quieting further with software? - now looking to cool system

tuz · Post by **tuz** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:50 pm

Hey, I'm not sure where you're at with case fans etc, another picture to show us how its going would be good. To me it sounds with an airflow problem - not enough air going past your hard drives and through your CPU heatsink (90C is too hot for your CPU to be at load). It could possibly be other components on your mobo getting too hot as well, such as your RAM or even the mobo itself.

If you still have the Noctua running less than 100% I'd try putting that at maximum speed and seeing how stably the system runs. With the hot weather & passive CPU you need all the airflow you can get. Also did you get around to blocking the PCI slots? It might also be worth blocking up those vent holes on your case alongside the PCI slots with some tape or paper, that'll force more air to be pulled in from the front of the case. Check your temps as you do this though, some people report increased temperatures (usually when their airflow isn't enough to start with)

If you haven't gotten around to it yet I'd strongly recommend a 92mm case fan at the front of your case to force some air past your hard drives, even when undervolted a fan there will help a lot. Hard drives mounted in this case will tend to run a little hotter than other cases, coupled with your hot summer I'd say the front fan is fairly important here.

If your CPU is still ramping up to high temps I think you need some more airflow around it, you could try something similar to Frenchie's system (have a look at his 2nd pic in particular) where he mounted the drives middle & bottom to allow space for a fan pointed at the CPU to give it some more air.

Hope this helps, good luck!

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:30 pm

An X2 4200 can run stable for hours at ~55C while encoding, I keep forgetting to turn up the fans in my system

You didn't specify your mb/chipset combination, did you?

manually started virusscans can be cpu intensive. you could also have some malware using up your cpu.

put the humanfan straight on the open case and try again.

also looks like you may need to try to reseat your hsf if it's giving such high temps...

anabellita · Post by **anabellita** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:33 am

thank you both for your replies. I was on holiday and unable to follow up with this.

I did close those slots immediately after the suggestion (I'm a good girl I am). I also turned around the case fan and tidied up the case a bit. Below are a few pics of what it looks like now.

I am running the case open, because I find that closed it's even hotter. I'm also finding that working from my backup OS things get less messy.

so yes, I suspect there is some malware too. In fact, Antivir kept identifying a trojan (can't recall which one right now, but will check) which I kept ordering to delete. I couldn't find any information on this trojan when checking antivir's own database, nor googling for it (except some information in russian and an oriental language, none of which I can understand).

I also suspect something is poorly installed, though (and that would be serious, because this installation was done by the technician at the store), because I gather that malware would put demand on the cpu, but the cpu should be able to handle it without overheating all the way up to 90ÂºC, shouldn't it?

Unofortunately, I haven't been able to perform full scans because neither antivir, nor spybot nor adaware can complete their processes. I'll try again with the "human" fan and see what happens.

I guess all this begs the question, can an AMD Athlon 64X2 4400+ (Brisbane) 2.4 GHz with 2Gb of ram DDRII 800 run fanless safely?

Also, I noticed the RAM that was put in the system, is some no-name brand. Could all this be caused by poor RAM?

I did try undervolting RAM and CPU, as suggested. In fact, not sure I undervolted as such, I simply set it in the BIOS from "auto" to the lowest voltage possible for the CPU and the second-lowest for the RAM. The PC wouldn't boot then.

Finally, since the Maxtor HDD runs consistently hot at all times (50ÂºC) and is getting somewhat old anyhow, I have bought the 1TB Samsung HDD that is recommended by SPCR. Will try to install it when it arrives, hopefully it will help keep the rest of the system cooler.

The MotherBoard I'm using is an ASROCK ALiveNF6P-VSTA, with an NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE/nForce 430 Chipset. The opening post contains all the other specs

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:56 am

Looks nice. I never understant why Asrock loves to use main power in center of motherboard. You may consider re-routing 24-pin mainpower running from and back instead front and low. You could try to tug it between motherboard and psu and then use case and back fans space to help you tug it in there. Then it would look slightly more cleaner and would not compromise airflow.

anabellita · Post by **anabellita** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 7:10 am

thing is, if I do that, the cable will runing right in front of the PSU fan. It's one of those seasonics with the fan in the bottom... I think it will compromise airflow even more.

also, please note that the only 2 fans in the case are the Noctua you see there (no comments on that, so I guess it's not back-to-front, is it?, and the one inside the seasonic psu. Isn't the case fan the back fan? perhaps I need to add in another one? I would really prefer not to, it was running a bit loud already...

in any case, this means I can assume it isn't lack of airflow that is pushing the CPU up to 90ÂºC, right?

I'll post back after I run the anti-malware softwares.

anabellita · Post by **anabellita** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:58 am

UPDATE

I've positioned the human fan right in front of the open case, and things have been slightly better, ie, CPU/Core (still not really sure of what the difference is, so I keep confusing them), stays high, but not beyond 65ÂºC in the worst of cases.

I have run a full scan with Ad-Aware, Spybot and Nod32. I used the trial version of Nod32, so the virus database dates from 2 months ago, though.

The system still crashes with Avira AntiVir. I was also unable to complete a Panda on-line scan.

In neither of these cases, though, can I assume it was the high temperature that was freezing the system because, as I said, the temperatures always stayed way below 70ÂºC.

Malware, then?

I'm getting ready for the dreaded re-format. I have a backup image of the disk, though I'm starting to doubt that will be of any help if it does happen to be a malware issue. I'm also not sure the system can take the stress of restoring an image... it was not able to create one when all this jazz started....

btw, I've also received the new samsung 1tb HDD.... but now I don't think that running a cooler HDD will help at all. I will get around to going to the store for a front-case fan this week, though

EDIT: forgot! got a big blue screen with looooots of text that stayed on there for just a few seconds before the computer re-started on its own. Only thing I managed to jot down was: KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE error

anabellita · Post by **anabellita** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:06 am

OK, I'm thinking about re-installing the whole OS...I'm wondering whether this general instability is due to the fact that when I installed it at first, I didn't go thorugh the whole "hit F6 key" thing. Perhaps that is why the large problems are with the OS installed on the SATA II drive, and not on the one on the PATA drive.

Does this make any sense to you?

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:49 pm

using cltr+alt+del brinning up Task Manager will tell you if anything is using alot of cpu %

but if putting a bigass fan on the whole mb only decreases your temps slightly, a reseat of the hsf I think is in order.

before trying to make it quiet, the thing to do is to first make it rock solid and cool. only then can you start to slow things down, and seeing when things start to get too hot to be stable.

a quick install of xp and a good test with memtest and prime95 for a day and night should tell you if it's the OS as well. make a ghost of your current install just in case it isn't, so you can put it back.