NCU-1000

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 4:22 am

I have had an NCU-1000 fitted now for about a week.
Before that I had a Zalman 6500 AlCu with the 92mm fan mounted on a custom duct that drew air from the rear of the case. I ran the fanspeed controller on a 5v line for minimum noise.
With the NCU-1000 the CPU runs about 10 degrees celsius hotter, about 40 at idle and about 50 when doing mpeg encoding (ambient about 20).
The PSU is a Q technology 02300 and that contains the only fan in the system! I have had no problems, though the monitor buzzing is even more annoying now (next step, LCD please

).

Having said all that, there are some things to keep in mind;

- The CPU is a P2.4B running at 100MHz FSB (1.8GHz) and undervolted to 1.1 volts (the minimum that the motherboard can go to).
- I don't use an AGP graphics card, only on board video (crap for games, perfectly fine for everything that I do).
- After fitting the NCU-1000 the north bridge became almost too hot to touch, so I fitted a slightly trimmed socket 370 heatsink. Conservatively, this gives at least 3 times as much area and about a 5 degree drop in system temps (runs about 40 - 45).
- I have only one PCI card placed near the bottom of the case. I removed all the remaining back plane covers to help with ventilation.
- Hard drive temps have gone up (about 50 -55 celsius for a suspended drive, close to the recommended max) as well as the CDR drive temps I presume.
- And the case is very big. It's a Chieftec tower, which are the same as Thermaltake, Antec and probably others.

As all the reviews have mentioned (including the one on SPCR), don't expect to run a top end P4 at full speed without fans. But keeping this and the above points in mind, this heatsink is pretty amazing and does it's job very well.
With the NCU-1000 I can get as close to fanless as I can without paying $1000US for a Zalman TNN-500A and I am not complaining!

Cheers

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:18 am

What motherboard do you have?
What 370 heatsink did you mod to fit on your northbridge?
How did you attach the heatsink to the northbridge?

I will do something similare to my NB and need a few good ideas on what works...

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:43 am

1 Albatron PX-845GEV
2 El cheapo heatsink from computer market $3
3 Attached with orginal retainer (a small wire clip)

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:44 pm

Interesting....I just received one of these heatsinks today. Might take a few weeks to get it running. What puzzles me about this whole thing is how few people around here are actually using one of these. You'd think fanless operation, heatpipe technology, at a reasonable cost, would be enough attraction. Maybe the disclaimers about intensive cpu usage scared off potential customers/users.

Well I'm not put off.....I think it'll work fine with a Fortron 120mm psu fan as it's only airflow source (maybe with a duct).

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:02 am

I have to agree with you Bluefront, I thought there would be more interest in these heatsinks as well. I think I'm the first one to post my experiences with it and I would have thought more people would be interested in an actual user perspective rather than just a review (especially on SPCR).
Good to hear that someone else has got one and let us (me) know how your setup performs with it!

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:32 am

Frosty-Tech Review

CharlieChan · Post by **CharlieChan** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:51 am

FrankT wrote:I have to agree with you Bluefront, I thought there would be more interest in these heatsinks as well. I think I'm the first one to post my experiences with it and I would have thought more people would be interested in an actual user perspective rather than just a review (especially on SPCR).
Good to hear that someone else has got one and let us (me) know how your setup performs with it!

I think your comment are a little harsh, if you do a search on the forum for ncu-1000 you will find 2 reviews, one by MikeC and one by Jonathan Horner, and at least forum user's experience.

I think one of the biggest flaw with the ncu-1000 is it will hit intels thermal throttle without active cooling. If you need active cooling why spend so much?

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:13 pm

Look Charlie...I don't think FrankT said anything "harsh", whatever that means in the UK. Like me he's just surprised so few people on this forum are using this heatsink. I only remember maybe two people who posted about their Zens around here.

And I think your objections to this unit are off base. While this heatsink is fanless, it certainly will overheat without sufficient airflow. Stands to reason. It is meant to be used in a particular airflow orientation. Your standard case with a rear fan blowing out, will not cool this unit very well, mostly because of the fin direction. And if you mount the unit with the fins parallel with the rear fan... the internal heatpipe cooling technology is upset. All this has been documented, in the SPCR article, as well in other reviews......the directions with the unit spell it all out.

