HTPC w/ mini-itx case and watercooler (very silent)

I built an HTPC using a mini-itx case and I fitted a watercooler inside with a noctua 120mm fan in order to achieve very low noise levels in a small case.

Note: the total cost of this build was $300 + $60 for the water cooler. This is not counting the logitech dinovo mini ($129) all prices from Canada.

Since this video I have replaced the Seagate barracuda green by a Western Digital Green drive which is considerably more quiet. I will probably use bungie cords/elastics to reduce the vibration transmitted by the hard disk.

In addition I have now added some sound dampening material inside the case and I have also suspended the HD with elastics.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• htpc
• mini-itx
• i3
• i3-2100
• logitech
• dinovo
• mini
• watercooler
• antec
• noctua
• silent
• quiet computer

[billionnaire1]

I have the same case and by far the noisiest thing in my build is the power supply which makes a real racket, how do you find it in yours

[gihadmurad]

@billionnaire1 Hey, I tested the noise coming from the power supply and mine is pretty quiet, I can't notice a difference in noise when I manually stop the fan in the power supply, but this was tested as soon as I turn the computer on. Perhaps after a while the power supply fan spins faster and creates more noise, I'm not sure. I think the noisiest thing in my build is the HDD.

[LuckySonata]

Wow that insane, managed to put a liquid cooling system in a mini PC build.

[gihadmurad]

@TheCharrigan I Forgot to mention, there is also the cool factor of having a watercooler ;)

[gihadmurad]

@TheCharrigan I agree that generally a watercooler for that i3 is overkill, but the idea here is that I want to have some form of ACTIVE cooling with very little noise and reduce the number of fans in the system. The watercooler with the noctua fan on the side allows me to run the fan at only 600rpm and turn off the frontal intake fan. I will be using the CPU on my HTPC intensively so I suspect passive cooling (fanless solution) wouldn't work as well. Also, intake fan is to get cool outside air.