120mm fan nightmare

[krooton]

HELP!!

Right, I have a front bezel modded sonata, fresh air duct for my modded SS400W (Panaflo), side duct for my cpu (sp97 + 92mm panaflo), 120mm silenX exhaust, 120mm panaflo 120mm intake, all on vantec fan controller.

Now, as I overclock a bit (xp2500+@3200+), my temps can get a little toasty (40ºC idle, 50ºC load), but this is with all the fans on full pelt.

If i turn my fans down to sufficient quiet levels, my idle temps jump to 50 and I dare not put my machine under any sort of load.

I need sufficient quiet cooling for 2x 120mm and 1x 92mm

Please advise on fans that can be attainable in the UK.

I hear good things about Nexus now, but would like more first hand advice.

ps. I cant wait to upgrade to A64, they run faster and cooler

[jimmyfergus]

Now, as I overclock a bit (xp2500+@3200+), my temps can get a little toasty (40ºC idle, 50ºC load), but this is with all the fans on full pelt.

If i turn my fans down to sufficient quiet levels, my idle temps jump to 50 and I dare not put my machine under any sort of load.

Aren't these procs rated to 70C or similar? By the sounds of it turning the fans down will give you 50-60, which is quite reasonable, especially in the UK where you're not going to have your ambient going up wildly.

Cooler the better for hard drives; with their moving parts, drive life is directly related to temp, but for CPUs etc., has anyone heard of them failing without going over specified temps? I could well be wrong here, if so I'd like to know. Also, why worry : if you fry your CPU then it's a great excuse to get the A64!

I'd be more concerned about hard drives. With your duct, are you blowing out? Extracting hot CPU cooling directly out with a duct seems like the best bet to me if the cooler will work with it. Get the CPU's heat out of the case asap so keeping the case temp down.

[Pjotor]

Krooton,
don't worry about your temperatures -- they're fine! AMD CPUs are spec'ed for temperatures of up to at least 90ºC. My CPU runs at close to 50ºC at idle and almost 60ºC after prolonged gaming sessions (XP-M 2500+ @ 2300 MHz). If you have no stability problems, there is no reason to worry.

The only temperature sensor I'm watching closely is the HDD sensor. Losing a CPU or MB costs me some money, but it's possible to restore things as they were. Restoring family photos from the HDD is a completely different matter, though; I try to keep the HDD below 45ºC at all times.

Now to your request: I have no experience of 120mm Panaflos, but AFAIK they are very good. Papst's 120mm are also very nice -- moves a sufficient amount of air with low noise levels. 92mm fans are more difficult for me to say something about; let's hope someone else here can help you.

[meglamaniac]

My XP2000+ regularly hits 73C with no problems.

[Denorios]

Calm down, Krooton, or you'll end up getting hotter than your processor!

IMHO, people worry about processor temperature too much. It doesn’t matter whether the CPU is hot, merely whether it is stable. As long as you can run Prime95 Torture Test (or something similar) for 8-24 hours without error, you’re fine. If you are running hot, your CPU lifetime will be reduced to some degree, but it is actually quite difficult to reach temperatures that would severely reduce the life of your chip without suffering noticeable stability problems. In any case, few PC enthusiasts use a CPU long enough for lifetime to be much of an issue.

Comparing your temperatures to those of other people is a losing game - there is too much variability in temperature reporting between motherboards, and thermal tolerances between different CPU cores, for any such comparison to mean much. Remember - there is no such thing as an absolute ideal temperature. Cooler is better, but just because you are running hotter than other people, that is no reason to panic.

I use an 2500XP-M @ 2100MHz, and my system regularly peaks at 63C when Torture Testing with the fans on minimum - but it can keep that up indefinitely without error. You can't really expect low temperatures, low noise and high performance.

[Denorios]

Hmm. One thought though, Krooton. What motherboard are you running?
Certain brands, especially Asus, have a reputation for reading low.

[krooton]

Abit NF7-S with trat's bios, apparently the most accurate temp reading bios for nforce 2 mobo's (as tested by a few ppl with temp probes)

I only hit 55 on load with prime toture tests with fans full pelt, will try a test run on quiet, see what happens temps/stability wise.

will see if reversing the cpu fan so it goes out the duct will make a diff too, I just figured cold air ontp heatsink would be better

cheers for the advice guys

edit - and my seagate stays a cool 34ºC at all times

[jimmyfergus]

will see if reversing the cpu fan so it goes out the duct will make a diff too, I just figured cold air ontp heatsink would be better

edit - and my seagate stays a cool 34ºC at all times

My guess would be that it would cause the CPU temps to rise slightly, as you assumed too... Also, your cooler may not like it. Since your HD is nice and cool it may not be a good thing. I'll be interested to hear the result...

[fractal]

Krooton,
don't worry about your temperatures -- they're fine! AMD CPUs are spec'ed for temperatures of up to at least 90ºC. My CPU runs at close to 50ºC at idle and almost 60ºC after prolonged gaming sessions (XP-M 2500+ @ 2300 MHz). If you have no stability problems, there is no reason to worry.

I concur. Processors are good for at least a year running at 60c. Most overclockers don't see processor failures before two years of high temperature operation. You will have outgrown the system long before that.

I would, however, be very concerned if it were a server class machine. I have machines that have been running non stop, without a reboot, for over 3 years. Those never get above 40c even on the worst of days. I forget the exact numbers (something like you cut the expected life expectency of a processor in half for every 10c) but frankly, for todays desktops, 60s is nothing to worry about.

[Interitus]

I'm running your exact combo (NF7-S 2.0 w/ mobile 2400 @ 3200+) and my temps are almost identical. At idle with fans on low I get around 50-51C and 55'ish full load for an hour.

I use Merlin's d26 bios.