A8N-SLI Premium - A64 dual core fully loaded = Dramas !

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:21 pm

After completing my build of an A8N-sli premium system I wound up with a nightmare
trying to find a PSU that would actually work stably .
In the end (to cut things short ) I wound up going to a shop that I frequent and just plain trying
different PSUs. The only PSU I have to date found that works is a Silverstone ST65ZF.It works
in this machine without a hitch - BUT although it is pretty quiet at start up is very loud after a few minutes. The single 80mm fan ( a high speed unit about 4500 rpm max) is loud whiney and obnoxious .This PSU runs quite warm with this fan.
I am currently looking at a fan swap . Most likely a panaflo(NMB) medium speed.
System specs are:
Antec Sonata case
A64 3800 x2
Silverstone ST65ZF Power supply
2048 meg Corsair LL ram (2 x 1gig)
2 x 76 gig WD raptors raid 0
2 x GF 7800 GT graphics (SLI)
1 x DVD burner
This system was never going to be silent but I was hoping to be able to make it quiet.
The question is - how safe is it to swap from a high speed fan to a medium speed and would
the medium speed fan just spin at maximum all the time to compensate ?
the other noise issues I will deal with one at a time. This one is bad.
The system is pretty quick but I wish I had bought a board without so many compatability
issues - and this one has quite a few.
SST Guy - if you are online you might be able to help with a estimate of the risk of changing the
fan - as like the PSU and would like to keep it - my only complaint is the fan.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 3:01 pm

Since you say the PSu already runs warm, I;d recommend against a fan swap.

But you could make it run cooler by....

1) modding the case with a fresh air intakle duct for the PSU, or
2) swapping the case for an Antec P180, which has a built-in PSU duct.

Either of the above would help keep the PSU run cooler, and assuming its fan is thermally controlled, keep the fan speed down. A swap to a slower quieter fan may also be more feasible if the PSU is working in a cooler enviroment as per the options.

SnooP · Post by **SnooP** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:04 pm

Personally i'd suggest you replace the psu altogether. A seasonic s12 500w or enermax liberty 400/500w would do nicely, or antec neo HE 500w. The zeus was never designed for silence, its a server psu that the markers then decided to call it a 'SLI psu'.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:52 pm

Personally i'd suggest you replace the psu altogether. A seasonic s12 500w

Seasonic is one of the first 3 I had problems with along with 2 Antecs .
Admittedly the Phantom500 was a bad idea in this machine (it does work exceptionally well on my
old Asus P4C800-e system though) and a HE which is onmy Son inlaws Asus P5xx something
or other PresHott- and working fine
The problems got seriously bad when I put the second video card in (regular random reboots some blue screens and some hard locks).
But with the silverstone it works perfectly -
We tried different psu s from different manufacturers and found 3 work .Ironicly one of those was a $50au Omni 500wt not even a brand that I have heard of the other a Thermaltake which was the same price range as the Silverstone - TT , I just do not trust, so I got the Silverstone.
In Australia there are limited over the counter options.And after the compatability problemsI
Have had with this thing (Will not run 4 sticks of ram at 400mhz does not post with 50% of
PSUs and random reboots with some of the rest ) I was not buying via online.
I think the mobo is the problem - but I Returned the first one and the replacement does the same things.
Another brand of board might be a better idea but Dfi has issues - Abit -issues- and I do not know anybody who has a Gigabyte.
Sorry about the rave but this has taken 6 months to put together and cost a small fortune.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:24 pm

Quote MikeC

There may be something about many newish boards that doesn't play nice with true ATX12V v2.xx spec'd PSUs, of which the Seasonic S12 is one.

I heard recently that in order to allow backward compatibility with older spec PSUs (???), some boards delay powering up the 12V line for a brief pause at the very start of the boot process. This triggers a too-low 12V load condition to the PSU, which then powers down. Most PSUs have something like a 1A minimum on their lines. You might just try adding another HDD or two just to see if this changes things.

This would account for my machine working with an older Antec 480 psu(true power)with a 24 to 20 pin adaptor without these problems. but I was told using an adaptor was a bad idea -and with adaptors for the SLI etc becomes at best messy
The above Quote was hijacked from another thread hope that is not a bother.

frankgehry · Post by **frankgehry** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:50 pm

The st56zf by most accounts is one of the best power supplies around. It wasn't reviewed here because out of the box with no load it measured ~30dba. In many respects it's like the ocz powerstream. It starts relatively noisy but but doesn't change much as the load increases (I'm not absolutely sure about that). If you run it outside of the computer case under load you could determine if the psu duct/p180 approach would help. Maybe you could try adding an external fan controller like a t-balancer. Expensive, but the st56zf is efficient, has huge heat sinks, and should be able to run as cool and quiet as any 80mm psu. I have seen other posts about this problem at ocforums.com. You could even try adding another 80mm fan to the front intake.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:14 pm

Thanks frank -
I will have a look at the other forum.
I think it is the video cards heating every thing up , but the PSU does spin up after playing games then drops down again 5 to 10 mins later - it is more the nature of the noise than the actual loudness and the two video card fans seem to interact with it making it worse (like the wow on an old reel to reel tape player) if any one else here is old enough to remember that.
The psu is made like a swiss watch - the quality is superb .
Not relative to PSUs but I was hoping that there was a cooler for the 7800gts that exhausted the hot air out the back of the case, as the cpu does not run hot (I am using a Thermalright XP90 - thats right an XP90 on it , via a T.T. 478 style mounting bracket ) It barely gets warm with a Panaflo L (undervolted about 7v I think - wont start at 5) .
If I lose the SLI video cards I lose most of my problems , but then why an SLI board?

