Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Ninja 4

Show off your quiet rig.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by nagi » Sun Jan 17, 2016 10:31 pm

The high idle might be because these gaming mITX boards are packed with features, (wifi+bt addon card for one might slurp up a couple extra watts) and since they were designed for gaming, they were not designed for power consumption. E.g.: they go for more stable power regulation instead of less power "wasted" (I see your board has 9+ chokes, whereas cheap boards may go with 5).

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Mon Jan 18, 2016 12:34 pm

Yes, gaming motherboards and all of their addons can be a problem for power consumption. I have wifi, bluetooth and a few other things disabled with power management features enabled. I have the faint red power LED connected but the HDD LED is not. I'm sure there is more tweaking to be done in the BIOS and undervolting always exists but this is just baseline measurements for now.

The extra 9W for idle power I would more put down to the graphics card as the SPCR review was done with iGPU.

One thing I would urge all Asus Pro Gaming motherbopard owners to do: disable the stupid Supreme FX LEDs that offer to light up constantly or in a pulsed 'breathing' mode when the system is off. A big waste of power when any systems default position should be off and who on earth would want their computer to glow while it is not switched on?!? Asus, please remove this stupid feature.

f98pno
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:38 am

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by f98pno » Sat Jan 23, 2016 5:07 am

Hi Edh,

Nice build, looks like you have gotten a lot out of this beautiful chassi. I would be interested to do something similar, but I really would want an internal 3,5 HDD for storage and ideally a 2,5 SSD for dual boot OS's. The 2,5 could be replaced with a M2 if needed, but the 3,5 internal storage is my main driver for this build. Would therefor be great to hear some input from you having done some building with the case:

1) According to the manufacturers manual, you could add a 3,5 HDD over the rear fan, the place you currently have covered with the GPU cooler. Do you see any issues with getting the 3,5 in if sacrificing the GPU?
2) Would there be any way to combine that 3,5 HDD with a GPU, or is the space just to limited in the upper part of the case? I was thinking of looking for a smaller passive PSU freeing up some space in case that would work?
2) Could you squeeze in a 2,5 SSD and still keep the same CPU cooler as you use, or is going for M2 or a smaller CPU cooler my only options?

/Peter

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Sat Jan 23, 2016 5:30 am

f98pno wrote:1) According to the manufacturers manual, you could add a 3,5 HDD over the rear fan, the place you currently have covered with the GPU cooler. Do you see any issues with getting the 3,5 in if sacrificing the GPU?
You can add a 3.5" HDD there but I wouldn't think it will be good for silence. The HDD mounting is aluminium and there is no soft mounting there. It will be metal to metal contact and may not be well cooled either. There would be space for a dual slot graphics card underneath but be careful that the fan is not blocked.
f98pno wrote:2) Would there be any way to combine that 3,5 HDD with a GPU, or is the space just to limited in the upper part of the case? I was thinking of looking for a smaller passive PSU freeing up some space in case that would work?
Not sure a smaller PSU would actually help you mounting hard drives. It's really not a good case for that and that's part of the reason I bought it: it doesn't sacrifice space for multiple hard drives.
f98pno wrote:2) Could you squeeze in a 2,5 SSD and still keep the same CPU cooler as you use, or is going for M2 or a smaller CPU cooler my only options?
You might be able to but it depends on your motherboards CPU placement. With the Z170i Pro Gaming the CPU is quite some way south so lines up properly with the rear fan and leaves space at the bottom of the case. Not all motherboards work so well in the Metis. Here is an example:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=68961

By the way, why do you need two hard disks for dual booting?

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by nagi » Sat Jan 23, 2016 6:58 am

If you want to add a 3.5", something like the Fractal Design Node 304 might be a much better choice. (It actually has space for 6 HDDs IIRC.) Though that has its own problems.

f98pno
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:38 am

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by f98pno » Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:15 am

Thanks for quick replies and advice's lads!

Finding a case that was small and would fit nicely on a table was key. HD PLEX H5 was the other one I have considered, though that turned out quite expensive everything included.

