Sonata basic mods

FireFoxx74 · Post by **FireFoxx74** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:00 am

First time poster, long time listener!

Hello!

I have a Sonata case, with the Acoustipack foam added (ANTEC holes blocked), and the rear stock 120mm fan plugged through the Antec PSU's Fan Only molex.

I used to run an Athlon 3200+ (skt A Asaka Cooler), with a passively cooled 9200 fairly quietly and happily. But then I decided to upgrade to:

Athlon 3200+ (skt A Stock AMD cooler)
ATI Radeon x1600
A motherboard which uses active Northbridge cooling (Abit KV7)

Now the case sounds like a banshee. I am fairly convinced that a combination of things are causing this: the stock AMD cooler, the now loud Radeon 1600 cooler, the increased load on the PSU = faster fan speed, and finally the addition of an extra 120mm fan by the hard drive racks.

So. Short of spending Â£100 or so on some Nexus 11dba fans, and Zalman semi-passive heatsinks for the VGA/CPU/Northbridge; what can I do?

I'm fairly open to suggestions of fan placement, PCI bracket removal (already replaces one immediately below VGA card with a hex-hole style), and minimal modding (eg cutting away the front plastic). Preferably minimal cost/interference, or largest impact ideas welcome.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:48 am

Short of spending Â£100 or so on some Nexus 11dba fans, and Zalman semi-passive heatsinks for the VGA/CPU/Northbridge; what can I do?

Whoa! Â£100 on Nexus fans?? How many were you thinking of buying?!

I think you'll be surprised what a difference getting rid of the northbride fan will make; often they produce a disproportionate amount of noise for their small size (mainly cos they have to spin at very high rpm's to shift a meaningful amount of air).

If you want more 120mm fans, I suggest Yate Loons from Silencio on Ebay:

YL D12SL-12

As good as Nexus fans (in fact the 120mm Nexus and Yate Loon are essentially the same fan) and cheaper.

Of course, cutting out grills etc should give a boost to your airflow.

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Thu May 11, 2006 9:41 am

The stock Sonata I TP380S PSU was a significant contributor to noise in my system. The Seasonic S12-430 was a big improvement, and the fan hasn't exceeded 900 rpm even under sustained high load.

Getting rid of the GPU fan (to a passive Aerocool VM-101) and the northbridge fan (to a passive Zalman NB47J) eliminated the noise from an ear-irritating bandwidth.

Whenever I cover the "Antec" holes in the side panels, the noise and temps go up. Another more subtle improvement was replacing the entire front panel with the Sonata II version.

The "intake" fan hasn't been a noise source, at least not with a medium speed Yate Loon at 5V (840 rpm) mounted with the Antec silicon rubber "screws."

I switched to a Zalman 7000B CPU heatsink shortly after building the system, then improved it by soft-mounting a slower, quieter fan. But the switch to the XP-120/Papst combination substantially improved both noise and temps.

Jeff Haas · Post by **Jeff Haas** » Thu May 11, 2006 10:40 am

Also, check out ATI Tool...it allows you to slow down the fan on the ATI card. Some of these fans can be noisy when running at full speed. I actually bought a Zalman heatsink for my ATI card and then never got around to installing it after finding ATI Tool.

[url]http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/[/url]

FireFoxx74 · Post by **FireFoxx74** » Fri May 12, 2006 7:42 am

Nexus fans I saw on KustomPCs (first UK site I could find that stocked them) are Â£17 each, plus another Â£30 for a Nexus fan based HSF, plus Â£40 for a Seasonic 430W PSU; so easily Â£100 in total.

I'll try ATITool, I had it installed last night as the cube nicely heats the card, and I noticed the fan speed option. I'll also look into the BIOS/CPU fan speed, though my K7V has a really picky BIOS (change one option, spend 2 hours rebooting until Windows is happy). Final option is that I could swap the Northbridge HSF to something passive, though unsure whether the BIOS would have a fit at the lack of fan RPM.

For info, with Prime95 and ATI tool both having a go for an hour, I was getting these sorts of max temps:
CPU: 62C
PWM: 96C (CPU voltage regulators)
GPU: 65C
GPU Ambient: 48C

That high PWM temperature is down to the Antec not having a bottom-mounted fan, and it being in a bit of a deadzone with regards to the rear fan (imagine the regulators being on the top-edge of the MB, behind the Keyb/Mouse and above the CPU socket). Though from what I've read I shouldn't need to worry until that hits 120C *phew*.

Considering disabling the HDD-rack tri-cool fan altogether and see how that affects things, going to get a HDD/SMART temp monitor tonight and retry max-temp experiment.

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:23 am

FireFoxx74 wrote:unsure whether the BIOS would have a fit at the lack of fan RPM.

Here's a method to disable the NB fan alarm that worked on my Abit AI7 MB (socket 478 with uGuru; credit to Agent Sharp at the Abit-USA forum):

Install the uGuru tools.

go to C:\program files\Abit\abit uguru

edit the ai7def.ini file.
[presume this would be something like "kv7def.ini" for your MB]

find this bit and change it to the following.

[FAN2]
Name = NB

Enable = 0 <this one
BeepEnable = 0 <this one

Then save the file.

Open Abit EQ, press on monitor setting.

Default setting.
Apply

Regarding high PWM temps: my voltage regulator bits are arranged like yours above the CPU socket and also run hot. The airflow from the XP-120 and Papst CPU fan provide much needed airflow, 7C cooler when blowing away from the MB. I also added a 92mm fan specifically to cool them, shown between the PSU and optical drive in this photo. It's very quiet at 5V (~1000 rpm). Finally, aluminum heatsinks thermal-epoxied to the MOSFET's, shown in this photo along with the Zalman passive NB heatsink, dropped the PWM temp another 4C.

Net result after these changes and those described in my post above is CPU, PWM and NB temps (latter measured with an infrared thermometer) that all top out at 45-47C under load (21C ambient). BTW, GPU core temp with the mild ATI 9600 Pro + VM-101 measures <45C under graphics-intensive load (RTHDRIBL).

ultrachrome · Post by **ultrachrome** » Fri May 12, 2006 12:08 pm

The evolution of my A64 3500+ Sonata:
- VF700-Cu cooler for the 6800GT
- Ninja fanless heatsink with a duct coupling it to the rear case fan
- SeaSonic S12 PSU
- suspension mount for HDD
- Nexus rear case fan

I don't have a northbridge fan but if I did I'd use a passive cooler on it.

I cannot hear the case over normal background noise. I can only detect it late at night when the furnace turns off.

The biggest improvements came from the VGA cooler, CPU duct cooling, and HDD mounting. The Nexus fan and SeaSonic PSU helped in more subtle ways.

I did not cut, damp, or open the case in any way (pci slots, drive bays, etc). I did remove the front filter and close off the antec logo.

Some Pics:

Latest vesion of duct with Nexus: