SPCR

Hello, I've been lurking for awhile but I finally have a question worth making my first post


I am currently in the process of silencing my PC because I find the noise is getting excessive.

First thing I did is I bought is a Zalman 7000-AlCu that I put on my CPU, I'm currently running it without the fanmate because I have louder components in my case and it doesn't make much of a difference.

My next target was the horrendously loud 6000 rpm northbridge fan. Next I bought a Zalman NB32J heatsink to put on my northbridge. Now I am wondering if this will be sufficient to keep my i865 Northbridge cool or not.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

The reason I ask without trying it myself is that the motherboard doesn't have any mounting holes around the northbridge, only loops into which the stock heatsink attaches to. All this to say that if I want to put the NB32J in, I'll have to epoxy it on, which makes it pretty permanent.

Here's the twist though, as much as I enjoy a quiet PC, I am an overclocker and I love tweaking components around. In fact, I am currently running my system with a 250 MHz FSB 1:1 memory, so the northbridge is getting a good workout. In light of this, does anyone know if the NB32J (passive) will be good enough?

All comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated .

Side note: when are the Arctic-Cooling Silencers making it to Canada? The stock fan for my AIW 9700 Pro is getting to be unbearable

RaynorWolfcastle,

I couldn't say for sure if it would work or not. But here is my experiance. I have one with the stock sink on it with the fan unplugged, never got around to putting in a zalman. I can get mine up around 180 fsb before it gives up, this is not because of heat on the norhbridge because when I plug the fan in it still doesnt go anyhigher, just not a happy combo of cpu,ram and board I guess. I can however run it clocked like that for days on end.

My guess and I am sure the other guys out here will correct me if I am wrong is that if you have good case flow you should be ok. I would advise the replacement then slowly crank back up to that FSB to make sure.

Chucu

If the Zalman isn't good enough, you might wanna try to get one of these babies:

Swiftech MCX159

It comes with a fan to begin with, but I'm sure this fan can be removed when not needed.

Good luck!

Side note: when are the Arctic-Cooling Silencers making it to Canada? The stock fan for my AIW 9700 Pro is getting to be unbearable

Side answer: I think www.frontierpc.com in Vanocuver has been selling them for a while.

RaynorWolfcastle - WELCOME TO SPCR!!! from a fellow ATer.

RaynorWolfcastle wrote:Now I am wondering if this will be sufficient to keep my i865 Northbridge cool or not.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

The reason I ask without trying it myself is that the motherboard doesn't have any mounting holes around the northbridge, only loops into which the stock heatsink attaches to. All this to say that if I want to put the NB32J in, I'll have to epoxy it on, which makes it pretty permanent.

Here's the twist though, as much as I enjoy a quiet PC, I am an overclocker and I love tweaking components around. In fact, I am currently running my system with a 250 MHz FSB 1:1 memory, so the northbridge is getting a good workout. In light of this, does anyone know if the NB32J (passive) will be good enough?

All comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated .

Side note: when are the Arctic-Cooling Silencers making it to Canada? The stock fan for my AIW 9700 Pro is getting to be unbearable

I used to run my (passively cooled NB) P4P800-D at 250MHz with no trouble at all. This board is in my gaming rig. All summer long when the temps were in the mid 90°F range in here it just kept plugging away. The only possible cooling the NB got was the air overflow from the 92mm fan on the SLK900U heatsink, otherwise it was all up to the passive heatsink on the NB itself. So that puts me firmly in the camp of "no active NB cooling needed on an OCed 865 board".

That said, what board are you using? It sounds like it holds your NB HS onto the board with a spring that clips into those metal loops on your board. If so, the Swiftech NB HS linked above will probably be a "bolt-in" installation. Otherwise you can certainly use the Zalman NB32 or NB47 and attach it with thermal epoxy.

Thanks for all the answers everyone.

The swiftech seems like a nice piece of hardware but it's way more money than I'd like to put in for northbridge cooling so I don't think I'll be getting that.

