Fanless Zalman TNN 500 AF works with Intel Quad Q9550

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strangelove
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:17 am
Location: universe

Fanless Zalman TNN 500 AF works with Intel Quad Q9550

Post by strangelove » Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:46 am

This is me giving back to this community, as well as all the other fourms out there, that I have only been a passive reader of for quite some time.

Key Message:
It is possible to build a completely fanless intel quad core (TDP 95W) DAW system without reaching severe temperatures limits.

Key Features:
* Completely Fanless - heatpipe cooling only
* Quad Core Q9550 (TDP 95W)
* More or less noiseless except for occassional HDD activities sounding through, and a tiny bit of HDD spinning

Setup:
Case: Zalman TNN500 AF
Cooling paste: Arctic Cooling MX-2 for all cooling components
Mainboard : Asus P5B-E Plus
Chipset : Intel P965
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2833 MHz
Physical Memory : 2048 MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Hard Disk : SAMSUNG (500 GB)
Hard Disk : ST3200822AS (200 GB)
HDD Cooler: Zalman Heatpipe ZM-2HC2
DVD-Rom Drive : _NEC DVD_RW ND-2500A
DVD-Rom Drive : BN2070L GDZ716N SCSI CdRom Device
Monitor Type : Samsung SyncMaster - 24 inches
Network Card : Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Ltd) Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 Service Pack 3
DirectX : Version 9.0c (March 2006)

Monitor/Speaker: ESI nEar 06
External Sound Card: TC Electronic Konnekt6 (powered via Firewire)

I have tested the system for a few months and it works without any incidents.

Please find below some data points (PC Wizard) after a number of hours working with Cubase and heavy usage of VST effects
Hardware Monitoring : Winbond W83627DHG
Voltage CPU : 1.13 V
+3.3V Voltage : 3.33 V
+5V Voltage : 4.75 V
+12V Voltage : 12.14 V
Processor Temperature : 33 °C
Mainboard Temperature : 41 °C

Processor : Thermal Diode
Intel Core 2 Quad (Core 1) : 44 °C
Intel Core 2 Quad (Core 2) : 44 °C
Intel Core 2 Quad (Core 3) : 37 °C
Intel Core 2 Quad (Core 4) : 37 °C

NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS : nVidia Driver
GPU Temperature : 37 °C

Hard Disk Monitoring : S.M.A.R.T
Hard Disk SAMSUNG HD501LJ : 37 °C
Hard Disk ST3200822AS : 51 °C

Room temperature: 25 °C (heated by the computer)

Comments:
1) Reason for choosing an old MB such as the ASUS P5B-E PLUS was that it would fit with the Zalman case from a physical cooling perspective (attachment/placement of the heatpipes and other cooling equipment). Also I wanted FW on the MB. Could potentially have worked with newer MBs.

2) I had some problems with electrical computer noise interfering in my speakers. I Fixed that by cutting off the ground wires in the TRS plug going into the speakers (most likely some kind of ground loop). Not sure if it was my lack of computer building skills that caused this or not.

3) Zalman has not offically approved the usage of quad processors but claims that processors with a TDP 95W should work - which I was a bit nervous about.

4) The GPU is actually some 20 °C Cooler than when I only used the original GPU cooler without the Zalman case heatpipes

5) The machine runs much cooler than when I had my old asus MB with an Intel P4 3.2 MHz in the zalman case

6) I do not do any gaming - DAW/Cubase only - so I cannot give any data points related to other heavy usage areas.

I hope this will help others in their quest for a silent pc setup.

rookhawk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2009 7:53 pm
Location: Chicago

Post by rookhawk » Sat Aug 08, 2009 8:00 pm

+1

r3vbr
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2007 2:10 pm

Post by r3vbr » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:15 am

I have a similar system but without the HDD (i use an Intel SSD-X2 as hard drive), so its absolutely zero-noise emission.

Now I have a 2nd Zalman TNN500 case wich is empty, and I plan on building a new system with a faster MB and CPU, for gaming and heavier applications, can anyone suggest some components that will fit and work properly in this case???

Thanks for any imput!

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