My alternative consideration is that I am not sure if I really need a graphics cards. Taking advantage of the Ninja CPU cooler could allow a high-end CPU (i7-6700) and 2*16 GB RAM, that should be enough for most everyday uses, right?

Would the space below the HDD mounting be good for a SSD, so I could follow your build edh with the MB and CPU cooler?
edh wrote: By the way, why do you need two hard disks for dual booting?
Not necessary, but I wanted to have everything I use daily on a SSD and then having the HDD running on low spead as storage & backup. I hard you easily could configure that in /etc/hdparm.conf That HDD would then easily be movable to some new build at some point in the future if it just was used for file storage.

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by nagi » Sat Jan 23, 2016 1:51 pm

The IGP of intel CPUs is enough for office-stuff, videos, and the like. If you don't plan to play games on it, the performance is OK for that.

I don't know how well it does with multi-monitor and 4K though. (IIRC there are motherboards out there that don't support 4K@60Hz out even on the displayport out, although that might only be true for haswell-R boards.)

arisilent
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:28 pm

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by arisilent » Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:35 pm

edh wrote:Just a small update. Still no progress on getting the fan speeds to show up as the asus-isa-0000 chip doesn't appear to report correctly to lmsensors. It could be a divisor needs changing but also it could be that a kernel update will fix this. At present Arch Linux is still on kernel 4.2 but it could be that 4.3 or 4.4 will improve support for what is of course brand new hardware.

I have also now been able to distinguish a faint ticking sound from the Scythe Glidestream fan included with the Ninja 4. It needs me to put my ear on the case to hear it but then it becomes quite distinct even at the 300rpm idle speed. Not sure if anyone else may have noticed this with the Ninja 4?

It probably isn't Scythe's best fan effort but with Christmas coming up I will be asking Father Christmas for a few cooling toys. At the same time I will want to do a little rebuild to improve the cable runs a bit with some additional cutouts and maybe open the M.2 up to a bit more air.

Did you solve the cpu_fan RPM reporting issue with LM_SENSORS? Found the same issue in my skylake build. I replace the i5-6600 heatsink with an EVO 212, and am using a Noctua NF-F12 fan; I confirmed and re-confirmed that the fan is working fine and the motherboard is controlling the speed properly (this fan is incredibly silent even at top speed). In all cases, lm_sensors reports that the fan is there, but the speed it sees is 0 RPM regardless of the real speed.

I tried adding a "chip" in /etc/sensors3.conf ("acpitz-virtual-0") and changing the divisor but that didn't work.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Thu Feb 11, 2016 11:23 am

arisilent wrote:Did you solve the cpu_fan RPM reporting issue with LM_SENSORS?
Still no fan speed. Google brings up nothing that close to this problem for this specific motherboard range. It's not urgent, it doesn't stop me from using the system obviously but it would be nice to see. I haven't reached out to any of the software communities involved as I have just been assuming for now that an update might bring it up at some point.

I can't say it's unique, my last Asus motherboard didn't always report the PSU fan RPM for some reason. The way I 'fixed' this was just to buy a passive PSU... :lol:

What particular motherboard are you using? If you make any progress maybe post your findings.

sgtspiff
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:08 pm

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by sgtspiff » Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:38 am

OMG (giggling like a teen girl).

You can't do anything else but love when someone already has done what you have thought about making in the past year.
Small and quiet.

My plan (just a plan) is:
Metis
i5-6400T (even cooler)
M.2 SSD
and right now my existing:
Palit 750ti passsive (though I've glanced at the 950 without external power)
Seasonic 520W passive

Only true difference is my thoughts about using a blue Phantek cooler instead of scythe ninja.

How do you feel about the pretty common mod of cutting up the roof and puttting a 140mm fan in there?
Do you need to that to keep the system cool? I prefer to keep my parts below 80 degrees Celsius in gaming load.

Right know my plans about the inside is laying low as I bought a house instead of a new PC. So I will make my Sandybridge system work another 6 months at least. Another thought that is brewing in the back of my head is the possibility that AMD actually makes a APU that you can play games with (over 750Ti performance). But last time I waited I was dissipointed (Kaveri).

