pittrek said:
Does anybody have any experiences with passively cooled (fan-less) PCs? I'm trying to build for myself a HTPC, criteria are
- silence (that's why I want to try passive cooling)
- dimensions (the smaller the better)
- powerful enough for playback of 1080p MKVs
Unfortunately I have no experiences with passive cooling and google isn't very helpful :-) I'd like to hear some tips for the components
I have a fanless home server, but I didn't build it, I bought it. I don't envy the task of trying to build one of these--not that it can't be done, but heat kills PCs, so one mistake and it's fried.
What I know from my home server that may help you:
- If it's a possibility, use an external power brick for your fanless power supply. Moving the AC/DC converter outside the case removes one more heat source.
- Use a mobile CPU. They run cooler than their desktop counterparts, and are often powerful enough for the job.
- Use heat pipes or some such thing. Heat just radiating on its own without fans doesn't follow a very helpful path out of the case. Heat pipes help direct it a bit.
- Metal case. The case itself should help conduct heat outwards. You wouldn't make your case out of wool, so why would you make it out of plastic? It helps if the case has cooling fins, allows natural convection ventilation, etc.
- Surprise! It's still noisy! The trick of silent PCs is that once you get rid of the noisiest components (the fans), you can now more clearly hear the noises made by the quieter ones. Hard drives should be solid state, or if they're mechanical, use quieter low-RPM 2.5" laptop drives, using a cushion to absorb vibration (but not so much to enclose the drive and not let the heat out). And some capacitors can still hum more than others (change your motherboard!), etc, etc.
...and that's why I bought a pre-made one ;)