dustless pc?

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MEDGT

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May 12, 2007
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i just recently upgraded my p4 rig to a core 2 with 8800. its blinding.
24 inch dell too.
im planning on watercooling and overclocking of course but ive always had an issue with fans for air cooling the main cavity in the case. everything gets covered with bloody dust. i hate it. no i mean i really bloody despise it!
£1300 on hardware the last thing i want is a fine layer of stability zapping dust all over it.
some might say what about filters well yes thats what im on at the mo but they still let dust in and decrease essencial air flow. at the same time noise is an issue and with filters it means more speed to keep the same airflow and so more noise.

sorry im getting to the point.

a sealed air cooled chamber is possible in my thinkings. completely dust free and maintained at room temps ( or below if interested).
my prototype will be made when i recover from spending 1300 bucks.
it consists of a 120mm fan and heatsink attatched to a cpu waterblock with a tec (watt i dont know yet some caculations required first) onto a standard 2 fan 120mm radiator cooling loop.
all set up so the heatsink and fan are the cooler side of the tec.
at this stage im guessing some might have givin up reading this and some might be saying too much heat in a case for one tec to remove. well im gonna be watercooling all my hardware.
cpu, northbridge, ram and gpu.
all thats left is harddrives and residual system heat. easy job for a tec.
the hard part i figure is controlling the tec and heat so i found the mcube t balancer thing and it looks up for the job.
it can be programmed in all sorts of manners and heres what im thinking.

with everything installed the mcube will be measuring the ambient room temps and the internal temps and doing its best to keep them matched by moderating the voltage of the tec. im guessing room temps would be best for condensation issues but if it can be kept lower then thats just plain sweet.
i have no experience with tecs so what im hoping is someone with more experience verify my concepts.

allot of work i hear some say but remember....
i really can not stand that blooming dust.

if you have an opinion i want to hear it...
 
If you're already watercooling everything, just mount the radiator externally and strip out all the case fans. There, no moving air in the case, no dust.

all set up so the heatsink and fan are the cooler side of the tec.
Click to expand...

Wait, why is the hsf on the cool side? The point of putting a hsf on a TEC is to cool off the hot side. Right?
 
yup but what about my 3 harddrives?
dont want them failing on me.

complicated but the idea holds water no?
 
its on the cool side because its cooling the inside of the case with moving air. water loop to move the heat. 2 slow 1200mms to cool and stay quiet on the radiator.
 
Eh, HDDs really don't run that hot, if temps do get outta hand just get a passive HDD cooler, or add them to the WC loop.

What about the psu? Without proper cooling the thing will die. And the fans in a psu always act as exhaust. Unless the pc is completly air tight, the vacuum created from the psu fans pushing air out of the case will cause air to get sucked in through every crack. A single TEC isnt going to be able to properly cool a psu unless it's in contact with the heatsinks in the unit itself.
 
well its an e6400 with 2gig of dominator 800mhz and an 8800 gts on an evga 680i mobo. 2 250gb samsungs and a hitachi 500gb. a dell 24 inch and cerwinvega monitors for the studio side of things as it all realy intended for the purposes of recording. thats why im so keen on silence and reliability as its a nessecity for my work.
games kick arse too. hurry the hell up direct x 10 software!
its been on my mind for a while this idea and now ive got some kick arse hardware i want to look after it. plus case confurations and cases last many pcs if there good.
its a silverstone something i cant remember the model buts its great
watercooling is yet to go in. overclocking has been kept to a minimum tho the gpu is at 600/900. have to save it isnt even needed. and is off most of the time.

whats your rig? watercooled?
 
Turned around? How are you going to have the psu blow it's exhaust outside the case AND suck in from the outside?

My rig is air cooled, 2 120mm case fans and a Tuniq Tower. I'm going to add a couple high CFM Delta fans one of these days...
 
and just to answer the hard drive thing. if i add them to the cooling loop for cpu and gpu cooling it will comprimise my overclocking levels. a seperate loop would be needed as im sure they do create enough heat to realy require active cooling for stability. so instead of cooling them and still needing fans and enduring dust cool them my way and remove dust. no?
 
psu arrangment would need a hole mod in the case but ive got the tools and know how so its not an issue. as is any case modding as i worked with sheet steel for 2 years.
 
hahah
i am a fussy git like.
just want to get on with things and not worry bout my overclocked system being a bitch.
plus im the creative building it, take it apart types.
planning and building things is great.
 
thats my thoughts exactly mpilchfamily.
completely sealed.
psu seperate from the chamber.
im gonna have to post some detailed drawings i think.
maybe tonight after work.
 
If you want it that way, why not get a P180 and seal the top of the box and just let the bottom chamber cool the HDD's and PSU.

By the same note, sealing it up will give you a chance to fry your voltage regulators. Its your choice and money(to burn)

inside.jpg

P180 with 2 chambers.

