SPCR

most of the stuff i have read in this forum tells us how to build a silent system which does not run 100% load. why is this? why is it not possible to build a system which can run silent and cool under 100% load?

or is it possible?

or is it possible?

Well, check specs of my system: http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~blackd/project_s ... istics.txt. It's silent and stays relatively cool even with 100% load at both CPU and GPU. So I'd say yes, it's possible.

Hi JEN,

I would say it is possible, but hard. Most people start quieting by trying to get quiet at idle, then they notice it makes a quite a racket at full loads, and they take the next step(s).

My uneducated opinion is, that with current high-end systems you do need to take full advantage of things like undervolting to get the PC quiet. FWIW, I think making a SILENT pc is pretty impossible becaause there will always be sounds like coil whine etc emitted from motherboards. That's why I personally feel it makes more sense to say "PC is inaudible at this and this distance".

My answer would be it's possible, but that's pretty much depend on what kind of components you have in your system.

It's possible - I run Folding@Home all the time and my PC is silent at 1m - but you need to pick the right components, undervolt, optimise case airflow... or watercool.

It's absolutely possible, assuming you've chosen your hardware carefully.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I would expect all components to be running at optimum levels. Not beyond optimum levels and not under optimum levels, so no overclocking to increase anything and no undervolting to decrease the speed of the processor. so a 2.6Ghz processor should be running at a full 2.6Ghz.

I understand undervolting can give you a silent computer under full load but the processor is not running as fast as it should be!

Currently I have a silent system when idle, but when i do audio or video encoding which can take upto 6 hours! the system is easily audiable!

So I think I need to re-phrase the title of this thread to the following

"Is it possible to build a powerful silent system without undervolting?"

Yes, if you're willing to forego Prescotts and other such thermal nightmares.

Ralf's Pentium M uses not much more power at full load than your Athlon XP does at idle.

I think you should read CPU Undervolting & Underclocking Primer
In that article it is explained that undervolting and underclocking are two different things and you seem to confuse them. Undervolting does not cause your computer to run slower or sub-optimal.

My A64 system runs inaudible at 1.5m when not undervolted/overclocked and it doesn't even have a case.

StarfishChris wrote:It's possible - I run Folding@Home all the time and my PC is silent at 1m - but you need to pick the right components, undervolt, optimise case airflow... or watercool.

i used to run aircooled and i can vouch for the fact that it is very hard to run silently at full load reliably, especially during the hotter times of the year. but if you watercool, you can run silently at full load at max overclock all year round.

of course that doesn't mean any watercooling system will let you do that, you still have to choose the right parts as with any other system. careful planning and lots of research and you'll be rewarded in the end

JEN wrote:
I understand undervolting can give you a silent computer under full load but the processor is not running as fast as it should be!

That's 100% completely wrong. An undervolted CPU running at it's default speed, continues to run at it's default speed no matter what load it's under. Perhaps you're confused about undervolting vs. underclocking?


Plus, you don't necessarily need to run a CPU undervolted to cool it silently. For instance, any CPU that can be cooled with a 120mm Nexus (+ heatsink of your choice) can be cooled silently, given that the Nexus will be running at a virtually inaudible 17dBA.

For example, the 2.4C P4 CPU in my "System #1" (in my sig) is easily cooled by a 5V Nexus on a Scythe Ninja, even under full load with the ambient temps in the low 30°C range. With the correct ancillary components, that system could easily be run silently at full load.

oops

looks and sounds like i have been mixing up undervolting and underclocking all this time.

so, after reading this thread and the link suggested above, am i right in saying that you can undervolt your cpu to a point before you have to reduce its clock speed. so any undervolting done without having to reduce clock speed will not reduce cpu performance?

is that right?

^^^That's right.

I undervolted my last A64 pretty significantly, which helped keep my thermally controlled fan at ~900 rpms, which was pretty quiet.

Doing it to my laptop's P-M made it a nearly completely passively cooled cpu, and extended battery life.

Undervolting will not adversely affect performance as long as the cpu is still stable.

ok so i have an xp1900+ cpu, what's the minimum voltage it can run on? or what's the lowest reported voltage it runs on stable?

thanks

JEN wrote:ok so i have an xp1900+ cpu, what's the minimum voltage it can run on? or what's the lowest reported voltage it runs on stable?

Both are variables that will be specific to your individual system. Just like how some chips will overclock to differeing amounts, chips undervolt to differeing amounts. A little trial and error is involved.

Even a small reduction in voltage is worthwhile. Dropping the voltage even 0.1v can often result in lower fan speeds needed for cooling.

That's surely a Palomino, which means it runs pretty hot. Any undervolting you could achieve would be worthwhile.

There's a proggy called Crystal CPU ID, read about it here. Then read the forum thread about it. You use it and Prime95 to test for stability.

If you're using an nForce2 board, I've found that I prefer 8rdavcore (I prefer v 0.8.7, but you might prefer the current version)

I've also had some recent success with undervolting, with my Pentium 4C 2.4Ghz now at 1.3V - under full 100% CPU load, it's hitting right on 37-38 degrees celcius.

Before I tried undervolting, the CPU was overheating (due to a very dusty Zalman CNPS-7000B-AlCu) in excess of 60 degrees. Now, even without cleaning out the heatsink, the temperatures have significantly reduced. The CPU fan is only running at 1250RPM as well.

