Water cooling - is annoying because of the liquid used - if something goes wrong, things are going to burn. Or you'll be close to a heart attack, like I was when cooling liquid (potassium salt and ice water) dripped on my X800GTO - everything survived because I flipped the master power switch in .3s after I noticed or it was just blind luck. There are liquids that won't short your stuff if they do drip, but everything is more complicated with water. You must not mix aluminium and copper in the same installation - which can be rather complicated as most high performance water blocks are copper and most radiators are aluminium - because of galvanic corrrosion. It depends a lot on the cooling fluid used. Things that can go tits-up include the pump (and you'll experience lovely BSODs until you notice as the processor goes into protection status), fittings, waterblocks (can chip the chipsets they're mounted on if not :ubercareful: ) and so on. Also water cooling means you'll need to increase the number of fans in your system, as most air coolers help with cooling the stuff around the CPU socket (like RAM and VCore Power supply); if you install a CPU waterblock because of overclocking, you'll still need to cool these separately; if you install a waterblock on your video card, you will still need to actively cool its own VRMs and/or memory chips. Also don't ever forget that a high performance water cooling system is DIY anyway and looking for parts can be a pain. Performance ++, Efficiency +, Silence +/-, Cost ++.

Air Cooling - and by this I mean active air cooling, including fans - might be the only efficient way to cool systems and have the silence you want; the rise of 120mm silent fans happened a while ago, the heatsinks that can manage this are here as well (Thermalright Silver Arrow, Noctua NH-D14, to name just two of them), the only thing that is paramount here is a good case and its insulation - regarding both noise and dust factors. Biggest problem here is that all high performance air coolers are enormous - this is a shot of my system with a NH-D14 in a Lian Li PC-A7010 case - notice the first PCIe 1x slot is obstructed by the cooler and the second PCIe 1x slot is obstructed by the video card - was the reason I had to give up my Xonar DX (PCIe) for a Xonar D2 (PCI), as the DX would not work in any of the PCIe 16x slots. Thus, the main requirement for efficient and silent air cooling is a rather large case.. which could be used for water cooling, em, no? Performance +, Efficiency +, Silence +/-, Cost +.

Passive Cooling - Nofan is a Korean company that specializes in "no fan" cooling. Their solutions are interesting and have been tested by friends of mine who drew several conclusions - but the main one was that if you want a really cutting edge system, this cooling system will not cut it, nor will their power supplies. For a midrange system, it should be fine, but there are problems with the case because of the absolutely huge CPU cooler supplied with it - only Micro-ATX motherboards and certain video cards will fit and the case can only fit one HDD (with an optional HDD bay available afaik), thus cutting down the options to only a few - and to be honest you'd be better off with a micro-ATX case and undervolted air cooling. Performance +/-, Efficiency +/-, Silence +++, Cost +++.


It's quite an endeavour to build a system with no moving parts. Considering the transistor density in modern chips (a Quadro 3000M has 1950 million, for instance) and the way the heat builds up when you are using the system, cooling has to include some active way of removing it. Heatpipes are nice and good and that is why there are systems with processors cooled passively by a NH-D14 for instance, but a high performance video card can ruin that - it will radiate heat upwards to the CPU cooler and it's very difficult to passively cool it without giving up the rest of the motherboard slots.

It is a lot better from a user experience pov and a lot cheaper to build a high performance system with big fans running slowly (1200mm@800RPM are inaudible) rather than spending a lot of money and being an unpaid beta tester for passive solutions with mediocre parts. My 0.02 ISK.

[Lana Torrin]

what keyboard are you using? only keyless one i found is awesome looking, but expensive for a keyboard: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...oard-and-mouse

Is there an alternative?

I just saw this and I want. It is awesome.

[Cosmin]

It is crap because of reasons, but the most important of them all is that there is no feedback. It's the same reason that mobile phones with their OSD keyboard are crap, even with haptic feedback.

It's nothing but a toy, and an expensive and useless one, I'd say.

[Lana Torrin]

It is crap because of reasons, but the most important of them all is that there is no feedback. It's the same reason that mobile phones with their OSD keyboard are crap, even with haptic feedback.

It's nothing but a toy, and an expensive and useless one, I'd say.

No, you are wrong. Its not a toy. It is a stylish piece of hardware that is useful for making things like your reception area look fucking awesome.

I will agree as a keyboard its not going to be great, but its usable.

[Stoffl]

Also afaik that thing was mainly built for stuff like PDA's which don't have a keyboard.

It's not to replace a hardware keyboard.

*edit* ohwait, you're talking about this kickstarter thing and not the projected keyboard.

[Cosmin]

Well my bad, the kickstarter thingie looks awesome and I`d go over the expensive toy to have it in a reception area for instance. The projected thingie is ugh.

Still bad if you want to actually use it.

[Nordstern]

As the case is the lynchpin here, I'm going to put this on hold until I figure out how to make the switch work. Using a capacitive touch or similar type switch would require power to be constantly supplied to the circuit, even when the computer was off. I'd have to hack into the PSU for that, I suppose.

But if I use a membrane switch (not the rubber depression types or the ones with metal domes) like this:

then I think I'll be okay. Is a flexible film considered a moving part? It's debatable.

edit: Actually, instead of breaking open the PSU, I think I could just splice some leads into the motherboard connector.

[Lana Torrin]

Actually, instead of breaking open the PSU, I think I could just splice some leads into the motherboard connector.

I was about to say most pcs are soft off now anyway, there will be some active power cables in there someplace.

[Amanto]

then I think I'll be okay. Is a flexible film considered a moving part? It's debatable.

I would say so. You're making one part move to touch another part.

[dr axler]

Aren't smartphones these days pretty much computers with no movable parts?

[Aea]

Aren't smartphones these days pretty much computers with no movable parts?