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[Finished] The silent cube: Pushing passive cooling to the limit with dual GTX 980 - [Update 21: Liquid Cristal Thermometer]

Stefan1024
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This is the most amazing project ever!

 

Sure it's not flashy (Compared to the those buildlogs/hardline watercooling) but this is just amazing on the huge amount of work that went into it

Current system - ThinkPad Yoga 460

ExSystems

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Laptop - ASUS FX503VD

|| Case: NZXT H440 ❤️|| MB: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI || CPU: Skylake Chip || Graphics card : GTX 970 Strix || RAM: Crucial Ballistix 16GB || Storage:1TB WD+500GB WD + 120Gb HyperX savage|| Monitor: Dell U2412M+LG 24MP55HQ+Philips TV ||  PSU CX600M || 

 

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Also, have you thought about making an OIL COOLED passive PC? Perhaps by having the heatsinks on the sides, but sealing the bottom and putting everything in oil? It would make it even harder to move xD

 

When I replace the perforated metal plate at the back with a sloid one and seal everything I could probably just fill it up with oil. It would cool the PSU, VRMs and SSDs better. But the HDD will die quickly. Also when the parts are not directly mounted onto the heat sinks the oil will not be capable of transporting the heat on it's own, so you need a fan to circulate the oil. But it wil probably still be inaudible sice it is submerged.

But building a case that will never leak within 10 years dispite the thermal stress is a difficult task.

 

But the idea is nevertheless interesting. You can pull this off, I allready have a passive PC :P

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Impressive to the end

 

I think some cases manufacturer should take exemple on the way you handled this "little" baby :)

 

Congratulations dear swiss neighbour :P

 

 

This is the most amazing project ever!

 

Sure it's not flashy (Compared to the those buildlogs/hardline watercooling) but this is just amazing on the huge amount of work that went into it

 

You two make all the hours spent worth!

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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When I replace the perforated metal plate at the back with a sloid one and seal everything I could probably just fill it up with oil. It would cool the PSU, VRMs and SSDs better. But the HDD will die quickly. Also when the parts are not directly mounted onto the heat sinks the oil will not be capable of transporting the heat on it's own, so you need a fan to circulate the oil. But it wil probably still be inaudible sice it is submerged.

But building a case that will never leak within 10 years dispite the thermal stress is a difficult task.

 

But the idea is nevertheless interesting. You can pull this off, I allready have a passive PC :P

Maybe sometime I will create a lanbox with like the T edition of an intel CPU and use one of nvidia's most efficiant cards. I am sure I could do it, but I do not have any money. it would need to be a sponsored build and I would probably do a giveaway.

Donate your unused computer resources for cancer and other research. For Zinsey ❤

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Loved this build! It really is a joy to follow someone as they apply their knowledge into passion project type thing. 

 

Super thumbs up. 

 

Also, it must be awesome having a truly silent system! 

Bleigh!  Ever hear of AC series? 

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I submitted my build: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/468467-featured-build-logs-competition-004-submission-thread/
 
 
Forum ID: Stefan1024
Build Title: The silent cube
Thread URL: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/351134-finished-the-silent-cube-pushing-passive-cooling-to-the-limit-with-dual-gtx-980-update-17-pictures/

Description: Yes the design is totally dictated by the cooling, but that doesn't mean it has to be ugly ;)  And yes, all 500 watts kicked out by the system are cooled passive, and no, it does not overheat.
This build is an antipole to all these LED covered, hardline watercooled show systems. They look very nice, but you need sunglasses and headphones when using them. So I built my 50kg heavy black box that is totally inaudible and maintenance free, but has still a lot of compute power under the cover.
Ok, I have to admit I added one gimmick: I recover energy from the heat output of the GPUs with a thermoelectric generator to charge my smart-phone while gaming.


LsepPHE.jpg


EDIT:
Don't forget to vote, the voting thread is here: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/496604-featured-build-logs-004-voting-thread/

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Update 18: <1dBa over the noise floor!

 

So today a woman of the government was here to measure the noise of the street in from of your flat. They had to collect data for some kinde of study and/or statistics.

The nice thing is that she brought a high quallity and well callibrated sound meter with here. And she was keen enougth to hand it to me for a few minutes.

 

I made three measurements each with the PC off and with Unigine Heaven runnign at ~100FPS. The noise floor of the device itself is 15 dBa.

The measurement distance was 60cm. I know the standart distance to measure is 1m, but I perfered to use the actuall distance to my head.

