Silent PCs With Thermoelectric Panels? 46
pdxChris asks: "I'm assembling a new PC for digital audio recording and music production. I'd like this machine to be absolutely silent, with no fan noise at all -- actually, no mechanical noise of any kind outside the hard drive spinning. While browsing at an ecology products vendor I found information on thermoelectric panels: they pump heat from one side to the other when supplied with DC, without making any noise. As this is new to me, I did an AltaVista search for more information on the topic and found a nice overview. I'd like to replace all fans in my new PC with thermoelectric panels, so that the machine could be right in front of me (for swapping audio cables, popping in new blank CD's, etc.) without making any sound at all that could distract from the music or be picked up by my microphone. As for the hard drives, perhaps I could put them into an external SCSI case with an extra-long cord to get them into the closet I'm willing to put up to a few hundred dollars and a few dozen hours into the project if it's feasible to obtain a totally silent PC!"
Re: Thermoelectric Panels (Score:2)
What your looking at is a Peltier device. These are the holy grail for overclockers. There are a few drawbacks to them though:
They require alot of powerthey generate a fair bit of heat (it has to go somewhere)
There is a problem with condensation with these. They run VERY cool. Just like uninsulated windows in winter time
As far as the scsi hd, there is a limit on the length of your scsi chain. So you have two options really. Get a Firewire (IEEE 1394 I think) drive, or hook up with a gigabit lan and pop in a Quantum Snap server (basically HD's that you hook directly into a LAN
Not looking good eh? Well now, I have seen enclosures for Dot Matrix printers (in fact, I have one at work for the printer we use to print our monthly journals) that are heavily insulated, but they do require a fan for cirulation. It may be something to look into, though I would not know where. Or... there is *shudder* iMacs or the new G4 Cube that are fanless.
peltier coolers (Score:1)
One thing that'll help you is that you aren't really trying to achieve cooling (roughly room temp is fine for a cpu / disk, no?) so you should get good efficiency from the peltier.
Peltiers are going to be a problem (Score:2)
In addition, these have a host of other issues to deal with, especially condensation (see http://www.overclockers.com/)
You may want to consider the alternative of moving the entire box into another area and running a powered KVM module with long cables to it. There is a maximum distance from the machine before degradation becomes so bad it is useless.
Or when all else fails, try a cabinet that is vented or directly over an A/C vent. You can soundproof the cabinet and be done.
Good luck.
High power ICs should come with control logic (Score:2)
I'm a big proponet of putting peltzer or other thermal control logic on high power ICs (such as general-purpose CPUs) to control these cooling devices. The main problem is condensation and if you put the CPU in control of its own cooling, that would eliminate 98% of it's issues.
Otherwise, I found the units for enclosures to be a little too expensive for consideration ($500+!). While it would be neat to run my box with a consistent 60-65 degrees F (you should always run about 55 degrees F for condensation purposes), I don't think it is worth it for $500.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Re: Thermoelectric Panels (Score:1)
SCSI cables, solid state (Score:1)
If that idea fails, you can also try giving it lots of RAM, maybe putting stuff on a RAM disk, and using a networked file server. Either another windows/unix box, or a Snap drive or somesuch should work. Check the bandwidth first though. Running at 10Mbps, that gives you a theoretical max of 1.25MBps. That may not be enough for what you're doing, as that's only an ideal maximum. A 100 network should be able to handle it just fine.
You can also buy a solid state drive (Quantum makes one I think), which would be rather silent. However, I don't know about heat on that, and they may cost a bunch.
Don't forget that the CD drive also causes a bunch of sound too. There's probably no hope in finding a totally silent one of those, unless it's running at 1x or 2x in which it'd be quite quiet. If your reading audio CDs in realtime, you'd only need a 1x anyways.
Of course, there's always that new Mac Cube...
