Sealed watercooled PC

I've been obsessed with making my PC quieter for years now. Even while I still used aircooling I was at the level where I had noone to show any improvements to - even other enthusiasts couldn't really hear the difference (for example between two different fan profiles).

I actually found the DIY Perks channel because I was trying to figure out how to mount a CPU tower heatsink to a GPU. It ended up working quite well, but I ran into the same issue that Matt did - the quieter you make the computer, the more you notice electronic noises that are much harder to dampen.

When I got into computers, the usual advice for dealing with coil whine was either to replace the part and hope you find the quietest combination of GPU, PSU and motherboard, or just run your fans louder, put the PC on the floor and "get some headphones and ignore it, you weirdo". Obviously, that wouldn't do - I was on my 5th PSU and seriously considering the new Silverstone NightJar SFX unit - the only fully sealed passive PSU I've ever seen.

When the Rope and Wood PC came out, I fell in love with the way Matt sealed the GPU into a wooden box, but I knew trying to make one of those was much more difficult than it seemed. I pointed the vent holes on my PC away from me and avoided playing games to minimise the coil whine, and tried to improve my skills to one day seal my own GPU.

Before I could even attempt it, the folding desk PC came out. While the rest of the build was cool, the most intriguing part of it for me was one that somehow didn't make it to the title - the chamber for the PC components was completely sealed. I've looked into a PC like that before, but I kept running into people claiming it could never work - there are small SMD components everywhere in a PC and it is impossible to watercool every single one of them. Once the temperature inside gets high enough, it will shut down. Yet, running a radiator to cool the air inside supposedly also wouldn't work, as "the temperature delta between the internal air and the temperature of the water in the loop are too close, you will barely remove any heat from the case and it will overheat again". Again, the advice was essentially "put some fans in it and gets some headphones, what is wrong with you".

I still wasn't sure it would work - there was a chance it wouldn't, and I'd be left with a bunch of pointless watercooling gear and a broken heart. Then I randomly ran into someone else (in the comments of a YouTube video about large radiators) that also had a sealed PC - in fact, they'd been using it for nearly a decade. Fortunately, despite their original comment being several months old, they responded almost instantly and answered a lot of questions that I still had.

(Also, a big thank you to Matt for responding to me on Twitter - I wanted to know how the desk PC was doing long term.)

With the additional info, I looked at some used watercooling gear and found an old, used D5 pump for sale for roughly 1/4 the price of a new one. I'd always said I'd only ever build a loop once I could afford a D5, so suddenly holding one in my hands made me put my money where my mouth is. I bought a leak tester (truly a must have for used parts - you can't wait untill you finish the loop and it leaks all over your components to message the seller and ask for a discount) and looked for deals.

I did consider using aluminium parts from EK as they were supposed to be cheaper, but they were nearly as expensive as the copper ones and you couldn't mix them with anything else. Used copper parts are much easier to find and end up a lot cheaper if you don't mind a scratch here and there. Also the aluminium parts are now discontinued, so good luck getting an extra fitting 5 years from now...