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100 % Passive cooled Custom Mac

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The amount of power Ill need to use is more than 75 watts.

Well the DB4 can take 110W from the cpu if you have pipes going to 2 of the 4 sides (an extension kit). But that means no gpu so you'd need an external box with mostly passive cooling and only fans on high load. Do-able with the right m/b.

I'd already bought the GA Z370N WiFi board and not thought about USB3.1 rev 2 needed for TB3. I saw "USB3" and that was all I cared. Mistake. I should have done more research.

The struggle is real

That it is!
 
Well the DB4 can take 110W from the cpu if you have pipes going to 2 of the 4 sides (an extension kit). But that means no gpu so you'd need an external box with mostly passive cooling and only fans on high load. Do-able with the right m/b.

I'd already bought the GA Z370N WiFi board and not thought about USB3.1 rev 2 needed for TB3. I saw "USB3" and that was all I cared. Mistake. I should have done more research.

That it is!

Did you make your own case ?

I think it might just be possible, with the correct GPU's.

I know the perfect person to raid there GPU cupboard. Will get back to you after I get a GPU to test and see how would heat pipes work. Ill add the corsair mag lev fan with a temp sensor maybe that could still keep the build "passive".

Curious/\/\ac
 
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Did you make you own case ?

I wish! No, no. It's a Streacom FC8 Alpha (without the optical slot). Lovely chunky piece of aluminium, annodised black or whatever it is they do.

I think it might just be possible, with the correct GPU's.

Definitely. I've seen YT videos on people using aluminum finned cooling plates. Would be a great project but for sure, plenty of engineering testing to be confident of the heat dissipation.

Will get back to you after I get a GPU to test and see how would heat pipes work.

Happy to see!
 
I wish! No, no. It's a Streacom FC8 Alpha (without the optical slot). Lovely chunky piece of aluminium, annodised black or whatever it is they do.

I want to build something similar but much smaller. I am still looking for a person that can build what I am looking for. I might take my build 3 and create an antique wood case. I have no idea why I have an obsession to create a wood based case, I think it would look cool once it is cured, sanded down. Going to keep it the pure wood look.

Something like this:
rubber-wooden-cases-250x250.jpg

Although it will be varnished etc.

plenty of engineering testing to be confident of the heat dissipation.

I usually try trial and error. Literally until I get it right.

Curious/\/\ac
 
A bit of varnish would be good, I agree.

And need some of these too ;-) Vertical so there's passive air flow taking heat away. That's how my case works anyway.

View attachment 369290

Thanks for the tip, will definitely do some research on the material needed to add the Vertical Beams for airflow. That is only after I can map out exactly where everything would need to be and how it has to be placed for airflow.

I think I might make a base today, with wood laying around to get a rough idea to how much of wood is going to be needed for entire build.

Going to the Hardware store later, might as well look for some parts.

Curious/\/\ac
 
Aweesome ! You guys are awesome !
 
@xmark So I found 2 cards that I could use as internal cards. For more performance and power I'll have an external GFX card attached.

GPU's that I could possibly use:
  1. Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 OC
  2. Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti
The 680 that I found does have some serious issue that need to be sorted out. Since it pushes a jittery or full red display (tested on Build 1).

680_Front.jpeg 680_Back.jpeg

Close up to see the damaged soldering and 1 chip (looks like)

680_Problem.jpeg 680_Problem_1.jpeg

Sadly if I use the 680 I will have to fix those up. Which shouldn't be much trouble, I assume.

Now if I use the 550 Ti which is in working condition and no problems had occurred when attempting to boot using the 550ti.

PS: I took the fan apart already (might just use this card)

550_Front_W_Fan.jpeg 550_Front.jpeg 550_BAck.jpeg

So what I was thinking, maybe use a decent GPU for internal graphics and have an external GPU for heavy duty work (probably will only consider this when the Nvidia drivers get released for Pascal).

Curious/\/\ac
 
@CuriousMac Let's go back to your earlier post.

am a bit curious about building a passive build because I am not yet sure if it can work due to my work loads. The amount of power Ill need to use is more than 75 watts.

If you have K series CPU and/or serious internal discrete GPU then 100% passive is pretty hard. That DB4 model tries but has real limits. i.e. either K cpu without gpu OR non-K plus low-power GPU. And that's a pretty highly engineered solution with cooling on two of four panels.

An external GPU which is mostly passive is the way round that but when the system is under load, you'll have fans running. So not 100% passive.
 
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For my next built I woiuld love to build a BIG Tower with a fullsize board and all passive cooled, that would be awesome

Agree. The cpu coolers you linked earlier look great. Seems they need a roomy case with natural air flow like the Nofan one. The advantage of them is there's no heat pipes contacting to the exterior of the case (which the Streacoms need), so much easier to build.

Hard to say if the Nofan case is what you'd need or if any big case would work. It doesn't look that specialised i.e. pretty much all cases have top and bottom grills for air flow. You'd need to remove any partitioning i.e. shroud for PSU etc.

Nufan says "hexagon mesh to promote air flow" so less obstruction. Perhaps replacing top and bottom grills with larger-spaced mesh would achieve the same effect.

But whatever you do, adding up the TDP including m/b, SSDs, PSU and any PCI cards is crucial. Every bit of heat counts. And regarding power supply, the solid state silent PSUs like the one I have are pretty low power. That's the problem. Swings and roundabouts. Silence and power don't go well together :(
 
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