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Fan-less silent PC

I actually enjoy building computers
I have always enjoyed building computers myself, from the earliest days of computing. Today, it's mostly limited to buying highly miniaturised barebones and completing them.
utterly computer noise allergic
Oh yes, that is what I also am. :)
A few years ago, it wasn't so easy to get a computer to be silent.
 
This used to be a funny little box that I had built as my media-computer a long time ago. I had used a relatively large fan for cooling, which was very quiet and ran at a lowered speed. You really couldn't hear it. Fortunately, the fanless models came soon after that. I had some Mini PC's from ZOTAC, for example, who are among the pioneers in this field and still offer advanced cooling solutions today.



mini-pc1.jpg
 
A few years ago, it wasn't so easy to get a computer to be silent.

I was using a passive radiator for water cooling (Zalaman Reserator) back in 2004...

Reservator & Qbic 1 (Small).JPG


It wasn't completely silent, because the Soltek Qbic barebones had a blower fan (which was actually pretty quiet)...

PICT0008 (Small).JPG


There was no fan on the Radeon 9800 PRO :)

PICT0009 (Small).JPG


I extended the cooling loop to the Northbridge later, I don't think i've got any pictures of that, but here's one after I added a temperature monitor (Jeez, that power LED was bright!)...


Front With Thermometer (detail) (Small).JPG


Actually, I do have a photo...

DSCF0271 (Small).JPG
 
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And here's my home 'server' from 2004 with a very cheap Coolwave water cooling setup and acoustic foam on the side panels...

Watercooling My Server 020 (Small).jpg


Next to it's mate (Gah! More blue LEDs, you'd think they'd just been invented!)...

Watercooling My Server 021 (Small).jpg
 
And here's my home 'server' from 2004 with a very cheap Coolwave water cooling setup and acoustic foam on the side panels...

View attachment 323080

Next to it's mate (Gah! More blue LEDs, you'd think they'd just been invented!)...

View attachment 323082
You are a pioneer. I got interested in silent PCs around 2004 or so, when for some reason I just could not stand the ever increasing noise levels anymore. I had bought -and I recall this because it was a key moment- a top end Sony (RCV-R558DS, just looked it up) for a lot of $, and while it was a top performer, it *howled* every time it was turned on. I just could not deal with it, and have gone for silent builds ever since.
 
I was using a passive radiator for water cooling (Zalaman Reserator) back in 2004...

View attachment 323064

It wasn't completely silent, because the Soltek Qbic barebones had a blower fan (which was actually pretty quiet)...

View attachment 323065

There was no fan on the Radeon 9800 PRO :)

View attachment 323066

I extended the cooling loop to the Northbridge later, I don't think i've got any pictures of that, but here's one after I added a temperature monitor (Jeez, that power LED was bright!)...


View attachment 323075

Actually, I do have a photo...

View attachment 323084

Oh my, oooh my…

To see another pic of Reserator in its native time and natural habitat :D
You might say I cling to the past, but I wish those remained in production.

I still use a bunch of Zalman’s 5.25” bay HDD heat pipe coolers.
Such a cool company.

Those 90° elbow tube fittings in the pics are terrifying by current standards - perhaps @Berwhale is not just a “pioneer,”

You are a pioneer. ...


but also a daredevil, ha!
 
Those 90° elbow tube fittings in the pics are terrifying by current standards - perhaps @Berwhale is not just a “pioneer,”

There was around 1mm clearance between the Xice waterblock on the Radeon 9800 PRO and the side of the case, I didn't have a lot of choice with the pipework and I managed to the get a 2.4GHz P4 up to almost 4Ghz anyway :)

I think the fastest P4 at the time was 3.8Ghz which cost 4x as much as the 2.4Ghz one I ran, so the whole rig was quite cost effective, despite the Reserator costing the same as the CPU :)

I should also own up to adding forced air cooling to the reserator later on, but this was also very quiet.
 
There was around 1mm clearance between the Xice waterblock on the Radeon 9800 PRO and the side of the case, I didn't have a lot of choice with the pipework and I managed to the get a 2.4GHz P4 up to almost 4Ghz anyway :)

I think the fastest P4 at the time was 3.8Ghz which cost 4x as much as the 2.4Ghz one I ran, so the whole rig was quite cost effective, despite the Reserator costing the same as the CPU :)

I should also own up to adding forced air cooling to the reserator later on, but this was also very quiet.

