Will my PC overheat with these configuration changes?

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:02 pm

My current PC's specifications are:

Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz Rev. C Processor - Thermalright SP-94 w/5 volt 92mm high speed panaflo
Intel D875PBZLK 1.0 Motherboard
Corsair TWINX3200LL Rev. 1.1 Memory at 2-2-2-5 timings at 2.775 volts
Western Digital 36.7GB Raptor (orignal) - Using shock absorbers
Western Digital 200GB Caviar SE (orignal Drivezilla) - Using shock absorbers
ATI AIW 9700 Pro - VGA Silencer Rev. 3
ATI TV Wonder Pro
Creative Audigy 2
Thermaltake Variable Fan speed 480 Watt PSU - Set to the lowest speed possible (which is currently 970 RPM)
80mm Ultra Quiet Panaflo as a rear exhaust fan

The CPU's temperature is 55 degrees celsius at full load (tested by running 2 processes of F@H for 30 minutes). This week I'll get ear grommets for my rear exhaust fan and hard drives and install a 92mm ultra quiet panaflo as a CPU fan.

I like to do major upgrades (e.g. buying some expensive parts to make it quieter) to my PC every six months (next time is this summer). After reading the following article, I realized that my PC (160 Watts idle; 240 Watts load) uses more power than their test rig with a 3.8GHz Prescott processor, which isn't good:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/pe ... ex.x?pg=15

So I'd like to replace my PSU this summer with a silent high efficency american made (I want to support US industry) PSU. I'm considering the Antec Phantom 350 but I have two concerns.

The first (which I've emailed Antec about) is that I keep my PC running 24x7 in my bed room so I don't want an eerie blue light being emitted by the back of my PC. Does anyone know if it can be turned off?

The second, is overheating. Should I be concerned about the possibility of my PC overheating?

By the way, considering that I won't be making any purchases in regard to PSUs for the next 5 months, I'm open to suggestions in regard to other PSUs that meet my criteria (silent, high efficency and american made).

Post by **Rusty075** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:55 pm

A couple of points:

1. Where do your wattage numbers for your machine come from? I would be very surprised if your machine is consuming anything close to those numbers.

2. What makes you think an Antec PSU is made in the USA? Antec may be an American company, but none (AFAIK) of their manufacturing is in the US. As far as I know, there aren't any PSU's made in the US. (I think at one point the PP&G's were, maybe still are...someone else here will know.)

The blue light would probably be a simple thing to disable, just snip the wires going to it. It's actually there as a safety feature of sorts...without it, you'd have no idea if it was on or not.

In terms of temps, realise that even with a fanless PSU, you'll still have to have exhaus fans to move that heat out of the case. For many setups, the noise of a good, quiet PSU is below that of the exhaust fans, CPU fan, and HDD's, making a fanless PSU almost useless.

With your hardware, you could save some serious money by going with a conventional PSU. Compared to your loud HDD's, something like a SuperTornado will essentially be silent.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:11 pm

FWIW, my 2.4C + 875PBZ rig ran around 70W at idle and 150W at full, 2 x CPUBurn + 3DMark2001 + Nero burning a CD + transferring a giant file over the network load. This measured with a Kill-a-watt.

PSU was Seasonic SS40, vidcard was an ATI 9600 Pro. Samsung Sp1614N, Plextor Premium 52x, 120mm L1A, Zalman 7000 fan.

I doubt that your numbers would be much higher unless your PSU is extremely inefficient.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:29 am

Shining Arcanine, do you have something like this for your PSU, one of those Thermaltakes with the built-in power meter? There's a good chance that power meter is incorrect. SPCR reviewed another PSU with a power-meter panel, a 450W CoolerMaster, and found that the meter overshot the real power use by a wide margin.

Given Thermaltake's history, it's not unlikely that their power meter also goes way over the actual power consumption figures. It's probably just clumsy engineering, but maybe it's to make people believe they really do need the gigawatt PSU's.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:38 am

Rusty075 wrote:A couple of points:

1. Where do your wattage numbers for your machine come from? I would be very surprised if your machine is consuming anything close to those numbers.