Your post made me post here on SPCR for the first time in 5 years I think.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Wed Mar 09, 2016 4:04 am

Thanks for the comments. Just to run through your spec:

CPU - T models are more expensive versus performance. If you want power savings it's better to go with a standard CPU and undervolt to the same power level.
Graphics card - Beware of the 170mm PCB length restriction you will have when used with a 160mm long PSU like the Seasonic. The cooler can overhang but you will need to beware of the PSU cables. I had to cut fins on the Accelero S3 to get it to fit around the cables.
CPU cooler - What Phanteks are you planning on using? It depends upon your motherboard for what CPU cooler will fit but I had previously done calculations that showed that the Ninja would fit perfectly on the Z170I Pro Gaming and line up with the rear fan. Would recommend doing the same calculations for your motherboard and CPU cooler choice.
sgtspiff wrote:How do you feel about the pretty common mod of cutting up the roof and putting a 140mm fan in there?
It looks a bit ghetto I think plus mounting a fan directly to the panel won't be great for silence. I am instead considering drilling small ventilation holes to match the pattern on the side panel. I have a 120mm fan on the Acccelero which is fine for clearence but could do with a bit more clean air to bring in.
sgtspiff wrote:Do you need to that to keep the system cool?
With the GTX 950 I keep it under that using the Acclero and the 120mm fan up to around 900rpm using the PWM fan curve. Extra ventilation I sure could help.

sgtspiff
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:08 pm

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by sgtspiff » Wed Mar 09, 2016 4:40 am

CPU: Love the Intel propaganda on "S" and "T" CPUs. It's ok with my budget.
Cooler: The TC14PE would get me another fan (in between the towers) and maybe could help keeping the PSU cool.
Graphics: The PCB on my current card is just short enough. The cooler makes it 185mm long. I love the thought of the S3. Cool enough to maybe keep the system to a one-fan-system.

My fan speed limit often stops at 600rpm with my noctua fans. i don't want to go higher than that. But with only one fan in my plans I probably won't be able to keep em slow. Hence top modding.

i think the Metis will just be my next step in "Medium-low end gaming, in a smallest case possible, while inaudiable in the room it's placed".

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:38 am

sgtspiff wrote:Cooler: The TC14PE would get me another fan (in between the towers) and maybe could help keeping the PSU cool.
I'm not sure the TC14PE will be that well suited. The heatsink itself is 160mm tall which is right on the limit. With the fans fitted it is 171mm which definitely won't fit. The length of the cooler with fans is 159mm which when combined with a 25mm rear fan will not allow the cooler to fit - you only have <175mm from the back of the case to the PSU. The fan positions may also not work with RAM and cables on a MiniITX board plus the PSU in your system will only be putting out 5-10W under heavy use with that config so does not require any further ventilation.

It's also enormously expensive for keeping a low power T CPU cool. Would suggest you look elsewhere but your choice is primarily guided by the motherboard - chose a motherboard which will allow the best CPU cooler position relative to the rear fan mount and use a single rear fan controlled from the CPU cooler header. Take some measurements from pictures of the motherboard and then do calculations to ascertain maximum CPU cooler dimensions. I'm sure I can look back and find what I did on this for reference.
sgtspiff wrote:I love the thought of the S3. Cool enough to maybe keep the system to a one-fan-system.
With a standard GTX 950 and no case mod, no but with the GTX 750 and some ventilation in the top panel this should be possible.

plundh
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:52 am

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by plundh » Wed Apr 06, 2016 4:00 am

Hi edh,

Really interesting build! I'm planning on making a i7-6700 workstation without a GPU. Do you reckon that could be adequately cooled in this setup?

Does the case have a dust filter on the PSU intake?

edit: from what I gather there is one version with a window, and one version with vents instead (classic). I'm assuming the windowed version wouldn't provide enough ventilation for this?

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by nagi » Wed Apr 06, 2016 4:55 am

plundh wrote:Hi edh,

Really interesting build! I'm planning on making a i7-6700 workstation without a GPU. Do you reckon that could be adequately cooled in this setup?

