Advice on a new P180 build :)

New to PC silencing? Read & post your questions here. Dedicated to rosy_toes.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Herakles
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:16 am

Advice on a new P180 build :)

Post by Herakles » Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:48 am

I'm in the process of building up my first ever PC. I want it to be silent as it needs to be located in a bedroom. At the moment, it's a little noisier than I would like, so I want to do some "tweaking". Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.

The components are as follows:
Antec P180B case
ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard
AMD Athlonâ„¢ 64 3500+ 2200Mhz 45W AM2 CPU
Kingston 1GB 677MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB SATA-300 hard-drive
Samsung SpinPoint T133 HD401LJ 400GB SATA-300 hard-drive
LiteOn LH-201AH DRD-RW drive
Scythe Infinity CPU Cooler
Nexus 22.8dBA 120mm Fan
Seasonic S12-430 V2 PSU

In building the PC, I've done the following:
- Removed all the supplied Antec fans (from the top & rear of the case, and from the lower chamber)
- Added a Nexus fan at the rear of the case
- Left the two remaining fan spaces empty (and not blocked the top fan vent)
- Added the Scythe fan to the bottom of the Infinity heatsink
- Installed the two hard-drives in the upper 3.5" drive bay
- Installed the DVD-RW drive in the top of the upper 5.25" drive bay

Firstly, I have some very simple questions about configuring the fans:
- Should the Nexus case fan be blowing into the case, or out of the case?
- Should the Scythe fan blow upwards, or downwards?
- Should I consider blocking the top fan vent?
- Do I actually need the Scythe fan at all given that the heatsink is only a few centimetres away from the Nexus case fan, and the CPU is only 45W?

The second set of questions concerns the Scythe fan:
- The Scythe’s fan plug only has 3 pins, and will not fit on my motherboard’s “CPU Fanâ€

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:25 am

welcome to SPCR!

i don't understand how your CPU fan can fit the all the 3 pin plugs except for the CPU_FAN. :?: :!: they should all be the same plugs. you should check again.

top vent:
i would do a little experimentation. the benefit i can see of covering it is to keep dust out. but then your are also robbing the case of a little bit of natural convection.

QFan:
i'm using it right now with my A8R32-MVP Deluxe and it does a good job, so i would suggest giving it a try before using any software solution. i know the SPCR reviews don't really recommend it (don't know why... read the A8R32-MVP review) but i've never had any problems with it. at the lowest speed, my nexus 92mm is doing about 960RPM. i dunno how many volts QFan is providing to get this speed, so i dunno how many RPM your scythe will do. personally, i don't like the idea of extra stuff like speedfan running... i'm a real RAM scrooge...

that's all that i feel qualified to comment on. hopefully others can jump in and fill in the gaps for you. you might also find some more answers using the search. welcome again!

Herakles
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:16 am

Post by Herakles » Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:53 am

Hi poopyhead,

Thanks for the welcome, and the reply!

The CPU_FAN connector has 4 pins, whereas all the other fan connectors (CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2, and PWR_FAN) have 3 pins.

You can just about see the difference on this little picture...

Image

The CPU_FAN conenctor (4 pin) is the rectangular white connector just above the right-hand edge of the top yellow memory socket.

The PWR_FAN connector (3 pin) is just below and slightly off to the right from the bottom black memory socket.

You may notice that the CPU connector is a little smaller?

For further comparison, the CHA_FAN2 connector (3 pin) is just off to the left of the top black memory socket.

From reading the motherboard manual, it looks like the 4th pin is for "CPU FAN PWM". Perhaps I can just connect the Scythe fan using 3 of the 4 pins, and ignore the PWM one?!

Thanks for the thoughts on venting and QFan. I'll do some more experiments!

angelkiller
Posts: 871
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:37 am
Location: North Carolina

Post by angelkiller » Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:27 am

Herakles wrote:Firstly, I have some very simple questions about configuring the fans:
- Should the Nexus case fan be blowing into the case, or out of the case?
- Should the Scythe fan blow upwards, or downwards?
- Should I consider blocking the top fan vent?
- Do I actually need the Scythe fan at all given that the heatsink is only a few centimetres away from the Nexus case fan, and the CPU is only 45W?
OK, lets get started. If the Nexus is at the rear of the case it should blow outwards. I think the Scythe fan should blow to the back of the case. Same direction as the Nexus. I don't know if you should block the vent. You don't need the Scythe fan, but if you can't hear it, why remove it? If you leave it in, you get much better temperatures and the system is still silent.
Herakles wrote:The second set of questions concerns the Scythe fan:
- The Scythe’s fan plug only has 3 pins, and will not fit on my motherboard’s “CPU Fanâ€

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:12 am

that 4 pin CPU fan thing is weird... i've yet to see a stock CPU cooler with 4 pins. hopefully someone can shed some light on this....

CPU temps:
you can look up the max temp for your CPU. how close you want to push the max is up to you. my opteron has a max of about 65. i idle at about 45 and load is about 58.

Herakles
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:16 am

Post by Herakles » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:06 am

angelkiller wrote:
Herakles wrote:Firstly, I have some very simple questions about configuring the fans:
- Should the Nexus case fan be blowing into the case, or out of the case?
- Should the Scythe fan blow upwards, or downwards?
- Should I consider blocking the top fan vent?
- Do I actually need the Scythe fan at all given that the heatsink is only a few centimetres away from the Nexus case fan, and the CPU is only 45W?
OK, lets get started. If the Nexus is at the rear of the case it should blow outwards. I think the Scythe fan should blow to the back of the case. Same direction as the Nexus. I don't know if you should block the vent. You don't need the Scythe fan, but if you can't hear it, why remove it? If you leave it in, you get much better temperatures and the system is still silent.
Thanks. the Nexus is blowing out. The Scythe is positioned horizontally (as that seems to be the best fit on the heatsink, and is what the SPCR people recommend in their review) so blows either up or down, but I'll experiment with mounting it vertically. (Although I'm not sure I need to now the everything has quietened down - see below)
angelkiller wrote:
Herakles wrote:The second set of questions concerns the Scythe fan:
- The Scythe’s fan plug only has 3 pins, and will not fit on my motherboard’s “CPU Fanâ€

CheeryM
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:48 am
Location: UK

4 pin CPU fan headers

Post by CheeryM » Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:37 am

I may be missing something here but ... old cpu fans 3 pins: 2 x power 1 x feedback for RPM monitoring, new cpu fans 4 pins: 2 x power, 1 x feedback, 1 x speed cont. The 4 pins are backward compatable so you can put a 3 pin fan on a 4 pin header BUT the speed cont does not work. If it IS doing something it must be a manufacturer specific bios thing :?

P180's a great cases. I wouldnt block the top hole. and I wouldnt ever use powered vertical cooling - it just drags hot air from your graphics card and warms up your CPU :!:

If you have money to splash out the Noctua 800 rpm fans are VERY quiet.

CheeryM
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:48 am
Location: UK

powered vertical cooling

Post by CheeryM » Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:47 am

actually, I shouldnt have said that :roll: ... "nothing in life is black of white, just different shades of grey"

I use powered vertical cooling: my cpu fan is mounted on top and sucks air which is then blown out of the top vent. This leaves room for the back fan to suck air between the graphics card and CPU sink. The air from the cpu goes out top and the air from the GPU goes out back.

result: near silent PC and CPU that runs at 30C normal usage and 40C max flat out, GPU 70C at full pelt.

Post Reply