Cheap-o solution (the one I use) (Score:2)
1 - I came up with the idea of putting my box under my desk inside a double cardboard box (a 14" monitor box inside a 17" monitor box with that weird foam/sponge from my old pillows in between them)
2 - The box was set on it's side and put next to the coolest wall in the house (hopefully the cold wall would cool the air and to let it recirculate) . The cables were all sent out through the handle openings to my desk.
3 - For audio, I bought a cheap (US$ 30) wireless (radio) headphone set - works like a charm, a gazillion times better than my other set. BTW, I use headphones cause when I'm gaming I don't want ANYTHING to bother me. For line out and mic I bought some 2 meter (about 7 feet for you non-metric geeks) headphone cables and made a pair of extension cords that are next to my monitor - I plug it into my surround sound system (for heavy duty gaming).
That's about it - it's very quiet, not silent. I've been running it since and so far so good - I've overclocked my processor, added a 20gig 7200 RPM HD (with fans) and added a pair of old 486 cooler fans to blow the hot air out the top.
I have an external Zipdrive and I've got an internal one at work (with more bandwith) so I just ditched my 3.5 drive. My CD-ROM drive is internal so I have to sit on the cold floor once in a while to change a CD or whatever...
My rambling probably didn't help you out but my dumb little setup is quiet enough for me and only set me back some $ 45.
Thermodynamics (Score:2)
Well...you could try this... (Score:1)
Eureeka! Go to the local sporting goods store and get one of those ice chests with the peltier built in, put your PC inside and cut a hole for your cables!
Somehow I doubt that the cooler will be able to handle the heat load generated by the PC.
I forgot about quiet disk drives (Score:1)
Simple is best (Score:2)
try pluming first (Score:1)
Re: Ultra2 SCSI LVD cable length (Score:1)
http://www.stor age.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/library/whitepap/lvd /lvd.htm
Firewire cabling will definitely be cheaper but I haven't confirmed that today's Firewire drives (which use an IDE-Firewire bridge) delivers the consistent read-writes audio production requires.
What's the donut for? (Score:1)
Quantum hard drive (Score:2)
Of course, to be really silly (Score:1)
I believe the theoretical limit on these is about 1.5 km.
Put you hard disk in the next town :-)
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
Re:Of course, to be really silly (Score:1)
http://hsi.web.cern.ch/HSI/fcs/spec/overview.htm
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
Think Outside the Box (Score:2)
You'll be wasting time and money if you attempt to make the box silent.
The newspaper I work for supports the operation of a local cable station next door through a co-branding agreement of some sort. The bottom line is that I deal with a bunch of TV equipment. (And, worse, TV people.)
We were faced with a similar problem. Our solution was to put a closet between the audio studios and put the PCs in the closet. Through the wall, we run the keyboard, mouse and monitor cables. Not only don't you have sound problems if you keep the computers in a closet, you also don't have the related heat problems.
Even if you don't have a dedicated systems closet right next to the studio, with a good keyboard extender, you should be able to get at least 25 feet between the user and the PC. While good cables ain't cheap, they are certainly less expensive than many of the other hairbrained schemes I've read.
Another possibility is a good laptop. We've found that the are much more quiet than desktops. So quiet, in fact, they are below our noise floor. A generic IBM ThinkPad 600E at our installation is studio safe.
InitZero
Re:Quantum hard drive (Score:1)
Thermoelectric Panels (Score:1)
The three greatest heat-generating devices in your PC are the power supply, the cpu, and the hard drive. Many PC chipsets and video cards now also have chips that require heatsinks and need to be cooled somehow.
Cooling your power supply with a TCM is pretty difficult because PC power supplies aren't designed to be cooled that way. Remember that your power supply fan draws air through the case and then uses that air to cool itself in addition to other components. Taking the airflow away makes the PS die, and often you lose other parts with it. One way to pull off cooling the PS would be to mount it on the outside of the case without a fan and depend on convection to cool it. I've done this successfully on machines I wanted to be reliable (fans often fail).