I do have some airflow coming over the Northbridge in the form of an 80mm Panaflo L1A (running at 12V for now, I'm going to be modding those fans over the holidays). The board is an Abit IS7 and it uses "loops" to hold down the heatsink. I think that in light of Ralf Hutter's comment I'll try a mix of Arctic Silver/ Arctic Epoxy so that I can detach the heatsink eventually, if need be. I'll let everyone know how that works out.

MikeC, thanks for the answer, I'm going to be dropping them an email to ask if they have any of the revision 2 coolers since I have an All-in-Wonder card .

Next steps: 9700 Pro gets Silencer, Maxtor D740X gets the curb.

RaynorWolfcastle -- I happen have an Abit IS7-E. I'm running at 270 FSB 5:4 mem divider and my machine is pretty quiet. Rather than take out the NB fan I just use speedfan to run it at 40% duty cycle. At ~2500 rpm it becomes practically inaudible. Never had any stability problems. I've even stopped the fan completely and it didn't seem to make any difference. Initially I thought I'd replace the NB fan for a Zalman but currently I don't have any reason to do so.

RaynorWolfcastle writes
around the northbridge, only loops into which the stock heatsink attaches to. All this to say that if I want to put the NB32J in, I'll have to epoxy it on, which makes it pretty permanent

i was in the same situation as you and didn't want to permanently attach the zalman, and i ended up making a copy of the wire spring clip that holds the stock heatsink on, an i845g in my case, the copy fits in the grooves between the fins of the zalman heatsink, just like it does in the stock heatsink

i used mig welding wire, available from welding workshops if you don't have access to this wire yourself, it has really good spring tension and will hold the heatsink in position no problem

just put the two side by side and copy the shape, just change the shape slightly to suit the zalman sink, you'll need two pairs of pliers, one pointy nose and one normal

cheers, dave

RaynorWolfcastle wrote: Next steps: Maxtor D740X gets the curb.

is your maxtor too noisy Raynor? mine was

have you tried the hitachi feature tool?
it allows you to
"Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
- Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
- Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).

it worked a treat for me, quietened the drive right down, i don't really notice much difference in performance, but the lower noise level is great!

give it a try if you want, you might decide to keep it, you can get it here

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

cheers, dave

dddp wrote:

RaynorWolfcastle wrote: Next steps: Maxtor D740X gets the curb.

is your maxtor too noisy Raynor? mine was

have you tried the hitachi feature tool?
it allows you to
"Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
- Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
- Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).

it worked a treat for me, quietened the drive right down, i don't really notice much difference in performance, but the lower noise level is great!

give it a try if you want, you might decide to keep it, you can get it here

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

cheers, dave

I haven't tried the hitachi tool but what bothers me isn't the seek noises, it's the idle noise. It's just a too loud for my taste and I don't think that turning on accoustic management will help me with that.

RaynorWolfcastle wrote:

dddp wrote:

RaynorWolfcastle wrote: Next steps: Maxtor D740X gets the curb.

is your maxtor too noisy Raynor? mine was

have you tried the hitachi feature tool?
it allows you to
"Change the drive Automatic Acoustic Management settings to the:
- Lowest acoustic emanation setting (Quiet Seek Mode), or
- Maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).

it worked a treat for me, quietened the drive right down, i don't really notice much difference in performance, but the lower noise level is great!

give it a try if you want, you might decide to keep it, you can get it here

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

cheers, dave

I haven't tried the hitachi tool but what bothers me isn't the seek noises, it's the idle noise. It's just a too loud for my taste and I don't think that turning on accoustic management will help me with that.

k, well if you do decide to try it, let us know if it worked

i'm always looking for ways to quieten down my sonata based system, it's pretty quiet already, but any zero cost solutions people can suggest are always welcome, any that cost a few $$$ are welcome too

but i spose it's a bit like free beer, it tastes better than paid for beer ...... unless of course someone else is paying for it but then of course that's different !!