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I've got two long haired cats, a dog and I live with a smoker. I use my computer pretty much all day everday, and though I put it to sleep in the night, those fans are constantly going during the day.

In just 6 months the rear fans have so much hair wrapped around them it looks more like something from a vacuum cleaner rather than electronic equipment!

Due to this, I'm interested in liquid cooling. However, it appears that liquid cooled systems have fans and liquid cooling? Are those just hybrid solutions? They wouldn't really help my situation.

There does appear to be fanless systems that use a radiator to dissipate heat. If I implemented one of these could I seal up the vents on my PC and never have to dust it again? Is there a disadvantage to fanless liquid cooling?

I don't need to overclock at the moment but I ever want to push my components will fanless liquid cooling be pretty rubbish?

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With a system with an external radiator and a cooling loop that covers all the heat sources, you possibly could. That's implausible - your PSU would generate heat and so would your hard drives, and no water cooling loop I have seen does either (I may be wrong! Feel free to correct me). An external radiator would be easier to clean I suspect, and it may be a good idea.

MOST water cooled systems, except perhaps exotic ones that send heat and water into the ground (they exist!) have fans - just different ones which have higher static pressure. They're just a different way to move heat, and a radiator is basically a large heat sink, which would be affected by dust, hair and smoke-gunk.

Nonetheless I wouldn't completely seal it up, unless I was sure I could cool the entire system - not just the CPU and GPU. There's other, less extreme solutions. From the fact that hair gets in, you clearly don't have filters at the fan - there are magnetic versions that simply stick to your case. Add filters to all your fans and outside your PSU.

I'd also set up the system for positive pressure - that is to say all the fans are heavily filtered intake fans, air exhausts are passive. This should keep the fans clean, and any dust and hair can be filtered out at the intakes.

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No, you cannot - and yes you will still need to dust. For a radiator to be effective, it needs airflow. To have airflow, you cannot "seal up" your system and will need either natural flow or fans.

That said, you may need a lower amount of flow overall decreasing the build up. Of course, now you'd have a bunch of radiator fins to catch more hair.

Long story short, your issue is probably mostly location or you could add fan filters to make cleaning easier.

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  • I do mean 'seal up' the vents, not the whole thing. The Radiator in the image is sitting there without the need for an airflow. It seems to use surface area to dissipate heat instead of moving parts.
    – Starkers
    Jun 8, 2014 at 22:47
  • It will still collect dust, and that dust will still clog heat. Remember that cooling systems are not magical. The only thing they do is move heat around. A 'fanless' system just had a lot more surface area to grab what little airflow naturally occurs. Any dust will defeat that system. The first thing to do is try and move the computer up off of the floor. Floors are where hair settles, and then gets sucked into the computer. Then look into pre-filters (ones that go in front of intake fans) that will catch it before it enters the computer.
    – Cellivar
    Jun 8, 2014 at 22:58
  • @Starkers - I didn't see that image originally. You'll still likely get dust inside, which will still insulate components. That said - with that type of solution - you maybe slightly better off but you'll still need airflow, and it will still get clogged over time.
    – nerdwaller
    Jun 9, 2014 at 0:18
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You still need airflow, like the previous answers have said. Set you fans to blow out instead of sucking air in.

Also do not set your computer on the floor. Set it up higher on the desk.

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  • "Also do not set your computer on the floor. Set it up higher on the desk." In the OP's environment, I couldn't stress this enough...
    – Stese
    Nov 13, 2017 at 7:59

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