Watercooling How quiet is your water pump?

[feathers]

I have an EK DCP 4.0. An inexpensive pump that gives good head.

It's not fitted in case but on a mount I made alongside rad and res sitting by open window. The pump needs to sit on low density pond filter foam in order to stop the vibration reaching the wooden window sill. The pump makes a low level (quiet) grinding noise audible if you put your ear within a few feet. It's a quiet pump overall. No high frequency noise.

So what about some of the more expensive pumps like the Laing D5, do they produce a high frequency whine?

Is there a high capacity pump that is near silent (no high frequency and minimal vibration)?

[slaw]

Hey

I have a MCP 355 fitted to a xspc bay res and it makes a fair bit of noise. I think its due to me not being able to screw the res down due to the place of the mounting holes in my case. I have now set the pump to 7v which makes a lot of difference but its not silent.

If your after quiet, i would look at the new pumps from alpha cool. Alphacool do some a nice bay res that can take 2 of them which looks quite nice.

[Gurdeep14]

Originally Posted by feathers

I have an EK DCP 4.0. An inexpensive pump that gives good head.

LOL
sorry, ill leave now

p.s.
I have two D5's in my system, at max speed resting on a silicon mat and they are quite noisy

[dead beat]

Yeh the Alphacool pumps that I have used in the past have all been silent. I'm using a pair of Koolance PMP-400's now which are also silent.

[Tangster]

I'm using the DCP 4.0 as well, so I can't really comment, same nasty grinding noise as you hear, but much minimized when I turn the voltage down to just above stalling. I have a DDC I bought a few months back, but haven't gotten around to fitting it-I'll probably do it when I add in a GPU block.

[feathers]

Originally Posted by slaw

Hey

I have a MCP 355 fitted to a xspc bay res and it makes a fair bit of noise. I think its due to me not being able to screw the res down due to the place of the mounting holes in my case. I have now set the pump to 7v which makes a lot of difference but its not silent.

If your after quiet, i would look at the new pumps from alpha cool. Alphacool do some a nice bay res that can take 2 of them which looks quite nice.

For a short loop I guess that's ok but my choobing is several metres long (3 perhaps). I would imagine it's hard isolating the pump motor when fitted to a bay res. If the pump is screwed tightly then the vibration is transmitted through the case so the entire case will hum. The hard disks in my cosmos case slot into vertical trays. The trays have soft rubber mounts. If I turn the screws tightly then the soft rubber grommets have no effect, all the vibration goes through the case via the metal screws that mount hard disk to the slide in tray. Screw it in loosely and the rubber grommets have more of an effect helping to isolate the hard disk motor.

Originally Posted by Gurdeep14

LOL
sorry, ill leave now

4.1 metres of head I believe.

:0

[Plodder]

Ive got a Laing D5 Vario. i find it quietest on setting 3, but its easily the noisiest thing in my system still. It makes a faily audible humming noise which is pretty irritating.

[Marvin-HHGTTG]

Laing D5 with an EK 2.0 top, and it's absolutely silent. When I was leak testing after bleeding the loop it makes no noise whatsoever (well, it's not audible to me) - obviously I've soft mounted it, and this results in an excellent pump that you easily forget exists.

[Spreadie]

Originally Posted by Marvin-HHGTTG

Laing D5 with an EK 2.0 top, and it's absolutely silent. When I was leak testing after bleeding the loop it makes no noise whatsoever (well, it's not audible to me) - obviously I've soft mounted it, and this results in an excellent pump that you easily forget exists.

Yeah, D5 Vario and the same top here.

If I whack it up to max, I can hear a slight hum but only if the fans are turned down low - hardly likely though, I only max the pump when I'm benching with the fans maxed too.

It's sitting on a 1/2" thick piece of packaging foam, secured by some double-sided sticky foam. i.e. the ghetto version of the Shoggy Sandwich.

[feathers]

Ok so thus far it seems some have noisy pumps and the most common type of noise is low frequency vibration. This is hardly surprising especially for those with pumps inside case since cases can act as sound amplifiers. The surprise so far here is the D5 vario with EK top. A quiet pump it seems. I like my pump at max speed due to the size/length of my cooling setup.

[IvanIvanovich]

MCP350 is the loudest thing in my pc. Not so much noise of the pump itself, but the sound of water moving is fairly loud. I have a tight cpu only loop with about 60cm of tubing, block, rad and res. As hard as it pushes the water when it comes back into the res it has a jet effect and looks something like a jacuzzi.

[dead beat]

Originally Posted by lysol

MCP350 is the loudest thing in my pc. Not so much noise of the pump itself, but the sound of water moving is fairly loud. I have a tight cpu only loop with about 60cm of tubing, block, rad and res. As hard as it pushes the water when it comes back into the res it has a jet effect and looks something like a jacuzzi.

Sounds like you have air in your loop. If you bleed it all out then the loop should be silent.

[thehippoz]

wait what are we talking about here..

good subject- like lysol has a jacuzzi going on.. maybe one of those other pumps I hear guys use

[feathers]

[IvanIvanovich]

I'm pretty sure there is not air trapped. Air getting trapped is already unlikely due to the way I must fill it, and I know all about bleeding.
When it powers on you can see the jet of water in the res before it turns white from rapid motion. It's just the whooshy water moving noise. It probably only seems loud to me since it is the only audible thing in my pc. My fans are super quiet near silent which are the only other moving parts.

[digitaldunc]

Have dual DDCs in a bay resevoir.

They make a mid pitched hum but aren't overly intrusive -- however I removed my optical drives a few days ago as the pumps were somehow making them resonate with distracting vibrations and remounting didn't seem to make a difference.

I've heard anecdotal evidence that suggests bay reservoirs are the worst for these types of problems -- I'm considering ditching the DDCs and getting a pair of D5s as I'd be interested to see what difference the increased flow makes.

[thetrashcanman]

I've got Dual D5's in one of these http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/cust...pid-15044.html

put both pumps on 3 or 4 and once you bleed the system, which is a pain in the arse with a bay res, (also pumps generally make more noise in a bay res due to transferring vibrations through the case and not having a way to damp them) and tbh I can barley hear both pumps once the side panels on, bear in mind my computer sits on my desk about 30cm away from me.

[Big Elf]

Eheim 1048 - Quiet at slow speeds, irritating buzzy whine when run at full speed.
EK DCP 4.0/Phobya 400 - Easily the nosiest pumps I've had at full speed even when fully decoupled (hanging by soft tubing). At 5v they're very quiet.
Swiftech 655/Laing D5/Alphacool 655 - Noise levels vary from pump to pump, none of them have been quiet at full speed but still generally quieter than most other pumps but with a noticeable whine. Setting 2 and below are very quiet.
Swiftech 355 - Only ever run at full speed and whines a bit, not too bad though.
Swiftech 35X - Extremely quiet at slow speeds (about 1600rpm which is where they spend most of the time). A pair of them create a resonance, even when decoupled and are noisy at higher speeds. A single one is extremely quiet at full speed.

[Mankz]

I use a 7 year old Laing DDC Pro (10W) mounted on a double set of velcro, which is dead silent still.

[debs3759]

I have 2 x Laing D5 with EK 2.0 top and 1 x Laing D5 in a reservoir (not in the same system, of course), with no sound dampening and can only tell they are on by putting my hand on them to feel for vibration They are all turned up to full speed.