No performance hit!

yes i do have a Palomino:

CPU Name : AMD Athlon XP (Palomino)
Vendor String : AuthenticAMD
Name String : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1900+
Architecture : x86
Process Rule : 0.18 um
Platform : Socket A
CPU Type : Original OEM processor [0]
Number(Logical) : 1
Family : 6
Ext. Family : 7
Model : 6
Ext. Model : 6
Stepping : 2
Ext. Stepping : 2
Feature : MMX SSE MMX+ 3DNow! 3DNow!+

no i dont have the nforce2 board i have VIA KT333:

Chipset : VIA Apollo KT333
North Bridge : VIA VT8366/A/7
South Bridge : VIA VT8233A
Video Chip : NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (NV25)

iv just checked the manual for my board and i can have a maximum processor as the xp2600+ thoroughbred b 266fsb. these are apparently very very rare and almost impossible to find so i have decided to go for the much more popular and easier to find xp2400+ 266fsb

ok so is there a company out there to whom i can sent my cpu to get its multiplier unlocked as i cant seem to do it myself. i have already tried 3 times and failed.

any suggestions?

JEN wrote:ok so is there a company out there to whom i can sent my cpu to get its multiplier unlocked as i cant seem to do it myself. i have already tried 3 times and failed.

Didn't you just finish stating that you want to run your CPU at its default fsb and multiplier, just with a lower voltage ?

im a hypocrite, so shoot me!

no seriously i thought that i would have to unlock the multiplier to change the vcore, i was obviously wrong.

unfortunately i just realised/remembered that i have an overclocking type motherboard and it was not really intended for undervolting so in the bios options i can only take the vcore down to 1.725!

the amd xp1900+ normally runs at 1.75. it doesn't seem to make any noticable difference to the temperature!

anyone know if this bios can be updated to support a larger vcore range?

thanks

JEN wrote: the amd xp1900+ normally runs at 1.75. it doesn't seem to make any noticable difference to the temperature!

Did you check the temperatures under load too ?

JEN wrote: anyone know if this bios can be updated to support a larger vcore range?

You still failed to mention which motherboard you have, so far you've only given us the chipset.

no i havnt checked it underload just yet, ill do that in a sec. i have an msi kt3 ultra series ms-6380e

here is a link - http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/d ... =11&kind=1

JEN wrote:iv just checked the manual for my board and i can have a maximum processor as the xp2600+ thoroughbred b 266fsb.

Well, that's the "official" statement, but there's no problem running a Barton with 333FSB on the KT3-Ultra.

JEN wrote:anyone know if this bios can be updated to support a larger vcore range?

Not through any MSI BIOS release, there might be some hacked BIOS though. I have the same motherboard and the only way to significantly lower the vcore that I have found is to do a hardware-mod.

Well, that's the "official" statement, but there's no problem running a Barton with 333FSB on the KT3-Ultra.

are you sure?

as on their website it says "Support AMD Barton XP3000+ (FSB333) CPU (For KT3 Ultra2 Only)." I have the KT3 Ultra not the KT3 Ultra2.

Not through any MSI BIOS release, there might be some hacked BIOS though. I have the same motherboard and the only way to significantly lower the vcore that I have found is to do a hardware-mod.

Can you please tell me how to do this or point me to the website which i can get instructions from?

Thanks

this is the only link i have been able to find which shows you how to mod the vcore! but it shows the opposite of what i want. it shows how to increase it instead of decreasing it?

http://www.mods4me.com/modules.php?name ... hlight=kt3

In my opinion, it's much easier to build a quiet system from scratch, instead of trying to quiet down lots of original components. This is especially true for you, since newer processors (A64, Pentium M) offer dynamic voltage control. Getting a program like CrystalCPUID will give you tons of control over voltage, fsb, etc.

The AXP's run pretty hot, so you'll probably get more out of a top o' the line heatsink and better fans. PSU's usually need modification for silence as well, unless you buy one built for that purpose.

Good luck!

JEN wrote:are you sure?

as on their website it says "Support AMD Barton XP3000+ (FSB333) CPU (For KT3 Ultra2 Only)." I have the KT3 Ultra not the KT3 Ultra2.

Yes, I'm sure. On my KT3 Ultra (not Ultra2) I have a XP-M Barton running at 340MHz FSB.

JEN wrote: Can you please tell me how to do this or point me to the website which i can get instructions from?

Thanks

All the solutions I've seen involves bridge cutting and I don't want to fiddle around with that so I haven't tried out any of these mods myself. One solution is to open/close the appropriate L11 bridges to change the default vcore of the CPU. A more elegant solution is to do a pin-mod/wire-mod as this, in comparison with the other modification, will give you a somewhat easy way to switch between different vcore settings, the downside (if I'm not mistaken) is that you can't get the vcore as low as with the L11 mod.
I've only looked into these mods from a Barton perspective so I have no clue if they will work on a Palomino.

WARNING WARNING!!

Palominos are notoriously hot & notoriously bad undervolters. You'd be lucky getting more than 0.5V decrease at all. AFAIK, it's a CPU chip problem, not a problem of the motherboard. Barton is a totally different case though.

As for undervolting, full CPU speed & 100% load, check out my Thor rig which is on 24/7 doing Folding@Home at 1m from where I sit and 3m from where I sleep. It's undervolted AND overclocked at the same time.

I suggest getting an A64 CPU.

Clarification:

Thor in my sig is the overclocked/undervolted A64.
Odin is my palomino, definitely not as quiet even running f@h at 75% CPU load. Any more and it starts crashing with the low airflow I'm giving it.