Coolpacks for a cool and quiet drive!

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:23 am

I set a coolpack on top of one of my hard drives while it was attached to the rack. It appeared to make no difference to the noise level, and didn't appear to cool the drive either (the drive was probably 35 C idle anyway).

My conclusion is that without a decoupling style of hard drive "mount", the coolpack isn't useful. Not overly surprising but I had to try it due to ease

Inexplicable · Post by **Inexplicable** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:54 pm

I finally figured out what those things are called in Finnish (hey, I'm not a sportsman, I thought they were for keeping beer cans nice and cool

) and bought a couple of different brands for 5.60€ apiece.

I sandwitched one of my toasty DM+9's between the two packs on the bottom of my case. However, I'm not really seeing any cooling benefits. Sure enough, the drive seemed to stay a lot cooler at first, but over the hours the temperature would steadily rise until the drive was at its usual egg frying temperatures (~50C). This seems a bit strange, as the pack at the bottom was resting directly on metal. The coolpacks seem very good at absorbing heat but not so good at dissipating it, if that makes any sense.

As for noise benefits, the coolpacks seem to do a fairly decent job of damping vibration, although not quite as good as elastic suspension.

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:55 pm

Inexplicable wrote: As for noise benefits, the coolpacks seem to do a fairly decent job of damping vibration, although not quite as good as elastic suspension.

I wonder what the benefits are if you combine both suspension and cool packs. You might have to leave a little more room in the elastics to allow for the thickness of a hard drive plus the cool pack(s) around the hard drive.

I'm think that most 5.25" bays have such little air movement that something with good heat discipating ability like an aluminum or copper heatsink would be better for reducing temperatute. The cool packs are probably better for sound dampening though. Experimentation is probably the key.

I'm surprised silent computing is a concern in Finland, everyone is cranking up their metal music over there anyway

Inexplicable · Post by **Inexplicable** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:14 am

postul8or wrote:I'm surprised silent computing is a concern in Finland, everyone is cranking up their metal music over there anyway

Well, let me put it this way: there are two groups, one of which lives heart and soul for heavy metal and is mainly responsible for all the cranking up. The members of the other group are rather fanatical about silencing.

(There's also a small third group that makes a lot of money selling alcohol to both).

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:20 am

Inexplicable wrote:
postul8or wrote:I'm surprised silent computing is a concern in Finland, everyone is cranking up their metal music over there anyway
Well, let me put it this way: there are two groups, one of which lives heart and soul for heavy metal and is mainly responsible for all the cranking up. The members of the other group are rather fanatical about silencing.

(There's also a small third group that makes a lot of money selling alcohol to both).

that was a superb post, best thing i've read on the internet all week.

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:42 am

Honestly, great music coming out of Finland these days.

Compare metal bands there to ones in Canada and you'll just start to laugh if you're in my position.

Not to mention the concerts, practically non-existent here. Tuska, Nummirock, Provinssirock etc. I only know a very small amount about it there's probably more great stuff out there, just from talking to a few people in ICQ etc.

Inexplicable · Post by **Inexplicable** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:16 am

Well, I confess to not being a big metal fan myself but it is pretty popular in Finland. I get to enjoy Tuska (= agony) from close range every year and it is always sold out well in advance, with a lot of people dressed in black hanging around outside the festival grounds.

You should visit Finland some day and see for yourself.

For this summer, the concerts are pretty much over, I think Ankkarock this weekend is the last one. Btw, there's even a Canadian band (Danko Jones) performing.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:32 pm

The easy answer to built-in HD bays is a sabre saw-just remove it. You can often find an old junked puter for free and remove it's 5 1/2 bay, or can skip the bay. If you drill some holes in the case floor and mount several small eye-bolts you can then use the small bungee cords to hold a hard drive/coolpack sandwich in place

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:38 am

I finally got sick of that 120 Gb Western Digital Noise Box so I removed it last weekend and installed a second 200 Gb Seagate. To be honest, the read noise is quiet bad with these Seagates while the write noise is surprisingly quiet. Having more silent components to begin with makes a huge difference while rigging things better is a more minor difference from the experiments I have done (not always the best methods I admit). Anyway, once I replace a few more things I think I will try to improve the way I rig things.

I'm a little hesitant to take a saw to the case of my computer but I might try to rig something up in the 5.25" bays. I went to one fabric store which is in the same mall where I buy my computer parts and they didn't seem to have the same rounded bungee material I see people talking about in Silent PC posts. The search continues....

After replacing that 120 Gb WD Hard drive, I notice the power supply fan on my P3 machine (1Ghz Celeron on a slotket now) in the same room is the loudest component by far. I'll be opening up the power supply and putting in a mid-flow Panaflo fan. The computer doesn't have room for a case fan anywhere so I'm not using absolute quietest fan in the power supply. I actually find that the Celeron heatsink stays cool to the touch and is an excellent CPU for silent computing. The power supply itself probably creates more heat, if I had something better than a Voodoo 3 in there I'm sure the video card would be the biggest contributor.

ken274 · Post by **ken274** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:16 am

...for those in the UK, I would recommend Chillerz cooling packs, available for purchase online at http://www.chillerz.com. Unlike the conventional ice pack, they can be cut down to size and they are also designed to work hot as well as cold!

Ken.

Coolpacks for a cool and quiet drive!

In the UK...