Summary being you boosted CPU speed over the line’s commercially available max while keeping cost at 50%, only tradeoff was a large passive peripheral? Awesome strategy, for ~2004 especially.

At that time I had a uni roommate who built a big fan-less Linux tower with CPU cooled by a massive old copper block. He took weeks to get that part because he set a begrudgingly low price limit for himself and kept losing to competitors on eBay. While that was well before electronic payments, buyer protection and auctionstealer, there were already folks savvy enough to code their own sniper-bid algorithms and they kept beating him by cents and seconds, if not even less…

Maybe they were all using P4’s cooled by fan-aided Reserators! :D
 
Since I don't do any computer games or really complex graphics processing at home, but only surf the internet, write texts and stream music, TV and video, I don't need such big tower computers. I think it's great that such things are getting smaller and quieter and also consume much less power.
 
Ryzen 8600G undervolted and with negative frequency offset. 10 minutes of Cinebench - CPU reaches only 61C with no CPU cooler fans and no case fans.
Screenshot 2024-10-12 220323.png

Screenshot 2024-10-12 220808.png

At low loads (when browsing internet etc.) the CPU temperature doesn't go far beyond 35C, that's in 22C room. The CPU cooler is Thermalright Frost Spirit 140 - 1kg of radiator. This cooler is discontinued, there's one called Peerless Assassin 140 that has a similar in size radiator. So no elaborate cooling solution is needed, just a radiator that sells for 40$ on Amazon.

Temperatures these low are achieved because the CPU is actually a mobile APU, it is designed to operate at low voltages. Also, it has a big silicon surface which helps with heat dissipation. Undervolting makes it even cooler.
The GPU is not needed as the CPU has built-in graphics, which is btw very modern and has all the latest features, live av1 decoder and even encoder. PSU is silent when the load is light, which is always the case as the CPU cannot draw a lot of power. And the rest of the computer is just storage. I've been running it for months like this with no fans inside the case - no issues.
 
Ever since last year - when Intel handed their NUC (Next Unit of Computing) Mini-PC line over to Asus - I have been noticing many new releases of mini (and/or fanless) PCs which are extremely low in price but provide features like multiple, fast NIC, HDMI and USB interfaces, with choice of either IntelCore or Ryzen CPUs.
Unlike RaspberryPi boxes, these non-branded (or off-brand) mini/micro-PCs are endorsed at many youtube channels, and on sale in places like eBay and aliexpress.

This SFF (SmallFormFactor) computing-market seems to have become commoditized and the lure of dirt-cheap prices... brings me to a PSA: Caveat Emptor!;)
 
Ever since last year - when Intel handed their NUC (Next Unit of Computing) Mini-PC line over to Asus - I have been noticing many new releases of mini (and/or fanless) PCs which are extremely low in price but provide features like multiple, fast NIC, HDMI and USB interfaces, with choice of either IntelCore or Ryzen CPUs.
Unlike RaspberryPi boxes, these non-branded (or off-brand) mini/micro-PCs are endorsed at many youtube channels, and on sale in places like eBay and aliexpress.

This SFF (SmallFormFactor) computing-market seems to have become commoditized and the lure of dirt-cheap prices... brings me to a PSA: Caveat Emptor!;)
Intel didn't invent the SFF or Micro FF market. Intel launched the NUC in 2013, but https://www.mini-itx.com/ has been reviewing this stuff since 2002. I bought an AOpen XC Mini MP45 in 2010, an Acer L80 in 2013 and an Acer Revo M1601 in 2016 and they are all still in my garage :)
 
The CPU cooler is Thermalright Frost Spirit 140 - 1kg of radiator. This cooler is discontinued, there's one called Peerless Assassin 140 that has a similar in size radiator.

My current Ryzen 9 7900 PC is the first air cooled one i've built in over 20 years. I was somewhat shocked by the weight of the Peerless Assassin when it arrived :) You have at least removed some weight along with the fans. I also love the Fractal Designs cases, they are so nice to work on.
 