Next comes the cpu. I've substituted Winchips for Intel cpus (up to 333 Mhz) with large heatsinks, again with the goal of reliability, and eliminated the cpu fan. Intel or AMD cpus generally require a lot of cooling, however. If you cool them with a TCM, you need an even bigger heatsink and a fan blowing over it to get all that heat to somewhere else. If you enjoy fluid dynamics, you can design a heat pump with tubes that silently pump coolant through the heatsink and on to the outside of the computer. Otherwise, a low power cpu is your best bet. Hunt up a Winchip, or look into the Transmeta Crusoe.
The hard drive needs cooling too, but you might be able to get enough cooling by bolting it tightly to a cool portion of your case. Check the drive specifications for power dissipation. One other reply suggested Fujitsu drives, but I'll caution you that my luck with Fujitsus (about 30) has been extremely poor. There are some nice low-power Seagate and IBM designs that will last longer. One alternative to a hard drive, though, is a solid state storage device. My choice was Disk-On-Chip, but be aware that this is expensive storage!
Contrary to what someone else said, the practical limit to regular SCSI is about 6 feet of cable. If you want to put your drives somewhere else, you'll probably want LVD SCSI, Fibre Channel, or Firewire.
Does all of this sound crazy? It is! Go buy your self a Macintosh (the cpu dissipates a few watts) without a fan. Throw a firewire drive on it and put the drive in another room. Voila. Silent computer. No hard drive noise. You're finished, and you've got one less piece of Bill Gates goodness to worry about. That new Apple Cube is pretty spiffy-looking, and without a drive it should be utterly silent and fairly reliable, er, to boot.
Good luck!
Dave Klingler
Re:SCSI cables, solid state (Score:1)
As for CD drives... get a Plextor (no I don't work for them). They are built amazingly solid, and the utility package they send you with the drive (for Windows) lets you limit the spin rate and set the spin down time. My 40x Wide UltraPlexMax is quieter than any 20x+ IDE CD drive I've been around, and if you set it down to 20x, 12x, or lower, it's nearly unnoticable. Good stuff, extra $$$.
The Quantum solid-state drive costs about $3-5k (depending if you are an OEM or not) for a 1GB drive... ouch. Much cheaper to buy 5 U2W 9 7200RPM drives, an external cabinet, and a 20-30 foot cable...
I've done a bunch of digital recording with PCs... the best way is to just have the head (KVM) in the room with you, and the rest in a separate room, but taking the drives to another room usually solves most of the problem.
Re:What's the donut for? (Score:1)
Re:Thermoelectric Panels (Score:2)
Also, the firewire disks themself are usually not up to the task of keeping up with quality digital recording (lots of extra RAM will help alleviate this, but there's no guarantee). The whole Firewire -> IDE bridge is a little clunky in terms of speed. If you can, stream all digital recording to a SCSI stripe set, if not a true RAID array (a little drop in write performance with the RAID setup as opposed to the stripe, but hey - you don't want to lose that perfect take!).
U2 SCSI runs LVD, so there shouldn't be a problem with distance (<12m)... PowerPC chips are amazingly power efficient compared to the x86 line, and I'd like to see more (PC type) machines besides the Macs being made with them (and low-end RS/6k machines).
Like I mentioned in another post, a U2W card, 5 drives, external enclosure, and 20 ft cable is cheaper than a 1GB ss drive... and you get 40 times the capacity...
Shudder? (Score:1)
And they'll be nice computers come September...
Complicated solutions... (Score:1)
Are you really attached to x86 architecture? If not, you're laughing. Get a Mac - G4 cube if you want to go all fancy-like, or an iMac (starts at about 800 bucks now I think) if the budget means something. Wait in frustration until OS X public beta comes out. When it does, be happy, set the HD to spin down after a short delay, and save everything on another computer, in another room, via NFS/Appleshare.
Re:perfect silence? (Score:1)
Some Options (Score:1)
1. Have an external scsi/firewire CDROM and put that on desk. Then you could put your system in other room/closet. Extension cords for keyboard, video, mouse, audio, etc...