 

PC off: 20.9 dBa, 19.7 dBa, 19.8 dBa (mean value 20.1 dBa)

Heaven Benchmark: 21 dBa, 20.3 dBa, 20.2 dBa (mean value 20.5 dBa)

 

As you can see the noise floor in my room is pretty high. A good yound chamber is <14 dBa. So I was not able to measure the effective sound level of my PC because it hardly exceeds the noise floor of my room. But that was the goal of the project to have a PC that is a quiet as the room ;) Also it is <21 dBa for sure.

 

But when a car drives by the sound level is about 33 dBa (with all windows closed) :(

Hopefully I can move to a quieter place sometime in the future. But the flaw here is nice and cheap. Just the street is very close.

 

PC off:

post-216771-0-91255100-1446022408_thumb.

 

Unigine Heaven (100 FPS):

post-216771-0-72619700-1446022405_thumb.

 

 

 

 

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Best build I've ever seen. Bar none. 

This is so amazing. I've been wanting to do a completely passive build for two years. 

I know you're an engineer, so you have super thermal calculatey powers, but did you use any software to assist you with heat dissipation modelling? 

 

Also: Where did you get those heatpipes!? 

Do want. 

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- snip -

Thank you!

 

To calculate I transformed the heat distribution into a simpel (electrical) resistor network:

- component to cool: constant current source (in watt)

- heat flow = current (in watt)

- temperature difference = voltage (in Kelvin)

- thermal resistance = resistor (in kelvin / watt)

 

Calculating series and paralle resistors is pretty simple. With my good old "Voyage 200" it's even more idiotproof. Also I'm electrical engineer and good with electrical stuff. I never solved a complex heat simulation nor I was taught how to do it in school.

 

I ordered the custom bent heat pipes form this company: http://www.situs-tec.de/produkte/heatpipes/

Just look for a company that produces heat pipes or distribute them and as for an offer for a bent heat pipe. Most will do it, even if it's not advertised on the website.

 

Good look with your own passive build! Make a build log about it, if you ever make it real. You can also use my blueprint here: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/468374-mineral-oil-meets-passive-cooling-as-extreme-as-it-can-get-blue-print/

Or a scaled down version to fit your budget. I can't afford it ;)

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Wow, that's amazing. Pretty crazy good temps considering what you have in that build. I'm not much for passive cooling with high-end GPUs since they tend to increase the volume of the case by a lot, but I like the work that's been put into this one. Look forward to your next big project.

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Update 19: Overclock the CPU

 

So I was curious how far can I push the CPU. As it turned out, overclocking on passive cooling certainly possible.

 

4.6 GHz @ 1.226V on all cores is rock solid (>3h stress test passed)

 

post-216771-0-57043600-1447596057.png

 

 

However the power consumptionstarts to increase significantly and for the daily I prefer

 

4.5 GHz @ 1.172V on all cores. This setting has also passed >3 hours in stress testing.

 

post-216771-0-11714000-1447596057.png

 

I sacrifice 2.2% in performance, but I save ~12% in power consumption. This is a trade off I I'm very comfortable with.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Amazing. Simply incredible. Well done!

CPU: Intel i7 4770k w/Noctua NH-D15, Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97 Ultra Durable, RAM: Patriot 8Gb 1600Mhz (2x4Gb), GPU: MSI R9 390x Gaming,


SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 1Tb, HDD: Caviar Black 1Tb, Seagate 4Tb Hybrid, Case: Fractal Design Define R4, PSU: Antec Earthwatts 750w 


Phone: LG G2 32Gb Black (Verizon) Laptop: Fujitsu Lifebook E754 w/ 1TB Samsung 840 Evo SSD Vehicle: 2012 Nissan Xterra named Rocky

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Update 20: Finishing touches

 

Dispite the heat sinks were fully black anodized in the beginning, they got scratched during working with them. It was not really visible when just looking at it, but making a photo with flash light was merciless and it just looked ugly. So I painted over the exposed aluminium to make it more clean looking.

Also I bougth a used Acer XB270U. Sadly there is no high refresh rate 16:10 montor at all, so I have a bit a mismatch now. But the Acer is great for gaming and for working the dual monitor setup is quite helpful. My desk is 210cm width in total, but I nearly run out of space. Never thougth this would ever happen. The stand for the speaker is only temporary, I will get an appropriate one soon.

Oh yes, and the cables get some love.

 

post-216771-0-75110400-1448184079_thumb.

post-216771-0-53026500-1448184084_thumb.

post-216771-0-00658300-1448184082_thumb.

post-216771-0-96509400-1448184086_thumb.