It's hard to give a good review of this heatsink, not because of it's design...but rather because it probably requires an airflow not found in most cases. And for sure it cannot be fairly tested in the standard bench-tests.....a stand-alone mother-board sitting outside a case, with the heatsink sitting straight up.

Tell you what.....when I get my unit running, I'll document the results, good or bad. My case is ready to go, designed with this exact heatsink in mind. There's a Fortron with a 120mm modded PSU on top, and another 120mm fan blowing up on the bottom. The Zen will be in the middle. Both fans are manually controlled so I should be able to fine-tune the cooling with the Zen in mind. We'll see....

the_smell · Post by **the_smell** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:38 pm

Hey I love a bit of passive cooling - the less fans the better ideally, but one problem is the Heatlane Zen costs nearly twice the price of the Zalman 7000 AlCu. Plus I doubt when undervolted (especially to 4V) you could hear the difference, but you could run the zalman with a cpu at full speed, games and all, without overheating. I think the Zen is excellent but it needs good airflow for use with more demanding applications.

Sorry bit of a rant I had to get off my chest, happy cooling!

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:43 pm

Yea its not a truly passive heatsink. Id rather just get a 7000alcu and run it on low where its near inaudible anyways and cools DAMN well.

CharlieChan · Post by **CharlieChan** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:14 pm

Bluefront wrote:Look Charlie...I don't think FrankT said anything "harsh", whatever that means in the UK. Like me he's just surprised so few people on this forum are using this heatsink. I only remember maybe two people who posted about their Zens around here.

Ok, I chose the wrong word but I was trying to be polite. A better word may be "arrogant". Going around SPCR saying "I think I'm the first one to post my experiences with it..." when they is 22 threads on the ncu-1000 is a little well ....

And I think your objections to this unit are off base. While this heatsink is fanless, it certainly will overheat without sufficient airflow. Stands to reason. It is meant to be used in a particular airflow orientation. Your standard case with a rear fan blowing out, will not cool this unit very well, mostly because of the fin direction. And if you mount the unit with the fins parallel with the rear fan... the internal heatpipe cooling technology is upset. All this has been documented, in the SPCR article, as well in other reviews......the directions with the unit spell it all out.

It's hard to give a good review of this heatsink, not because of it's design...but rather because it probably requires an airflow not found in most cases. And for sure it cannot be fairly tested in the standard bench-tests.....a stand-alone mother-board sitting outside a case, with the heatsink sitting straight up.

Not everyone has your skills in metal works. There are thoses of us who dare not open a PSU to change a fan. Building air ducts and moving PSU around the case is not for everyone. Attaching a fanmate to a zalman 7000 is OK for most

.

Tell you what.....when I get my unit running, I'll document the results, good or bad. My case is ready to go, designed with this exact heatsink in mind. There's a Fortron with a 120mm modded PSU on top, and another 120mm fan blowing up on the bottom. The Zen will be in the middle. Both fans are manually controlled so I should be able to fine-tune the cooling with the Zen in mind. We'll see....

I would love to read your results with the ncu-1000. Not too long ago I was thinking of using the ncu-1000. I brought a SS300FT and a fujitsu D1527 (with advance thermal management) so that I can have a system than would only turn the fan on when needed. After reading MikeC's review I thought to myself the fan would never switch off and brought a zalman 7000 and fix it to 5V - I run folding@home so my PC is never idle.

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:37 pm

CharlieChan wrote:
Bluefront wrote:Look Charlie...I don't think FrankT said anything "harsh", whatever that means in the UK. Like me he's just surprised so few people on this forum are using this heatsink. I only remember maybe two people who posted about their Zens around here.
Ok, I chose the wrong word but I was trying to be polite. A better word may be "arrogant". Going around SPCR saying "I think I'm the first one to post my experiences with it..." when they is 22 threads on the ncu-1000 is a little well ....

If I came across as arrogant I did not mean to CharlieChan. And the heatsink does have limitations, mainly due to the relatively old design of PC cases which were developed originally for much cooler devices. If you look at the tsheatronics web site at http://www.tsheatronics.co.jp they have some interesting products using the heat pipe technology. Perhaps some of these could be used to develop a version of the zalman TNN-500 but cheaper.