2. Run a X Terminal. This box wouldn't have many, if any moving parts/heat generating components, so should be quiet. If you're not running X (mac os, win) use VNC. Don't know how could do sound though...
Long SCSI-cables: HVD SCSI (Score:1)
This type of SCSI is called HVD (High-Voltage Differential), or differential SCSI (old term from before LVD existed). It might be quite expensive for state of the art equipment, but somewhat older drives might not be very expensive (my 4 HDD's, controller, HVD->SE converter and case were USD ~500)
The only drawbacks are: the disks run quite hot in their 4-bay case, so they need ventilation (4 fans), is that a problem if they are put in a noise-insulating cabinet? Furthermore HVD SCSI with long cables is limited to about 20 MB/s, 40 can only be reached with short cabling.
I can give you the address of the (German) company where I bought them.. just mail me..
Imacs are silent (I think) (Score:1)
What you are looking for is an iMac (Score:1)
Re: Thermoelectric Panels (Score:1)
Wait a second... (Score:1)
Re:Shudder? (Score:1)
Re:Of course, to be really silly (Score:1)
two things :
1] the fibre is really delicate be real careful when playing with it.
2] theyre real expensive. PC hardware is also very difficult to get with FCAL altho sun machines have it as a pretty common option.
Some Macs can boot FireWire (Score:1)
According to this Apple article, FireWire iMacs and Power Macs with AGP graphics cards can boot from FireWire drives (but may need their firmware updated first). I don't know if you can boot from a PCI FireWire card in a Mac.
This just in from the weather channel (Score:1)
Re:Simple is best (Score:1)
Re:Quantum hard drive (Score:1)
Re: Thermoelectric Panels (Score:1)
Re:Thermodynamics (Score:1)
A nasty effect you have to watch out for is 'thermal runaway' - if the hot side gets too hot, the efficiency of heat pumping suddenly drops, and whole device can quickly get very hot. You can end up frying the thing you are trying to cool. To avoid this, you need a good heatsink with plenty of spare capacity on the hot side. Even better would be to cool with heatsink with a water loop.
The best way of running a TEC is to have a thermistor on both sides of the device and a monitoring and PSU circuit such as those made by Wavelength electronics [wavelength...ronics.com]. Expensive, but they will avoid thermal runaway and will keep what you are cooling at precise temperature.
One nice thing about TECs is that you can run them both in series and in parallel. In parallel, you have more cooling capacity (pumps more watts). In series, you stack the TECs and can get down to much lower temperatures - minus 60degC is not too difficult.
condensation (Score:1)
> case wall give up any and all moisture content
> as condensation?
It would give up some if they were cooled below the dewpoint, until it reached equilibrium. That's another good reason to seal it in a box.
On my box at home, I set the voltage driving the peltiers on my CPUs so that they cool the cpu to just barely below ambient when idle. That way I don't have to worry about condensation. Under full load they still knock 10C off the temp.
Output from lm-sensors while running 2 copies of seti@home:
temp1: +43 C - just Golden Orb heatsink
temp2: +32.5 C - GO + peltier at ~9V
Re: Ultra2 SCSI LVD cable length (Score:1)
Throw it all in a closet (Score:1)
Oh yeah, they also sell insulated cabinets and such if you'd prefer to go that route... but most of those need cooling so the heat doesn't build up inside... which would mean fan noise. So you can probably forget that route.
Re:Throw it all in a closet (Score:1)
One other important consideration, is RFI/EMI (Radio Frequency/ElectroMagnetic Interference) . I ran into a big problem with a monitor in a sound booth causing a nasty hum from the vertical refresh rate. An old laptop running VNC/pcAnywhere remote controlling the sound PC might be a consideration, or spend the $$$ and get an LCD monitor.
Re:What's the donut for? (Score:1)
Fan Noise (Score:1)