 

And sorry @LinusTech, no need for your fans at all. But I still think they look awesome.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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  • 3 weeks later...
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The last pictures... You have a webpage with fans on it with a passive build. A little ironic don't you think? :)

 

That is the WAN show when Linus was showing of the LTT fans. It's ironic on purpose ;)

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Update 21: Liquid cristal thermometer and voting!

 

Lately I was wondering how hot the heat sinks actually get. So I looked for a passive thermometer and found these strips. They contan liquid cristals that change the color on a specified temperature (thermochromism).

 

post-216771-0-22038000-1450298678_thumb.

post-216771-0-04153300-1450298676_thumb.

 

Also the voting for the featured build log is still going on and I need your help!

If you are still following this thread go to this thread and vote. We can still pull this off. It only takes you about 4 seconds.

 

Time to call out 75 people:

@tomdabomb89 @iamdarkyoshi @Vavetti @W-L @Ostwind @JK Vengeance @Cruzer @ats1995 @Nup @kashian @Hackentosher @blueballs @0ld_Chicken @hawthorne @doctormoctor @calebw0103 @ElfenSky @TheCovertCamper @Cornelious11 @Techpriest Taro @mcgilly @Karolukas @MrEppart1 @skylane @Sharif @alpenwasser @AlexTheRose @kebland123 @Spider_MonkeyYOU @Peketr @Kuuhaku09 @Someone09 @Darth-san @Mihemine @Snakestrikes @PercySavageEG @TheDornig @TheOrdix @CatzRuleZWorld @gazabi @Leinahtan @ForsakenLive @Mattrixx @Aimbrot @bear-in-the-air @LucianoAnto @Albert1998 @Mitsy @waggythegeek @voldelord @X_Rated_Box @TomvanWijnen @Rohit Jackdaw @imson0606 @willemdoom1 @IvIast3r @mathijs727 @KebabSpies @WhatTheQuack @HellaflushMcSwaggins @Anthony_95 @VortexS @z3kron @Dynast @spwath @MEC-777 @BurnerMC @TobiMay @beteng1 @SWAGGA @Rheinwasser @Uwillparish
 
Well except @Necrodead of courese as you are also part of the competition ;)
 
Also I'm thinking about makeing a mineral oil PC when Arctic island  and Zen releases....

 

 

 

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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I was wondering how hot it gets...

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Smal news!
 
I got a Logitech G15 for 10$ lately. It has two benefits over my ols keyboard. It is more silent and I can use the display to monitor the temperatur.

 

I was wondering how hot it gets...

Have a look, I programmed two different screens:

post-216771-0-67049600-1450891221_thumb.

post-216771-0-86960400-1450891223_thumb.

 

Due to the fact I started to play Mass effect 1  I never managed to heat up the heat sinks over 35°C. When I reached the third part I will have more data.....

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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Smal news!

 I got a Logitech G15 for 10$ lately. It has two benefits over my ols keyboard. It is more silent and I can use the display to monitor the temperatur.

Have a look, I programmed two different screens:

attachicon.gifa22.jpg

attachicon.gifb22.jpg

Due to the fact I started to play Mass effect 1  I never managed to heat up the heat sinks over 35°C. When I reached the third part I will have more data.....

 

Oh that's such a neat and clean list how does one program that on the G15.

Updated Modding FAQ

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Oh that's such a neat and clean list how does one program that on the G15.

 

As a template I used the programm I found here: http://www.g15-applets.de/harware-monitor-fuer-g15-t8499.html

The forum is in German, but the Software is in English.

 

Somehow the font was messed up and I couln'd use the screens provided, so I created my own. It's simple to do it. But don't forget to install and run the Logitech Gaming Software as well.

Mineral oil and 40 kg aluminium heat sinks are a perfect combination: 73 cores and a Titan X, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Oil

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As a template I used the programm I found here: http://www.g15-applets.de/harware-monitor-fuer-g15-t8499.html

The forum is in German, but the Software is in English.

 

Somehow the font was messed up and I couln'd use the screens provided, so I created my own. It's simple to do it. But don't forget to install and run the Logitech Gaming Software as well.

 

I seem to have gotten it up and running but as you said the font is all squished and unreadable, did you run their font loader to change it cause I was unable to get it to run.

 

EDIT: I think I figured it out but it will take a while to configure  :lol:

Edited by W-L

Updated Modding FAQ

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