Running the Winchester passive?

Cooling Processors quietly

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Thunder
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Running the Winchester passive?

Post by Thunder » Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:27 pm

I just upgraded to a new sys and was running speed fan on auto control and during idle the cpu cooler turned off! Everything was still runing cool according to speed fan and my fan controller which creates the question can it be passivly cooled?
my spec's
AMD athlon 64 3000+ Winchester
ECS KN1 Extreme
MSI 6600GT PCIE

btw everything is sill stock and loud!

I read the "Ideal Hi-end CPU to cool down - Winchester Athlons" thread and I wanted to see if anyone else has tryed running their winchester passive?

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:45 pm

You're still talking about 40w+ under load, which is the problem. That is not a trivial passive cooling scenario. I know from my Pentium-M system that 20w under load is possible to cool (mostly) passively without killing yourself doing it, but doubling that to 40w... uh.. no.

Can you clarify-- do you mean (1) COMPLETELY PASSIVE (eg your entire system has no fans) or (2) just running the cpu heatsink without a fan?

(2) is pretty easy, while (1) is insanely difficult to the point of not being worth the effort.

GrahamGarside
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Post by GrahamGarside » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:04 pm

even with my newcastle 3400+ and a CNSP I can turn the fan off at idle, dropping down to 1.6ghz at 1.1V also allows me to turn the fan off durng full load

with your chip only being a 3000+ I bet you can drop the voltage a fair bit even at stock, as long as your temps don't exceed 70°C your ok

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Mon Mar 14, 2005 1:09 pm

To answer your question just cpu and graphics with some system fans going.
I still have to install my zalman hp cooler so I will see if that raises my temps.

Tobias
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Post by Tobias » Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:03 pm

An undervolted 120mm casefan and a PSU-fan at any speed will go a long way on an undervolted A64-system. If it would go all the way, I don't know, but it should be worth testing.

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:14 pm

It will be great for semi passive cooling
fans on while gaming
only case and ps fans when Idle

As for passive all the way it would be tricky.
But with a passive PS you could go silent in idle which would be good enough for me. When I'm gaming the speakers are on so It only needs to be quiet so If I could get it to run passive while web browsing and Idle It will be awsome.

Any Ideas for a good cooler for this?
xp-120 should work becuse I can go passive on idle with just a stock cooler, but I'm not sure if it fits my mobo.

Any Ideas?

Personly I dont want to try passive all the time becuse its going to heat up while gaming.

JimK
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Post by JimK » Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:45 pm

Thunder,

Have you seen Ed's reviews of his undervolted NewCastle 3000+ and his Aerocool VM-101? No fan on either one.

atomidude
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Post by atomidude » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:03 am

how's this clawhammer 3000+ on semi-passive? on idle i undervolt using crystalcpuid to 1.0V/1.0GHz.
prime95/cpuburn max at 55C, idle at 32C. by the way, i live in Australia, sometimes ambient is up to 28C but still no problem. the fan can go up to 2,200 rpm/84cfm, providing proper cooling.
just wonder if cooling the whole computer with one fan only would be considered semi-passive cooling, hehehe :)

i have a 120mm fan @950 rpm on the side cover, and that one is cooling the cpu, the passive 6800 vga... no other fan needed. the fan is mounted half in/half out using neoprene, no vibrations are transmited to the case. so it's dead quiet.
oh, did i mention the psu is a phantom? :)

see my rig here:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=19874

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:58 pm

Thx ed has a nice system, great use of that normaly anoying duct.
In my case however an xp 120 would be hard to duct but what about ducting an HT-101jr to the back fan to get suction through it?

Nice system atomidude btw

AMD is the best.

Anyone gone totaly passive?

as530
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Post by as530 » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:04 am

my A64 3000+ Winchester is cooled by a XP-120 without fan. but it's quite close to the rear 12cm case exhaust Nexus. With CnQ enabled, idles at around 29-36 degrees, depending on ambient temp.

Load - no idea, haven't loaded it yet! will try to get cpuburn and see. i have a feeling that as long as i ramp up the rear Nexus, load temp will be up to 60 deg, but no more.

annoyingly, whenever my computer exits screensaver mode (e.g. when i touch mouse after a few hours) the CPU temp jumps up to almost 60 deg., and then falls rapidly down again.

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:44 pm

60 is to hot for me I would rather have a fan and go semipassive. With some creative ducting you might be able to pull better temps but ducting for a 120mm cpu HS wont be easy.

My 3000 runs at 30-35deg even in fanless idle but I dont have my fanless vga cooler yet so the whole system is very cool. While gaming the stock cooler kicks in and keeps it under 35. I plan on Installing my Zalman cooler this weekend and buying a new cpu cooler.

Is the xp-120 still the top pick for a semi-passive rig?

nici
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Post by nici » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:20 pm

Im running the 3500+ passive at the moment, i just installed a 7700-Cu and it idles at 38-39c with the fan stopped. Start folding and it very slowly starts to rise, i got bored at waiting when it hit 55 after several minutes and turned the fan on again. I swapped the original for a 120mm nexus :) I chose the 7700 over the XP120 for two reasons, its does a better job at cooling the surrounding mosfets and two, its cheaper. The NEXUS fan on it is very,very quiet.. even at full 12V :) So im not going to run this passively, i just had to try it out. The S939 mounting seems so secure that i dared to installed the 7700Cu although it weighs 900Gs. It fits without problems too, on the uLtra-D i mean. Im seriously tired, i apologize for anythign that is not understandable..

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:22 pm

Yea your 3500 dose run a little hotter, I never thought of using a modded 7700. Little on the heavy side for those who move their cases alot though.

nici
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Post by nici » Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:23 am

I would think twice about installing it if i moved the computer much, but luckily the HS mounting on S939 is very sturdy so i dont think moving it would hurt honestly, just dont go throwing your computer around.. :roll: I might have got the alcu, but it was out of stock at my usual stores so i got the cu version. I had a spare 120mm nexus, so i epoxied that in place.

One thing worth mentioneing, running the fan @ 750rpm the CPU reaches only 40-41c when folding, and its inaudible. The AlCu shouldnt be that much worse. The SpinPoint HDD is noisier than the 7700, as is the vf700.

Heres some pics of the mod, the two aluminium pieces are there to elevate the fan a bit, otherwise it would touch the HS. Really easy to do, the hardest part was to saw the aluminium :lol: Ok so i had a crappy saw and this is seriously high quality hardened aluminium, not something you can scratch with your fingernails :lol: Its a tight fit, but it fits without any inerference.. cools the mosfets, dimms and graphiscs card memory some too.. :)

Image

Image

Image

Mats
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Post by Mats » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:05 am

Even though I'm not into passive CPU cooling it's quite interesting to get an idea of what's is possible.
It also tell us something of what a certain TDP means in reality. I'd really like to see some of your results,
and I'm guessing that you have to keep it under 25 W, like 1.8 GHz/1.15 V (calculated from mobile chip, still dont believe in 67 W @ 2.2 GHz)

Thunder
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Post by Thunder » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:51 pm

Trying to decide if its worth waiting to see if the VapoChill Micro turns out to be good.

dwd3885
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Post by dwd3885 » Tue May 17, 2005 8:29 am

I just turn down my stock AMD Winny 3000+ cooler to 45 percent on Speedfan the entire time, gaming and all. and my cpu never goes about 35 on speedfan. And it's inaudible as well

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