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:41 pm

I just checked out that site - and followed links to some other sites.
a/ It appears to be common but not universal
b/ it is not restricted to the Asus boards
c/ it seems only to afflict the SLI versions of the boards.
So it looks like it is an issue with the Nforce 4 sli chipset more than just a manufacturing issue
But some people have no issues at all.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:07 am

I looked up the specs on the fan from it's numbers.
Fan is ADDA - AD0812UB-A71GL
ADDAs pdf says 0.45 amps/5.4watts/3900 rpm/50cfm/41dba/ball bearing
Panaflo m =0.124amps/1.49watts/2450rpm/32cfm/28db
Panaflo h =0.173amps/2.08watts/2950rpm/40cfm/32db
If I was to use a Panaflo h

It would drop my maximum noise by 9db and get rid of the bearing whine - I think without risking the PSU - still not silent but 9db is no small margin - a drop of 10 cfm I can recover by removing the fan grill - The panaflo m I think may be too much of a drop.
Voltage mesured at the fan (by digital volt meter) from 7.28 to 10.8 I am not sure why, but it does not get even close to 12v - seems a small range for a speed controller.
So I am ordering a panaflo (nmb) 12v H - with speed monitoring . I already have a couple of ms.
I will see how it goes.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:19 am

pony-tail --

I reiterate: You risk overheating in the Sonata unless you use a PSU intake duct.

diver · Post by **diver** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:32 am

It looks to me that using a slower turning fan in the psu would just risk overheating it.

Is there any way to get more air through the case? Do you have an intake fan?

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:06 pm

The sonata has been vent modded and the filter removed.
I have 4 of these sonatas and once the front bezel is modded and the filter removed they
don't run that hot at all.
P180 I will not place my opinion of it here - I would get flamed off the forum.
But I still have my old 3700 AMB - the Sonatas don't run any hotter once modded.
The cure to any heat issues would be a couple of Arctic cooling silencers , if they make them
for the 7800gts .
I do not know how loud a panaflo h actually is (I have not used one before) but at least it will not whine.
If I run my rear fan (old skool Panaflo 120 l1a) at 12v instead of 5v the PSU stays just warm.
If I run a PCX 5900 instead of the 7800GTs all the issues go away - and I could go back to using
a Phantom 500 .
The 7800GTs run just at the hot to the touch point - But they heat the case up 7 or 8 deg C.

- MikeC -
You might know , how safe is it to attach a thermal probe to the heatsinks in a PSU ?
I want to monitor it as I go , but don't want to damage my digital thermometer or the PSU.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:52 pm

if it's an SLI/ dual card issue, why not just sell the two 7800GTs and get a 7900GT/X? Same/ similar performance for less heat plus you'd then be able to use the PSU of your choice (IIRC).

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:25 pm

Selling the cards might be the soloution - on average SLI seems to give 10 - 20 %boost in Games. But does give about a 50% improvement in benchmarks .(like people play benchmarks all day)
From what I have been reading these PSUs (ATX 2.0 ) are designed to an Intel Spec. that did not include SLI - and as a result 2 x 7800 type video cards max out one rail while the other is just loafing - the relevance in my case is that this heats the PSU components on that rail (spinning up the fan ).
I tried something I found in another forum - I put one of the cards on a PCI express to molex adaptor .
The result is the PSU does not heat up , the fan barely spins up , much less noise - but is a very messy soloution.
Looks like my first step will be to reconfigure the machine (the wiring) to load balance the psu.
To make sure all four rails are loaded but none are overloaded I have found a list of what connectors are on which rails and will work from there .
This is my first SLI rig and is definately my last -

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:02 pm

from what I've read I get the impression that SLI/ crossfire is kinda pointless unless you absolutely must have the highest fps right now. New single cards released 6mths later seem to give similar performance, but at 1/2 the price/ heat and noise.

But then I'm still running (limping?) an FX5200, so I'm no expert

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:27 pm

From what my personal experience would indicate , I would have been better with a GF4 ultra cipset board , with a 7800gtx the performance hit from what I was reading is all of a couple (less than 10 FPS) .
Actually I should have just bought a 7800gs for my old P4 and waited for the bugs to get ironed out of PCIe - The old P4 is just totally non-problematic (Asus P4C800 - E +3.2 northy)
This A64 thing has just been a running battle - I still have my last Athlon XP , running Gentoo ,
it has never had an issue (NF2 - 400 ) I thought the NF4 boards would be as good , but not so ,and by the time they look like getting the bugs out of this generation of boards the next lot of buggy beta class hardware will be here - This is the Third Nforce board I have built a system on and the only one with issues , all 3 Asus NF-266 , NF2-400, NF4-SLI.
I think I will persevere with this thing and wait and see how the next gen pans out - this time I will wait for the bugs to show up on the forums - before I buy - LESSON LEARNED