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:49 pm

CharlieChan wrote: I think one of the biggest flaw with the ncu-1000 is it will hit intels thermal throttle without active cooling. If you need active cooling why spend so much?

Does anyone know if there is a way to check if the cpu is throttling down?

CharlieChan · Post by **CharlieChan** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:10 am

If I came across as arrogant I did not mean to CharlieChan. And the heatsink does have limitations, mainly due to the relatively old design of PC cases which were developed originally for much cooler devices. If you look at the tsheatronics web site at http://www.tsheatronics.co.jp they have some interesting products using the heat pipe technology. Perhaps some of these could be used to develop a version of the zalman TNN-500 but cheaper.

As I said my intentions where to politely point you to the threads that discuss the ncu-1000. I was really excited by this heatsink when I first saw it in one of the threads. I have read most of reviews on the web as well as what was said on their homepage. Like most people on this forum I would love a true passive system. Failing that my next preference would be one with one very quiet fan, it that did not work then two quiet fans and so on. I would not mind buying the ncu-1000 if I could get it to work in a one fan system but MikeC and flips experience would indicate that it is not possible. If I needed two fans then why spend £60 for the heatsink and another £7 for a panaflo, the Zalman is only £35 (UK prices).

Does anyone know if there is a way to check if the cpu is throttling down?

If your CPU hits 70oC then it will throttle down. Install MBM and monitor the temperature when running a CPU intentsive program - the program that really gets the CPU to heat up is cpuburn or prime95.

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:38 am

CharlieChan wrote:I would not mind buying the ncu-1000 if I could get it to work in a one fan system but MikeC and flips experience would indicate that it is not possible. If I needed two fans then why spend £60 for the heatsink and another £7 for a panaflo, the Zalman is only £35 (UK prices).

If your CPU hits 70oC then it will throttle down. Install MBM and monitor the temperature when running a CPU intentsive program - the program that really gets the CPU to heat up is cpuburn or prime95.

The heatsink here is about 40 pounds ($100AUD) so it does seem pretty expensive there. As for running only one PSU fan, with my system it works ok but only because I have undervolted from 1.5 to 1.1 volts (bios won't let me go any lower). Without undervolting another fan would probably be needed.

The CPU throttling does occur at about 70, but I wonder if the temp sensor gives an accurate enough reading to be able to definitely say that the CPU is throttling down.

On another interesting note, I once tried to run the Zalman 6500 with no fan, CPU underclocked and undervolted as usual. As the CPU temp reading went up to about 40 celcius (I just booted to bios), the base of the heatsink was extremely hot so I turned off the computer. With the NCU-1000, the base is barely warm even though bios reports about 40.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 5:58 am

I once tried to run the Zalman 6500 with no fan, CPU underclocked and undervolted as usual. As the CPU temp reading went up to about 40 celcius (I just booted to bios), the base of the heatsink was extremely hot so I turned off the computer. With the NCU-1000, the base is barely warm even though bios reports about 40.

It is a good sign if the heatsink gets hot compared to the CPU-temp, that means you have a good heat-connection, so the heatsink can do its job well.
If the heatsink is cooled compared to the CPU you might have a poorly seated heatsink or poor TIM application.
If you measure just after booting a cold computer the mass of the heatsink will make a huge difference, so it is not a very good number to compare. A long time of steady load on the CPU will give comparable numbers.

CharlieChan · Post by **CharlieChan** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 7:46 am

FrankT wrote: The heatsink here is about 40 pounds ($100AUD) so it does seem pretty expensive there. As for running only one PSU fan, with my system it works ok but only because I have undervolted from 1.5 to 1.1 volts (bios won't let me go any lower). Without undervolting another fan would probably be needed.

I am sure you system works as you stated and within the specification you required. I would feel uncomfortable running such a system on a 24/7 basis with the CPU load at 100%. Also reducing the performance of your P4 to a P3 1.4G may not meet everyones requirement. One could argue the 31W requirement of a P3 1.4G is much easier to manage that the 50W of the P4 1.8G - I know you undervolted so it less that this.