Hi Guys,
Well I think keeping my situation all in a single post may help others not make the mistakes I have made in the past.
I came to Silent PC Review about 3-4 months back wanting to silence my nForce4 SLI (board) system.
I went about accruing various silent components and the result was really bad heat. mostly due to hot processor - 4200 x2 s939, a poor flowing case (origen AE X11) and a passively cooled PSU along with a 8600GTS passively cooled - all together just causes a major hotbox!
Previous posts can be found here:
~HOT~ AMD X2 4200 GF8600 OrigenAE X11 - POOR RESULTS HELP
viewtopic.php?t=41402
Best Flowing/Cool Full Size ATX/BTX HTPC Case?
viewtopic.php?t=42205
The latest is as follows:
Got a Core2Duo FSB1333 E6750
Gigabyte P35C-DS3R
Corsair PC6400 DDR2 TWINX 2 x 1GB memory
I have put this together - still using my passive Silverstone PSU, Passive 8600GTS and Thermalright 120 CPU cooler... I am going to see how this goes. Just waiting on my 32GB SSD to arrive and do my Vista install.
Watch this space.
I have ditched
My Silent Performance HTPC Struggle - Moving to P35 Core2Duo
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Well results are impressive...
According to speed fan the CPU cores are idling around the 20degree mark and the Chipset about 45 degrees. I have not loaded it up yet.
The only change really is using a stock northbridge cooler (which is tiny) and I have moved the CPU heatsink around 90 degrees so the exhaust fans pull air through the heatsink.
Great result - nice one Intel.
One point of interest slightly off topic. Having gone from an nForce4 board and AMD chip to the latest Intel chip I thought I would be up all night re-loading Vista.
I turned it on, booted straight into Vista everything working first time. ONLY think I had to do was re-load VGA card drivers and get the SMBus driver. EVERYTHING else is working - LAN, sound, USB etc etc - absolutely brilliant!!
Cheers,
According to speed fan the CPU cores are idling around the 20degree mark and the Chipset about 45 degrees. I have not loaded it up yet.
The only change really is using a stock northbridge cooler (which is tiny) and I have moved the CPU heatsink around 90 degrees so the exhaust fans pull air through the heatsink.
Great result - nice one Intel.
One point of interest slightly off topic. Having gone from an nForce4 board and AMD chip to the latest Intel chip I thought I would be up all night re-loading Vista.
I turned it on, booted straight into Vista everything working first time. ONLY think I had to do was re-load VGA card drivers and get the SMBus driver. EVERYTHING else is working - LAN, sound, USB etc etc - absolutely brilliant!!
Cheers,
Hi Guys,
Latest is:
I finally received my SSD (same as the one reviewed here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/13/ ... index.html ) and all I can say is WOW. My system is entirely silent now and is lightning quick.
Opening apps such a media player, media centre, IE etc etc are instant. There is no low noise grunt as you start apps up. It is a total change to what you expect everytime you click the mouse.
I removed my raptor HDD and the HDD rack that sits above the standard 80mm fan. I removed the fan too leaving the area behind the VFD clear. I simply got a load of foam and closed off this area and loosely stuck a 120mm fan into the open end of the foam. The fan sucks air from the base of the case and blows towards the rear of the case. I also set my CPU fan to blow downwards again have monitored results in speed fan.
CPU temp sits at 25 degrees and core 1 ~15 core 2 ~16. North Bridge runs at about 35 degrees and my SSD is at 0 degrees. My samsung 500GB HDD is silent even when seeking I cant really hear it, this runs at about 30 degrees.
All in all I am hugely impressed with the SSD performance and silence. Futher to this the P35 chipset runs nice and cool and the C2D E6750 runs lovely and cool. The passively cooled PSU runs warm to the touch and my passively cooled 8600GTS runs hot to the touch. The DDR2 memory is luke warm to the touch and that covers it all.
A solid cool running performer. I will get pics of my temporary 120mm fan install. The case insides are a mess, but it works and runs cool and silent - result!! A big thanks to all you guys here.
Cheers,
Latest is:
I finally received my SSD (same as the one reviewed here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/13/ ... index.html ) and all I can say is WOW. My system is entirely silent now and is lightning quick.
Opening apps such a media player, media centre, IE etc etc are instant. There is no low noise grunt as you start apps up. It is a total change to what you expect everytime you click the mouse.
I removed my raptor HDD and the HDD rack that sits above the standard 80mm fan. I removed the fan too leaving the area behind the VFD clear. I simply got a load of foam and closed off this area and loosely stuck a 120mm fan into the open end of the foam. The fan sucks air from the base of the case and blows towards the rear of the case. I also set my CPU fan to blow downwards again have monitored results in speed fan.
CPU temp sits at 25 degrees and core 1 ~15 core 2 ~16. North Bridge runs at about 35 degrees and my SSD is at 0 degrees. My samsung 500GB HDD is silent even when seeking I cant really hear it, this runs at about 30 degrees.
All in all I am hugely impressed with the SSD performance and silence. Futher to this the P35 chipset runs nice and cool and the C2D E6750 runs lovely and cool. The passively cooled PSU runs warm to the touch and my passively cooled 8600GTS runs hot to the touch. The DDR2 memory is luke warm to the touch and that covers it all.
A solid cool running performer. I will get pics of my temporary 120mm fan install. The case insides are a mess, but it works and runs cool and silent - result!! A big thanks to all you guys here.
Cheers,
Here are the pics:
Before:
Athlon 64 4200+ x2, nForce4-SLI 4GB DDR
Temps:
CPU - 45-65
Northbridge - 70-76
Graphics - Hot to the touch
Memory - RED hot to the touch
HDD's 35-45
PSU - Warm to the touch
After:
Core2Duo E6750, P35
Temps:
CPU 25-35
Northbridge - 35
Graphics - Hot to the touch
Memory - Warm to the touch
HDD's: 500GB - 35; SSD - 0
PSU Warm to the touch
So my advice is Core2Duo is great, fitting a 120mm fan as suggested by members of this site has improved airflow through the case - even though it is a very simple mod using nothing special.
Good luck to those who undertake similar modifications to their HTPC case.
Before:
Athlon 64 4200+ x2, nForce4-SLI 4GB DDR
Temps:
CPU - 45-65
Northbridge - 70-76
Graphics - Hot to the touch
Memory - RED hot to the touch
HDD's 35-45
PSU - Warm to the touch
After:
Core2Duo E6750, P35
Temps:
CPU 25-35
Northbridge - 35
Graphics - Hot to the touch
Memory - Warm to the touch
HDD's: 500GB - 35; SSD - 0
PSU Warm to the touch
So my advice is Core2Duo is great, fitting a 120mm fan as suggested by members of this site has improved airflow through the case - even though it is a very simple mod using nothing special.
Good luck to those who undertake similar modifications to their HTPC case.