Intel didn't invent the SFF or Micro FF market.
Never hinted at that.
I had two of the original Patriot BoxOffice (PBO) mini-PCs (SFF?) that were specifically made to play videos and movies... back in the early days of the HomeTheaterPC movement.
202410_PBOCoreFront.jpg
202410_PBOcoreRear.jpg

Over 15 years ago, the dirt-cheap PBO (@~$100) would do 1080p (and much more) without a sweat! [reviews of PBO can be found here and here]
It was a sleeper!

I currently have (and use) a NUC8-i5 and a NUC10-i7, which continue to be totally trouble-free.;)
 
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Ryzen 8600G undervolted and with negative frequency offset. 10 minutes of Cinebench - CPU reaches only 61C with no CPU cooler fans and no case fans.
View attachment 398440
View attachment 398441
At low loads (when browsing internet etc.) the CPU temperature doesn't go far beyond 35C, that's in 22C room. The CPU cooler is Thermalright Frost Spirit 140 - 1kg of radiator. This cooler is discontinued, there's one called Peerless Assassin 140 that has a similar in size radiator. So no elaborate cooling solution is needed, just a radiator that sells for 40$ on Amazon.

Temperatures these low are achieved because the CPU is actually a mobile APU, it is designed to operate at low voltages. Also, it has a big silicon surface which helps with heat dissipation. Undervolting makes it even cooler.
The GPU is not needed as the CPU has built-in graphics, which is btw very modern and has all the latest features, live av1 decoder and even encoder. PSU is silent when the load is light, which is always the case as the CPU cannot draw a lot of power. And the rest of the computer is just storage. I've been running it for months like this with no fans inside the case - no issues.

crazy, I have a similar setup but with i3 and I need a fan with 100% load (only)
It doesn't seem necessary but you probably would get more out of this turning the cooler 90 degrees, since we rely on the chimney effect with a setup like this
 
It doesn't seem necessary but you probably would get more out of this turning the cooler 90 degrees, since we rely on the chimney effect with a setup like this
Not to mention that its fin density isn't exactly optimized for passive cooling either. The fin stack is going to be very restrictive to any air merely motivated by the chimney effect.

Having observed the motivational powers of fans even at silly low speeds like 2-300 rpm (you just have to pick some with no bearing noises that can be turned down a lot - Noctuas are good, as are 140mm BQ Silent Wings 4s), I consider going all fanless a bit of a masochistic exercise unless you live in a welding shop. Also, using a super open case can easily turn you into a coil whine neurotic as you'll literally be hearing every peep.
 
My current Ryzen 9 7900 PC is the first air cooled one i've built in over 20 years. I was somewhat shocked by the weight of the Peerless Assassin when it arrived :) You have at least removed some weight along with the fans. I also love the Fractal Designs cases, they are so nice to work on.
This Fractal Design North case is very good-looking, but I was somewhat disappointed with the quality - panels don't align perfectly, thumb screws cannot be screwed in with fingers and require a screwdriver, also they scratch the case, there are no extra screws, no velcro straps, no motherboards standoffs, fans don't have dampeners. It's pretty, but I hoped for better quality, especially after seeing Fractal Torrent which has excellent build quality.
crazy, I have a similar setup but with i3 and I need a fan with 100% load (only)
It doesn't seem necessary but you probably would get more out of this turning the cooler 90 degrees, since we rely on the chimney effect with a setup like this
You are right, but the motherboard/cooler mounting doesn't allow to rotate it. Anyway, it probably wouldn't make a massive difference. When the cores work hard warm air rises through the mesh top, I warm my hand there :)
Also, using a super open case can easily turn you into a coil whine neurotic as you'll literally be hearing every peep.
This is very true. I've had bad luck with Gigabyte motherboards recently, all of them had very audible coil whine, and one was whistling (not kidding). I returned them. Got Asrock now, and it is quiet. PSUs can have coil whine too, it's worth checking after the purchase.
 
It’s now possible for totally quiet pcs using standard cpus, rather than the mobile and laptop u, h, t designated chips in many sffs. The advantage is lower price for higher quiet cpu power, with disadvantage being larger size. The fan less platinum psus are still pricey, but if a few feet away, you can find inaudible psus for itx and micro atx
 
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