Does the case have a dust filter on the PSU intake?

edit: from what I gather there is one version with a window, and one version with vents instead (classic). I'm assuming the windowed version wouldn't provide enough ventilation for this?
I'm not edh, buuut I built in the same case with a i7-4790k. I did have some problems with an overly-OC-happy motherboard, but ultimately it works. It should work even better with a ninja from edh's config.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Wed Apr 06, 2016 10:10 am

Thanks for the comments.
plundh wrote:I'm planning on making a i7-6700 workstation without a GPU. Do you reckon that could be adequately cooled in this setup?
Yes, if you have the correct CPU cooler placement. With the Z170i Pro Gaming the CPU socket centre is fairly near to where it needs to be. I improved the situation by modding the Ninja 4 mounting bracket to move it back a couple of mm right against the rear mounted fan.

Here is a picture along with measurements to illustrate this point:
Image

Measure the mounting position of your chosen cooler against your chosen motherboard and make sure it works. The Ninja 4 is very close on the Z170i Pro Gaming but it took a spreadsheet full of calculations to do this. Similarly I have calculations for the graphics card cooler fitment too.

I get ridiculously low temps (idling at 26C right now) at only 300rpm so even ramping up the TDP a bit to a 6700 could be managed without a huge fan speed increase. Maybe you'll need 500rpm but still that's very quiet.
plundh wrote:Does the case have a dust filter on the PSU intake?
There's no filter included as it's intended as an exhaust but when used with a passive PSU it will function as an intake. You could cut a mesh filter to fit however my experience is that with such little airflow there is no need for a filter. Fitting a filter will also reduce airflow.
plundh wrote:from what I gather there is one version with a window, and one version with vents instead (classic). I'm assuming the windowed version wouldn't provide enough ventilation for this?
Not necessarily worse as any side ventilation may interfere with laminar flow and actually make things worse. I wouldn't conclusively be able to say which is better or worse for any particular setup. The windowed version is more expensive so to me the choice is simple.

plundh
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:52 am

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by plundh » Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:25 pm

Awesome, thanks for the input both of you. I was already planning to get exactly that MB, so this seems very viable for me.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:29 pm

Good choice. 8)

Would suggest you look at drilling a few holes in the motherboard tray before you begin for cabling routing. It will make life much easier.

Unhedged
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 3:35 pm

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by Unhedged » Mon May 16, 2016 5:10 am

Great build! you've inspired me to build something similar for my SO using the same case/motherboard and a Ninja 4 :)

Questions:
  • Was the Ninja 4 mounting mod just so it will be closer to the back fan or so that it will fit at all? and what kind of mod did you do exactly?
  • Have you considered switching the direction of the back fan so it's an intake and air flows through the Ninja and into the PSU, gets exhausted through the bottom PSU vents?
  • Is there room to mount a 2.5" SSD in the bottom with the Ninja 4? worst case I can just use double-sided adhesive and put it on the PSU like I've seen some people do

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Tue May 17, 2016 1:04 am

Thanks for the questions.
Unhedged wrote:Was the Ninja 4 mounting mod just so it will be closer to the back fan or so that it will fit at all? and what kind of mod did you do exactly?
The mod I did describe in a previous post:
Image
The NInja 4 does not need modding to fit but by grinding out these two areas by 2mm you can shift the CPU cooler back 2mm, therefore getting it right up against the rear fan for a small cooling improvement. Theoretically by doing so it creates the necessary 25mm between the PSU and the Ninja 4 to fit a fan there as well for a push-pull configuration but for an i5 6400 this is unnecessary.

This mod is ONLY appropriate for the Metis + Asus Z170i Pro Gaming + Ninja 4 combination. Basically, take measurements, do some calculations and work out the CPU cooler placement versus the rear fan, then see what you can do to improve the alignment.
Unhedged wrote:Have you considered switching the direction of the back fan so it's an intake and air flows through the Ninja and into the PSU, gets exhausted through the bottom PSU vents?
This would be possible but with the graphics card largely exhausting of the back of the case it means that warm air might be pulled in. Also a major consideration is that I am not short of CPU cooling at all. Direct intake to the CPU cooler would benefit the CPU only, the rest of the system would then be stuffed full with heat from the CPU, not so great.
Unhedged wrote:Is there room to mount a 2.5" SSD in the bottom with the Ninja 4? worst case I can just use double-sided adhesive and put it on the PSU like I've seen some people do
Yes, there are even rubber mounts there for it. This is assuming it's not some extra thick enterprise grade 2.5" drive which might then be a problem but keep it to 7mm thickness and it would be fine.

