Cooling

Zarathustra[H] · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 2:32 am Post subject: Cooling

EDIT (rac): this discussion started out in Killing X/kdm.

I think I have figured out why it is locking up on compile. Last time it locked up, I rebooted and went in to the bios...

My CPU (n Athlon XP 1800+) was at 88 degrees celcius! I cant really remember the nu,bers, but I have a feeling thats bad. Something must have happened with my heatsink, so I'm going to take a look at that asap.

Thanks for all the help,
Matt
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sarnold · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 5:46 am Post subject: not too good

Mine only pushes about 52 deg C or so under a heavy load, so I'd say 88 is a little excessive. But I have a pretty massive heatsink with a 36 CFM fan w/ variable speed control.

The above is with the fan at half-max rpm (about 3600). If I crank it all the way up to 7000 rpm (very noisy) I can take it down to about 48 deg C. The most I ever pushed (with a cheesy little case with no airflow) was about 60.

I think the AMD max was about 90 last I checked, but others have said anything above 75 is way too much. It does pay to have a decent CPU cooler, a good power supply, and good airflow. If you have that, you shouldn't even need any extra case fans. But I guess if you have a hot video card, a couple of big fast hard disks, and a CD burner, it starts to get a little warm in there...

If you haven't seen it yet (in your over-clocking hardware searching) there's a place with nice cooling gear at 2cooltek:

http://www.2cooltek.com/

Check the online store. He's just a geeky guy in Florida, and sometimes ya gotta support fellow geeks (plus, he has some things the big places don't have).

Steve

Zarathustra[H] · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 8:24 pm Post subject: Re: not too good

rac · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:49 pm Post subject:

If the cooling discussion is going to go on much longer, how about taking it to the Hardware forum?
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sarnold · Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2003 4:48 pm Post subject: sounds good to me...

That sounds fine; do I start a new thread, or can you move all or a portion over to the Hardware forum?

I wasn't planning on expounding much more on hardware/cooling issues (unless someone asks) but I've gone through quite a bit of mucking around with different options (cases, fans, drive coolers, etc). And it sounds like Zarathustra has too...

Any more interest?

henke · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 12:08 am Post subject:

The loudest component in my computer right now is the PSU. The fan noise is driving me crazy! :twisted:

I'm thinking about getting a Nexus NX-3000 PSU.

If you want to cool your cpu without going deaf check out http://www.silentpcreview.com

Zarathustra[H] · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 1:41 am Post subject: Re: sounds good to me...

chatgris · Guru Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 383 Location: Canada

As a tip to anyone who's having trouble with cooling...

Try taking your heatsink off of the CPU and blowing out any dust... My laptop was just shutting down and feeling very hot until I opened it up and blew the dust out of the heatsink =)

I know it sounds simple, but it's been the cause of 90% of my cooling problems (the other 10% was a dead fan).
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The Ennead · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 2:22 am Post subject: Re: sounds good to me...

sarnold · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 6:11 am Post subject:

I've got the Alpha heatsink with a 35 CFM Delta and the Vantec Nexus panel. The Ennead's right; the Delta's aren't quiet at full speed (about 7000 rpm) but the panel has a variable speed controller (plus temperature probes and USB/firewire connectors) that really helps quiet things down. And you can still crank it up if you have to.

The quietest power supplies I've ever (not) heard are by PC Power & Cooling. They're not cheap, but I can't think of anything better (or quieter). They have some other stuff, but their power supplies are top-notch.

Case design is also a factor, depending on drive bay position/number of drives, cable routing, and venting. I had one narrow little ATX case that hardly had any airflow at all with a few SCSI/floppy ribbon cables in it. I sold it to a windows guy, along with a marginal motherboard. And as mentioned above, cleaning out the dust bunnies is good too (eg, under the drive coolers).

After several iterations of my main box (various cases and other cooling devices) I've come to several conclusions:

good airflow is better than lots of fans (you can actually make it worse with too many fans in the wrong places)

quiet is better than loud (what?)

In trying to stay both cool and quiet, I now use:

round cables instead of flat ones

the slim little drive coolers that bolt under the drive instead of the bay-cooler type

quality low-speed case fans (eg, Nidec)

With good airflow, you shouldn't need more than one stealth-type case fan (either front or back), a decent power supply, and a good CPU cooler (all of them low-rpm, or with a fan controller). Chipset fans can be replaced with good heatsinks, and there are good stealth-type GPU coolers. The best assortment of cooling stuff I've found is the 2CoolTek guy.

Basically, good airflow is better than lots of screaming fans, especially if you can avoid hotspots. Extra temperature probes can come in handy...

Oh, and if you have sensors on the motherboard, don't forget to emerge the lm_sensors package and run sensors_detect (maybe more than once). You also need the kernel i2c modules for this.

Once you get the right modules loaded, the right proc entries are created, and the sensor module in gkrellm works without mucking around with sensord. Score another one for gentoo...

Steve

The Ennead · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 11:42 am Post subject:

sarnold is correct. (although I tend to go for good airflow and lots of screaming fans :lol:

)There is also a great article about general cooling here
http://www.systemcooling.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=66