2. What makes you think an Antec PSU is made in the USA? Antec may be an American company, but none (AFAIK) of their manufacturing is in the US. As far as I know, there aren't any PSU's made in the US. (I think at one point the PP&G's were, maybe still are...someone else here will know.)

The blue light would probably be a simple thing to disable, just snip the wires going to it. It's actually there as a safety feature of sorts...without it, you'd have no idea if it was on or not.

In terms of temps, realise that even with a fanless PSU, you'll still have to have exhaus fans to move that heat out of the case. For many setups, the noise of a good, quiet PSU is below that of the exhaust fans, CPU fan, and HDD's, making a fanless PSU almost useless.

With your hardware, you could save some serious money by going with a conventional PSU. Compared to your loud HDD's, something like a SuperTornado will essentially be silent.

1. They're from my UPS. I subtracted 60 watts from the actual figures I had to account for my monitor.

2. Antec is an American company therefore they keep the profits. I don't care where the parts are technically made because Clinton signed a stupid bill during his administration which encouraged companies to outsource.

By the way, I don't care about how much the PSU costs. As things stand my computer is too loud (my definition of too loud: making any kind of sound).

Ralf Hutter wrote:FWIW, my 2.4C + 875PBZ rig ran around 70W at idle and 150W at full, 2 x CPUBurn + 3DMark2001 + Nero burning a CD + transferring a giant file over the network load. This measured with a Kill-a-watt.

PSU was Seasonic SS40, vidcard was an ATI 9600 Pro. Samsung Sp1614N, Plextor Premium 52x, 120mm L1A, Zalman 7000 fan.

I doubt that your numbers would be much higher unless your PSU is extremely inefficient.

Thermaltake claims >65% efficency. I suspect that it is really around 50% efficency...

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:39 am

You've got a 92mm high speed fan in there and it's probably drowning out a lot of things. No need to go Phantom, a 5V PSU fan will probably very very quiet.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:48 am

burcakb wrote:You've got a 92mm high speed fan in there and it's probably drowning out a lot of things. No need to go Phantom, a 5V PSU fan will probably very very quiet.

It is remisicent of the time I asked overclockers for help making my computer quieter. It is undervolted to 5 volts and generates less noise than a ultra quiet panaflo fan at 12 volts. I will replace it with a ultra quiet panaflo fan later this week.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 5:40 am

Could it be your UPS actually measures VA in stead of "normal" wattage

If so, then you have to multiply the numbers from the UPS by the PF of your PSU to be able to compare them to the numbers from Ralf and Techreport. See Power Supply Fundamentals & Recommended Units for more info about the PF of different types of PSU's.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:29 am

A fanless PSU won't emit less heat,it uses more heatsink instead of fans and the only way it helps is to mount it OUTSIDE on the back of the case

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:14 pm

Tibors wrote:Could it be your UPS actually measures VA in stead of "normal" wattage
If so, then you have to multiply the numbers from the UPS by the PF of your PSU to be able to compare them to the numbers from Ralf and Techreport. See Power Supply Fundamentals & Recommended Units for more info about the PF of different types of PSU's.

The monitoring software clearly indicates Watts and when considering the efficency that I suspect my PSU has, I am not surprised.

ronrem wrote:A fanless PSU won't emit less heat,it uses more heatsink instead of fans and the only way it helps is to mount it OUTSIDE on the back of the case

My goal is to lower power consumption by increasing the efficency of the AC to DC conversion and fanless PSUs have to be efficent otherwise they'll fry.

By the way, I received this email back from Antec:

HI,
There is no way to turn off unless you open the power supply. Doing so will void the warranty.

Colin Wu
Antec Customer Support Supervisor

Would anyone give me an idea of how bright the blue led on the Phantom 350 is.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:51 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:I doubt that your numbers would be much higher unless your PSU is extremely inefficient.

Hopefully we'll find out soon. I emailed Thermaltake telling them that SilentPCReview.com's reviews are a major factor in my purchase decisions and I'd like to see SilentPCReview review their W0014 PSU.