Souli
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:44 am

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by Souli » Sat May 28, 2016 1:22 am

Hi,
I didn't see anything mentioned in here but maybe you could help me out. If I go for a SFX PSU like the new Corsair SF450W. Would this allow for a longer graphic card like in the Ncase M1?

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Sun May 29, 2016 12:32 am

Souli wrote:Hi,
I didn't see anything mentioned in here but maybe you could help me out. If I go for a SFX PSU like the new Corsair SF450W. Would this allow for a longer graphic card like in the Ncase M1?
The PSU length does effect graphics card length. I have a 160mm long PSU and this limits you to a 175mm PCB. That's what I have but with an Accelero S3 on top it becomes a lot longer, overhanging the top of the PSU.

If the PSU length is 140mm or less (this would include SFX or SFX-L) then the graphic card length can be up to about 250mm in length when it would hit the front USB ports. How close you can get to 250mm will depend upon how good your cable management is as well. If you have a bundle of PSU cables tied up there you will lose space so put in some motherboard tray holes to lose a few cables behind before you begin.

Also, if you are going for a long graphics card this suggests that high power is more likely to be a thing, therefore putting some ventilation in the top of the case would help.

With an SFX PSU how would you want to arrange the airflow? Beware that running the PSU fan pointing at the CPU cooler doesn't work well in this case. If you go with a big tower cooler you could run a push-pull fan arrangement and ditch the PSU fan entirely, airflow would be sufficient from the CPU fans.

bean1975
Posts: 90
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:46 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by bean1975 » Fri Jun 17, 2016 11:07 am

Very nice! However, instead of grinding the bracket to move the heatsink what about pushing the fan forward instead? http://www.moddiy.com/products/Deepcool ... nting.html

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Tue Jun 21, 2016 1:40 pm

bean1975 wrote:Very nice! However, instead of grinding the bracket to move the heatsink what about pushing the fan forward instead? http://www.moddiy.com/products/Deepcool ... nting.html
This would have been possible however will it have given the same cooling effects I don't know. The arrangement I have frees enough space that a second fan could be put in front of the CPU cooler should it be required.

Unhedged
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 3:35 pm

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by Unhedged » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:32 am

Just wanted to update that I built the rig for my SO using the non-windowed Metis with i5-6600, 16GB DDR4, Z170I Pro Gaming and a Ninja 4. I used a passive Seasonic Platinum PSU (400W) and replaced the stock case fan with a Noiseblocker Multiframe M12-2 and changed the orientation for it to be an intake, so air flows through the Ninja into the PSU vents and out the bottom. Also because it's an intake fan I used a Silverstone magnetic fan filter on it (FF123B).

Overall really happy with the result; it's both aesthetically and acoustically pleasing. CPU reaches about 60-65C with Prime 95 depending on ambient temp and the PC is inaudible pretty much unless you stick your ear directly on the fan (I have it at ~700-800 rpm).

Thanks for the tips edh! :D

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Tue Aug 16, 2016 9:50 am

A small update on the M.2 temps. Having had some fairly warm summer weather (max 33C) the Min/Max lifetime readings logged within the drive's SMART data show:
Min/Max 16/76

This has not been done with synthetic benchmarks, this has been through normal use. This is within touching distance of the 78C throttling temperature and may actually have instantaneously reached it - you can't say what the polling frequency is for throttling or temperature logging.

It should not be interpreted to be bad for the drive itself, the temperature throttling limit will have been set conservatively to prevent damage, just in case a user somewhere is doing hard disk stress testing all day long. I will definitely have a go at some heatsinks soon though to try and bring the temps down.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Aug 16, 2016 10:34 am

A sticky RAM heatsink on just the Marvell controller might be enough. It probably runs much hotter than the flash chips.