Why not use a P180 with just the exhaust(on super low) and some hard core filtering
 
yeah my flatmate has the antec p180 case and its great for the hdd and psu chamber.
right i think some have missed my initial idea.
ok so the idea of a completely sealed chamber has drawbacks like cooling everything that isnt cooled by watercooling. such as vrms southbridge etc. but the tecs cold side would be on a fan and heatsink circulating air in the sealed chamber( p180 is a perfect case for this). the heat the tec collects would then be removed by a watercooling loop. what size and properties im not sure yet.
now a tec set up like this is capable of keeping that sealed chamber alot cooler than ambient room temps. portable fridges tht run on 12v dc use this technology and they can be pretty damn cold.
alot of work to complete and considerably more technical than filters and low speed fans but how many people can say they have a true air conditioned dust free case for all their fantastic hardware?
 
ill try not to go off topic, but as someone mentioned earlier, motherboard components need some form of cooling, wether it be a light breeze or a watercooling loop. I dont think its possible to do what you want to do without having some means of transferring heat... now ideally. there is a way to do this. seal off your HDD and psu and cool them independantly.. then make your main chamber completley water tight.. fill everything with oil, have your watercooling rig set up to each main component. you'll have to work out the best way to do this..

right then in my lovely diagram, the blue area would be a sealed unit filled with baby oil (or any other suitable oil) (its non conductive and fairly good at heat dissapation) as far as im aware your pump could be in this bit. Your rad and reservoir would be located outside. you would have to work out how to seal the box around the tubing. you could then have a waterblock mounted into the sealed off unit (trying my hardest not to lose you here) and have your loop conect to this to remove some heat from the oil.

OR you could buy some compressed air and clean it every month

see pic
www.headshotsubneuro.co.uk/oilcooling.JPG
 
Eh, HDDs really don't run that hot, if temps do get outta hand just get a passive HDD cooler, or add them to the WC loop.

What about the psu? Without proper cooling the thing will die. And the fans in a psu always act as exhaust. Unless the pc is completly air tight, the vacuum created from the psu fans pushing air out of the case will cause air to get sucked in through every crack. A single TEC isnt going to be able to properly cool a psu unless it's in contact with the heatsinks in the unit itself.
Click to expand...

how about you remove the psu from the case entirely?

i've thought of doing this many times, simply extend the psu wires by ~12" or so, run them into the case and leave the physical PSU OUTSIDE of the computer itself? perhaps have it mounted to the top or just underneath?

that would eliminated the psu from the problem all together.

Valis
 
I dont think its possible to do what you want to do without having some means of transferring heat...
Click to expand...

u missed the main concept i proposed there gow87.
the tec is the heat mover working with a watercooling loop.
 
how i would do it, have 2 water cooling setups and a very very large case, put a block on your cpu and a block on your gpu, put them in the first LCS, then just have a pump, resivour and rad in the second loop and put the rad from the 2nd LCS inside the case to keep the case temps cool, seal up the case and run the LCS, the only thing going in and pout of the case will be electricity and water, no dust. (make the air blow through the rad on to the psu and then the psu blow the cool air over itself and seal it up at the back.
 
If dust is a problem for you then there is probably lots of dust in the air in the room. Try getting the ducts cleaned professionally and/or purchase an air filter, HEPA filters work wonders when it comes to removing all particles from the air, but they're expensive. Try dusting the room more often and make sure to wipe all the dust away with a damp cloth instead of just kicking it up with "normal" dusters. If your computer is on carpet, either move it onto a desk, excessively vacuum the carpet, or replace the carpet with wood or vinyl flooring.

Other than that, the rest of the posts seem to help a bit.

HTH

-- Havent been on the forums in a while, the design has changed a bit and there are a lot of new members on here.
 
How about 8 gallons of cooking oil like this: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/
Or, build a frame out of some a/c filters and place it over the whole pc, leaving an opening for the exhaust of air.
 
u missed the main concept i proposed there gow87.
the tec is the heat mover working with a watercooling loop.
Click to expand...

yea i understand that much, but the problem i forsee is as someone mentioned earlier, its not just graphics and CPU and northbridge that need cooling. When you have even a minimal amount of airflow, you have air moving over your entire motherboard. If you have no fans at all, the ram, the HDD's, Capacitors everything thats on or plugged into the motherboard with some current running through it is going to heat up. yes the main components would be cool, but surely everything else would be unstable?
 
u missed the main concept i proposed there gow87.
the tec is the heat mover working with a watercooling loop.
Click to expand...

yea i understand that much, but the problem i forsee is as someone mentioned earlier, its not just graphics and CPU and northbridge that need cooling. When you have even a minimal amount of airflow, you have air moving over your entire motherboard. If you have no fans at all, the ram, the HDD's, Capacitors everything thats on or plugged into the motherboard with some current running through it is going to heat up. yes the main components would be cool, but surely everything else would be unstable?
 
I work in a class 1000 clean room area and still get dust in a PC that the PSU and HSF fans had locked up (hey, with ambient temps at 68deg F and it only being a Pentium MMX233 it's holding up well), admittedly it wasn't enough to clog the old style HSF but there was dust.

The only way I can see for you to have a "dustless" PC is to immerse the mobo in a flouro-fluid (or some other kind of nonconducting fluid), dust particles are attracted to the PC partially because of the static field generated by the electronics so the only way to avoid that is to have a barrier that stops the dust particles.
 
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