Replaced Q6600 B3 for a E8400 E. So much easier to cool!!

jpstln00 · Post by **jpstln00** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 5:50 pm

The main problem I've had in getting my pc as silent as possible in the past few months was cooling my Q6600 B3 passively (obviously not an easy task, especially in my HTPC case) I was getting about 45-50 idle & getting upto 65-70.

Being concerned with the temps and not feeling I was getting the most out of a quad I bought a E8400 E Stepping & decent power efficent motherboard and i'm getting 34deg idle and not seen it go past45 so far which was nearly full load!! I'm very pleased by the results!

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:30 am

Glad that you got one step closer to silent computing, do enjoy your HTPC now and don't worry about temperatures anymore! Going from a 105W CPU to a 65W CPU... I am pretty sure that such results were expected though

jpstln00 · Post by **jpstln00** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:57 am

Yeah always expected it to be cooler but so impressed by the difference, especially the much smaller gap between idle and full load. Yes it will be very nice to not worry about temps anymore!

If anyone else is running a q6600 or older pentium D and finding it hard to cool I would highly recommend getting one of the 45nm cpu's even if you can only afford a budget board to go with it.

Since I'm fairly new to silent computing it still stuns me than I can passively cool a dual core cpu in a small mATX case (SUGO SG01) with safe operating temps. I've also bought a Corsair HX450 PSU & WD Green Power HDD's in recent months to reduce sound/temps and I'm so impressed with how quiet my pc runs now! There are a few things I could do to make it quieter but to be honest I don't think it's worth the extra money. I've actually thought my PC was off a few times when monitor was in standby, which to me is a very good measure of the sound levels!

By the way to anyone who is in the market for a PSU, if you can get hold of one I'd highly recommend the Corsair HX series PSU's. so quiet and great performance. Although they cost more than others with similar power, in my opinion it's worth spending the extra money.

new2spcr · Post by **new2spcr** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:24 am

jpstln00 wrote: [snip] There are a few things I could do to make it quieter but to be honest I don't think it's worth the extra money..

You wait and see. Once bitten by the silence-bug, there's no turning back.

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:55 am

Be careful though, SPCR makes your hearing better. I never knew how loud my computers were until I quieted one, now I can't go back. Anything above the noise floor of my room bothers me and using my parents or really any other computer can get very aggravating; I just want the noise to go away!

I am pretty sure I am nowhere near the worst about it on this site. Just be wary, what you now think is almost silent might end up being far too loud in a few months.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:15 pm

Ch0z3n wrote:Be careful though, SPCR makes your hearing better. I never knew how loud my computers were until I quieted one, now I can't go back. Anything above the noise floor of my room bothers me and using my parents or really any other computer can get very aggravating; I just want the noise to go away!

Quoted For Truth!

After I got bitten by the silencing bug, my work PC and my brother's PC at home now really annoy me.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:06 pm

Using a Scythe Ninja kept things very similar, but moving from a Pentium D 940 to a Core 2 Duo E6750 was actually pretty nice, noticeably cooler on the heatsink side, but the PSU still tanked...although i will say, even if heat isn't an issue, with the current prices, the difference in speed alone is immense. for me going from 800mhz FSB with 6gb DDR2-667 to 1333mhz FSB to 8gb DDR2-800 changed my audio rendering times to fractions of what they once were. what used to be 5 minutes is now 1 or less.

that and in a loose real time comparison, i7 trumps the latest quad cores by huge leaps and bounds. a volunteer at my school who had a quad core would have 1-2 hour encoding time for exporting videos, now with his new i7 (and he has the 920) he's getting 20-40 minute encoding times, which is a huge difference.

Broadleaf · Post by **Broadleaf** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:24 pm

I recently changed from a Pentium 840 Extreme Edition to a Core 2 duo family CPU. My ASUS P5WDG2 WS PRO mainboard hasn't had a BIOS update since 03/06/2008 and won't ever because it is discontinued and so I have limited options. Also, I'm on a tight budget. I leave my computer running 7/24 because the sattelite TV card disagrees with sleep mode and so the EIST is a must for me otherwise my den gets very warm. If I interfere with the core voltage then the EIST doesn't work. I'm overclocking a 2.4 GHz Pentium Dual Core E2220 to 2.8 Ghz. The only change is that the FSB is bumped up to 233 MHz from the default 200 MHz. The CPU operates mostly at 1.4 GHz (which is 6x 233 MHz) and at a reduced voltage. The heat output reduction is very positive.

I recommend that you do not operate passive but use a low RPM fan to reliably estabish more air flow. The CPU temperature reduction can be very positive for no humanly detectable sound increase.

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:13 pm

Are you sure it is the TV card? 99% of the problems that I have seen with sleep mode are GPU driver or USB related. Turning off USB selective suspend has cured many systems. The 1/2 watt increase in sleep power draw is offset by the 70 watts saved by it not being on.

I just had to go thru it all again. For some reason ALL of AMD's drivers are messing up (coming out of) sleep mode in windows 7 for me. I am using the WDDM 1.1 and it works.

jpstln00 · Post by **jpstln00** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:26 am

To the guys who mentioned about catching the silent bug I know exactly what you mean! I noticed in the past few months that My father in law's pc sounds like an aeroplane taking off when I never noticed it before! There are also other pc's I use which annoy me now too but thankfully my PC at work is ok!

I've actually surprised myself that I don't feel the need to make my pc any quieter now, although as space is limited I don't feel there's much else I could do which would make a significant difference.

new2spcr · Post by **new2spcr** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:48 am

JamieG wrote:
After I got bitten by the silencing bug, my work PC and my brother's PC at home now really annoy me.

So true. At office I have to sit on my hands and restrain myself little or I'd jump on all the noisy boxes that chugs along happy but noisily. Some minor mods have been made to them and they became quiter, but of course there are plenty of mods you could do! Luckily, the ambient noise is pretty high so I'm ok sitting in front of the computer 8 hrs /day.

My co-worker recently commented that her PC became so quiet! and yeah, the only "mods" I did was to take advantage of PWM in BIOS and added rubber feet to the box and swapped a noisy stock gpu-fan for a quieter one from Zalman. The vent-holes on the side panel for CPU and graphic card were also covered. I'd love to** suspend the HD too but ambient temperature is little too high for that.

** change the psu, change the stock intel hsf, swap the case etc.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:09 pm

I'm envious. There's not too much I can really do for the proprietary Lenovo Thinkcentre box I've got at work. It's not too noticeable most of the time, as the office air con is normally louder, but I notice it when the system blower fan kicks in every now and again.