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Sun Oct 23, 2016 1:21 am

I've finally managed to get full lm-sensors readouts for the Asus Z170i Pro Gaming motherboard. It appears from posts on other forums that this is a problem that affects other (maybe all?) Asus Z170/H170 motherboards and requires an additional module to be loaded:

Code: Select all

modprobe nct6775
This then needs to be set to be loaded on every boot.

Now I get lots of extra sensors, some of them are nonsense as with most motherboards and can safely be ignored:

Code: Select all

asus-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
cpu_fan:        0 RPM

nct6793-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
in0:                       +0.34 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +1.74 V)
in1:                       +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in2:                       +3.41 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in3:                       +3.34 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in4:                       +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in5:                       +0.15 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in6:                       +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in7:                       +3.41 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in8:                       +3.17 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in9:                       +1.02 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in10:                      +0.15 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in11:                      +0.13 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in12:                      +0.14 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in13:                      +0.12 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in14:                      +0.14 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
fan1:                        0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan2:                      401 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan3:                        0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan4:                        0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan5:                        0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
SYSTIN:                   +118.0�C  (high = +98.0�C, hyst = +95.0�C)  sensor = thermistor
CPUTIN:                    +28.5�C  (high = +80.0�C, hyst = +75.0�C)  sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN0:                   +25.5�C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN1:                  +111.0�C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN2:                  +110.0�C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN3:                  +110.0�C    sensor = thermistor
PECI Agent 0:              +22.0�C  (high = +98.0�C, hyst = +95.0�C)
                                    (crit = +100.0�C)
PECI Agent 0 Calibration:  +28.5�C  
PCH_CHIP_CPU_MAX_TEMP:      +0.0�C  
PCH_CHIP_TEMP:              +0.0�C  
intrusion0:               ALARM
intrusion1:               ALARM
beep_enable:              disabled

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +23.0�C  (high = +84.0�C, crit = +100.0�C)
Core 0:         +22.0�C  (high = +84.0�C, crit = +100.0�C)
Core 1:         +21.0�C  (high = +84.0�C, crit = +100.0�C)
Core 2:         +21.0�C  (high = +84.0�C, crit = +100.0�C)
Core 3:         +19.0�C  (high = +84.0�C, crit = +100.0�C)

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +27.8�C  (crit = +119.0�C)
temp2:        +29.8�C  (crit = +119.0�C)
This shows the fan speed to be 401rpm when the command was run, with a few web browser tabs and utilities open. Idle may be a little slower.

When stress testing with Linpack the fan RPM was interesting. Linpack runs in cycles of a minute or two which gives a periodic change in temperature which can be seen in the graph below. Comparing this with the fan RPM you can see an unusual saw tooth arrangement. It appears that the Asus fan speed control initially overcompensates for a couple of seconds before reducing fan speed again. Peak is around 680rpm but it then returns to around 620rpm.

Image

To me this looks like something naturally built into the algorithms. Whether it's intentional or not, I don't know and in this system it's close to inaudible anyway but in systems with higher fan speeds this saw tooth could be really frustrating to others. It reminds me of the revving sound I used to get with my Shuttle from many years ago. A more natural curve would be less perceptible.

I'm really happy that it keeps under 700rpm even under stress testing as it proves the CPU cooling of the system is very effective. I'm not running any custom curve, just the silent setting but it may be something to experiment with now that fan readings are available.

quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:12 am
Location: ITALY

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 23, 2016 5:28 am

Nice!!!

Would you like to write down a guide like the one SPCR did for SpeedFan?

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Silent MiniITX Skylake in 13.4 litres: 6400, GTX950, Nin

Post by edh » Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:39 am

In this case this is really just about loading a module for a particular family of motherboards, I'm not sure there is a point in writing a guide for it in particular as it would just duplicate what is written elsewhere. Linux distributions are also too varied for me to cover anything to any accuracy accept Arch Linux which I use, and the Arch Wiki will always cover that better.

Post Reply