I made the leap! Now what's next?

keith · Post by **keith** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:28 am

Hi folks! I've made a bunch of changes to my system and am looking for the next step.

Here's what I had:
Antec 350W PSU w/2 80mm fans
Stock AMD Athlon 64 HSF w/80? mm fan
Antec full tower case w/5 80mm fans
Idle temps around 52C, full load temps around 59C.

I got the Nexus 4090, an XP-120 and a pair of Nexus 120mm fans for Christmas (my wife is the best!) I took the PSU and HSF out and replaced them easily enough. The extra Nexus fan wouldn't fit in the front of my case. Well, at my house, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas if I don't bust out the Dremel and a hacksaw!

So now there are only 3 fans in the box, all Nexus 120mm. I don't have an exhaust fan, just the PSU fan. The noise level is remarkably reduced, and my CPU temp went down to 43C idle, 48C load.

I tried undervolting in the BIOS, but the Asus A8V apparently doesn't support this. The next big leap was to download and install CrystalCPUID and Speedfan. Once I got them installed, I started playing with the voltage. My system appears to be stable at 1.300 volts running the A64 3500 at stock speed (2.2 Ghz). I played with the fan speeds, and managed to turn off all of my fans.

I chickened out and turned them back on when the CPU temp rose above 60C under load. Leaving the two fans at 100%, my temps dropped to 37C idle, 43C load due to the undervolt.

I then enabled Cool 'n' Quiet in the BIOS. I don't really see any benefit from running this yet, but perhaps more testing will reveal something. I think it will slow down the fans, but since I am running F@H all the time, I don't think it's going to slow them down.

The loudest parts of my PC are now the hard drives, 2 Seagate SATA 160Gb in RAID0, and another WD 40Gb. I have them set to spin down after 5 minutes, but when they spin up again, it's quite loud. I would like to do something to quiet this, but suspending the hard drives isn't really an option, as I take this PC to LAN parties. Any suggestions? I'm thinking about a custom drive cage or using rubber o-rings, but I'd like to hear from the vast wealth of experience here at SPCR.

Thanks for all your help!

Keith

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:45 am

If you have enough hard drive space and free 5.25" bays, a couple No-Vibes cages would work for the two Seagates and you can dump the deafeningly loud WD400xB. Those're my recommendations so far, but I need more info (and pics! We want pics!).

-Ed

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:19 am

keith wrote:I then enabled Cool 'n' Quiet in the BIOS. I don't really see any benefit from running this yet, but perhaps more testing will reveal something. I think it will slow down the fans, but since I am running F@H all the time, I don't think it's going to slow them down.

Cool 'n' Quiet does nothing for the fans, it does the same that CrystalCPUID is already doing in your system.

Cheers,

Jan

keith · Post by **keith** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:51 am

There was an option in the BIOS under C&Q for fan speed, I think. I'll have to check when I get home, but the default value for it was 11/16.

I didn't see any option in CrystalCPUID to change the fan speeds. I have that ability in Speedfan, though. For some reason, CrystalCPUID can't pick up the fan speeds, so I am just using it for undervolting.

Jan, what you're saying is that I don't need to have C&Q enabled since I'm using CrystalCPUID? I didn't get into the ramping up and down of the multipliers or voltage. I just kept going lower with the voltage until the system was unstable under full load. Then I went back up a notch. Is this the same thing as C&Q? I admit, I haven't really read the manual on this feature since I wasn't concerned with noise until I lived with the new system for a month or two.

BTW, all temps are reported using MBM 5.

Thanks!

Keith

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:54 am

keith wrote:There was an option in the BIOS under C&Q for fan speed, I think. I'll have to check when I get home, but the default value for it was 11/16.

That sounds like Asus' Q-Fan. It has nothing to do with Cool 'n' Quiet per se.

keith wrote:Jan, what you're saying is that I don't need to have C&Q enabled since I'm using CrystalCPUID? I didn't get into the ramping up and down of the multipliers or voltage. I just kept going lower with the voltage until the system was unstable under full load. Then I went back up a notch. Is this the same thing as C&Q?

Some motherboards require that Cool 'n' Quiet is enabled in the BIOS in order to make CrystalCPUID work. I've read that some motherboards will undervolt more if C&Q is disabled in the BIOS. Test if You like, if so, report the results here (to the forums).

What You are doing now is just undervolting the CPU. When properly configured, CrystalCPUID will automatically change both multiplier and voltage of the CPU based on CPU load. So, in essence, if the computer is just idling, CrystalCPUID throttles the CPU down to 1 GHz (this is adjustable), so the computer uses less power. Whenever more power is needed (playing games, encoding etc.) the CPU automatically ramps up to full speed.

Cheers,

Jan

lm · Post by lm » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:01 am

keith wrote: The loudest parts of my PC are now the hard drives, 2 Seagate SATA 160Gb in RAID0, and another WD 40Gb.

Loudest part = WD 40GB, so just eliminate that. Should give a nice improvement?

keith · Post by **keith** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 6:47 am

Thanks for the replies. I played around with CrystalCPUID a little more and figured out the ramping up and down part. I was able to get my 3500 to run at 1.2 Ghz (6x) at .950v! My cpu temp was a ridiculous 29C!

I even tried gaming with it, and it seemed to ramp up seamlessly. I love it! It didn't seem to work with a multiplier under 6, though.

Next part of the project is going to be moving all of the data off the 40 Gb WD drive. I also have a 100 Gb 5400 rpm drive I might put in there instead, or just copy the important stuff off and shelf it as well.

While I'm taking it all apart again, I'm going to completely gut the case so I can take a hole saw and cut a proper hole for the front intake fan. There's a good amount of metal still blocking the airflow. I will also install a front USB hub in the 3.5" bay so my wife will love me again. I need to put some kind of filter or fan grill on the front as well.

Don't worry, I'll take pictures.

One more question on CrystalCPUID: How can I make the ramping up/down part of my startup? I created shortcuts and used those in my startup folder, but that only changes it to one setting. I like the horsepower on demand.

What would you recommend for automically changing the fan speeds? I'd like them to ramp up and down just like the CPU speed. Speedfan seems to be lacking this feature as well. My wife won't go through a complicated startup procedure...she just turns on the PC and starts doing her stuff, so automation would be great.

Thanks again SPCR! You've helped me tremendously!

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:32 am

keith wrote:One more question on CrystalCPUID: How can I make the ramping up/down part of my startup? I created shortcuts and used those in my startup folder, but that only changes it to one setting. I like the horsepower on demand.

Add "/hide /cq" (without the quotation marks) to the shortcut.

Cheers,

Jan

keith · Post by **keith** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:18 pm

This only works with the shortcuts created by the program. I want the multiplier management to start up automatically with Windows. Sorry for the confusion.

Keith

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 8:13 am

keith wrote:This only works with the shortcuts created by the program. I want the multiplier management to start up automatically with Windows. Sorry for the confusion.

Add the aforementioned parameters, and copy/move the shortcut to the startup directory?

Cheers,

Jan

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 3:30 am

Jan Kivar wrote:
keith wrote:This only works with the shortcuts created by the program. I want the multiplier management to start up automatically with Windows. Sorry for the confusion.
Add the aforementioned parameters, and copy/move the shortcut to the startup directory?

Cheers,

Jan

Did Jan's suggestion work?

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 7:27 am

Open up the registry and add it to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
along with those two parameters

I made the leap! Now what's next?

I made the leap! Now what's next?

Re: I made the leap! Now what's next?