Silverstone LC17 gets extremely hot...and still noisy

[Pierrelo]

Hi,

I just discovered this great forum and man, I feel this is the place where I may find solutions to my problems !
I just installed brand new hardware in my LC17 box (great looking box if you'll ask me).

New gear installed :

Mobo : Asus P5ld2
Proc : P4 630
1GB Kingston RAM Dual channel
Graphic card : Asus 6600 Fanless

Old gear I kept :
PSU : LC Power 6420 Gold
Hard drive Seagate 7200.7 IDE 120GB
Hard drive Maxtor DiamondMax IDE 250GB (damn noisy and hot)

I changed gear because the previous was so noisy.


My problem :

I find the Zalmann 7700CU a bit too noisy unless I set it to minimal speed with the fan controller supplied. But I noticed that temps are pretty high in the box (35C idle) and the proc is around 54C idle (and I really mean idle since I didn't install any software yet, just checked temps in the bios).
THe Asus graphic card in particular is extremely hot (although it does nothing for the moment) and both harddrives too.

So noise is OK, but temps are not. I removed both rear exhaust fans on the LC17 for noise reduction, but now I may not have a good airflow in the bow (quite crowded with all the wires there).

Do you think I should reinstall rear exhaust fans, even though there would be some additional noise ?

Some advices on a good noise/temp compromise with this case would be appreciated.

Thanks

PierreLo

[openwheelformula1]

well temp in BIOS is not exactly idle. You have a hot and inefficient CPU to begin with, not sure why you went with a PressHOT. You have A LOT of heat sources in your HTPC. You must reinstall the rear exaust fans and run them at minimal speed. My LC-13's rear exhaust fans are running at 5V, and dead silent. That should greatly reduce the heat build up.

[Pierrelo]

THanks for helping.
Asus P5ld2 has a special system on the back of the mobo to cool temps (they say it should cool by 20C, I can't remember how they call it but it doesn't seem that efficient). I went P4 630 because I had a very good deal on it, so I thought it would still be OK thanks to this Asus "cooling trick" on mobo.

I will try to put back rear fans at 5V as you suggest. Maybe I'll add some intake in the front pointed towards hard disks.


PierreLo

[doudou]

If I understood correctly that's the first time you post on SPCR ?
Welcome to SPCR !

(and I really mean idle since I didn't install any software yet, just checked temps in the bios)

That's a funny one ! Indeed, BIOS is closer to full load than to idle.
Install XP and recheck, you'll be amazed !

35°C in the box is not what I'd call "hot" but definitely not cool either.
What do you mean when stating that hard drives and the grpahics card are also really warm ? any temps ?
If you don't have any ventilation in your case, that's is not reallly surprising.
You will never notice the noise of a good undervolted fan, it will be covered by the noise of hard drives (especially yours). So put them back. If silverstone fans are really bad then replace them, but that is silly to remove them completely.

And yes you could have gone for another CPU !

But i am not too worried about your succeeding in silencing your rig, with little effort and little money.


Edit : to be complete on the subject, I would say that by removing the fans you made the situation worse in two ways. First, less exhaust capacity. Second, you short circuited your case. Air goes through the inlets you've created straight to the PSU, without cooling the rest of the case, especially the HDD mounted on the front.
So you can try to block the fan grills first, to avoid adding noise. I'm sure that will improve your temps !

[Pierrelo]

Seems I had it all wrong...Thanks a lot for your advices, I'm just putting them to practice right now.
Man, I really thought being in the Bios screen was the most "idle" one could get. Plain Dos display, no proc activity (at least I thought so). Please tell me why you say it is close to full load ?

Thanks again

PierreLo

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

When the BIOS is open, there should be next to no CPU load, but the settings for the fan don't work until you exit the BIOS. So, the fans run at full speed while you are in the BIOS?

Exhaust fans are more effective than intake fans, IME. Try using one or both exhaust fans at a reduced voltage, and then if the HD still gets too warm, I'd then start using the front intake fan also at a reduced voltage.

Also, check the HS installation; CPU idle temps in the mid-50's does seem high. My "passively" Ninja-cooled Athlon 64 X2 4200+ peaks at 48C under 100% load on both cores. This is in an Evercase 4252 with a 5v Scythe 120mm exhaust and a 5v Scythe 92mm intake.

[dlpolnet]

Check out this website:

http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm#intel

According to that website, the thermal design power (TDP) of your P4 630 is at 84 watts, which would be hard to cool on low voltage setting on your Zalman 7700.

I just bought the Silverstone LC17 also, and plan to build a quiet, low power system. My parts are:

Sempron 3100+ (TDP 62 watts)
nforce 3 mobo
nvidia geforce 6200 (passively cooled)
scythe samurai z
1 dvd burner
1 hard drive

I plan to undervolt the dual exhaust fans and the cpu cooler with a combination of Zalman fanmate and resisters that I got from jab-tech.com.

I haven't started the build yet, but any advice?

[Pierrelo]

Well, after tweaking a bit inside the case, rearranging cables, making room for some better air circulation, here is what I have :

- 2 rear exhaust fans undervolted to 5V : inaudible
- Zalman 7700 undervolted until 964 rpm (with fanmate) : inaudible

Temps : CPU after 2 hours cpuburn :58C, case temp 38C.
CPU in standard use : 45C.
CPU idle : 38C

Case is perfectly silent, temps are OK for me, I'm happy.

Thanks for your help and good advices (particularly on exhaust fans).

PierreLo

[doudou]

Hey,

I know there is no problem any more but I'd like to give that link to a tom's article clearly showing how close to 100% full load, bios state is.
For you not to make the same mistake...

[ryan5]

I bought this exact same case 2 weeks ago and have did some nice mods to it.
The hardware i have is asus k8v-se deluxe mobo (nforce3) with a sempron 2800, a stick of valueram, radeon 9800pro 2xWD800 ide drives(one of them is older so no fdb) a dvd burner and a pvr150 hauppauge card.

First problem i had was that the video card was noisy as hell, a high pitch loud cooler, so i replaced the cooler with a zalman VF700-cu.
That made the sound from the 2 exhaust fans stand more out. so I made them run on 5V, they are inaudible now.
Then i had an old psu albatron 300watts psu, i changed the stock fan with a papst and have it run at 5V also.

With the fan noises cleared it was time for the hard drives. They had almost no airflow and still weren't mechanically isolated.
I made a U shaped broad drive cage to suspend the drives on some aluminium profiles.
The profiles are longer then the hard drive and the drive cage is positioned in the opposite direction as the standard drive cage, the profiles are sticking out.
This had a better cooling effect then the standard mount but still not optimal. It dropped temps from +50°c to 45-50 under load.
Opening up the fan cutout and closing the grill next to the cpu (wich effectively short loops the airflow) made the hard drives drop under 45°c under load.
So now i'm almost a happy camper.
2 problems I still have is that i can still hear sound from the hd's, it's a low pitch humming noise (similar to elctrical cabine noise)
and the psu is getting hot, i'm worried about overheating it.


i might do a write up sometime and add some pictures.

anyway, i hope this helps a bit.