Recommend a quite, good Heatsink for P4?

[IsaacHayes]

Makes sense if it's flat layer and you could get a bubble/air pockt.
My case has a hole, with a tube that goes towards the CPU. I can feel cool air coming in from this from the outside of the case. So it is pulling air in from outside some. Yeah, I don't like that feature on web browsers, as it will resize somethings I don't want resized. If it had it to where you could rezise it by holding cntrl + click to zoom/in/out but default to 1:1 I'd use it. I turn it off. Plus this 17" monitor can't do any higher resolution wihtout going to 60hz mad strobing mode. 60hz gives me headaches, 75hz is annoying... some people can't tell.. anyways...

Well, just got done playing some DooM3. Well temps were at 58C according to MBM5!! That's pretty hot.

 

[IsaacHayes]

The duct came with the case. It's an Inwin Case. This is the one I believe.

 

[raggie33]

issac do you ever use prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm to test ya temps it realy bangs ya cpu around a bit i find it a good program to check for stabilty and to check to see if cpu runs to hot.but notice this program can crash ya pc if its not stable so use it at ya own risk i am running it now,after 8 hours or so of running the stress test it has i consider my pc stable

 

[IsaacHayes]

raggie, nope. I don't think I will right now. Maybe I can test after I get a better cooler on here and get temps down. then I might use that to test some O/C so I have an idea/baseline for future. I'll keep it in mind.

 

[eluminator]

I'm guessing it's a CRT monitor. Those things gotta refresh cuz that busy beam of electrons has to keep repainting the phosphor one pixel at a time.

I think these LCD monitors are incredibly good. They still have "refresh" but I don't think it's the same thing. As far as I know, the 60 Hz refresh on these things doesn't annoy anyone. But I really don't know, and maybe I'm about to find out

I'm not a gamer, but it seems the new LCDs have a quick enough response time for a gamer too. Maybe the contrast still isn't good enough for some of the games. The last I knew the only way to get a true black on the screen was to turn it off But for me they are just about perfect. But then I never was bothered by the 60 Hz refresh on the CRTs. I guess my brain is so slow it just filters out the flicker

 

[IsaacHayes]

My brain must be fast becuase I can see that 60hz flicker, and I can hear high frequencies that people can't... LCD is nice, if you get one with low response time. But they are $$$$$! My trinitron is super crisp and clear for a CRT. Like, finer and sharper than some LCD's. That's the only reason I've kept this one.

 

[eluminator]

Yes this Samsung 172T cost me $650 three years ago. I bought another one 6 months later for $500. Today I think you can get a good 19 inch for less than that.

We couldn't have LCDs at work a few years ago because then everyone would want one. I got a chance to order a computer of my choice through my department head, as long as it was a Dell. I ordered a 19 inch trinitron. I knew it would be a tight fit under the shelf at the back of my cube and it would cover a lot of real estate. Well Dell screwed up and shipped a 21 inch Trinitron instead, although the invoice said 19 inch. I think there was only one other 21 incher in the building, and it was a big building

Holy cows that was a big one. I already had two computers on my desk and this was getting rediculous. I had to put one of the keyboards in front of it and it was so big, half the keyboard hung over the front edge of my desk. Darn nice screen though.

 

[IsaacHayes]

EDIT: still have stock intel cooler for now..

Well, PC just froze from playing DooM3 again. temp was 60C according to MBM5. I read that at 55C the Northwood starts to throttle back to protect itself. Makes sense because for a good while before it froze, performance was slower, and I was getting jerks and pauses in the game.

It seems the HS can't get the heat away fast enough. After a reboot the case was warmer than the CPU and the CPU was getting cooler faster than the case, so it is getting fresh air over it from the air duct...

Do you think if I had a "potato salad" cooler with one fan would be good enough, or do I need another fan to pull the hot air out of the case? So should I put the zalman fan braket over the HS and use my air duct, then add a 120mm fan on the back too? I need front mount fan controler now, so I can crank it for games.

 

[BigHonu]

You could also check out SilentPCReview.com and research some of their heatsink articles for some ideas. While their main goal is silence, heat management is a big factor in making a quiet pc so you may get some ideas there.

 

[IsaacHayes]

BigHonu: great, sounds good. Thanks for the link!!

 

[eluminator]

I don't need a manual control. As I said earlier I only have one fan and it's controlled by the motherboard. I just tested my Northwood 2.6c which is on an Intel d865 mobo. I logged everything with MotherBoardMonitor.

When the CPU is idling, it runs around 100 F (38 C) and the mobo runs the fan dead slow. It's around 666 RPM and it's inaudible. When I run the CPU at 100% the temperature reaches a maximum of 141 F (61 C) and the fan turns around 1050 RPM. At that speed I can hear it if the room is quiet.

I believe this Pentium 4 has a max temperature rating of 167 F (75C).

Because it's a hyperthreader, I have to run two programs to get 100% CPU usage according to TaskManager. Just running Super PI only gets the CPU to around 55% on TaskManager, and MotherBoardMonitor shows cpu0 at 24% and cpu1 at 84%. When I run both programs, MBM shows both at 100%.

http://www.hypercon.net/~blisscomm/Pictures/CPU_cooling/MotherBoardMonitorLog/Temperatures_Page.htm

http://www.hypercon.net/~blisscomm/Pictures/CPU_cooling/MotherBoardMonitorLog/Fan_RPM_Page.htm

 

[IsaacHayes]

OK guys, here's another question for ya. I'm still running my stock setup as I haven't had time / funds to get a new HS/Fan yet.

My CPU just rose to 74C before I guess the fan kicked in and cooled it back down. Now it's back down to 43C. Both programs I have kicked on a warning.

What would cause this. I was just sitting here reading stuff. Would the MB be to blame for turning off the fan, Or did the MB throttle down the fan so it would be quite, but the fan got stuck and stopped spinning at that low of RPM???

I'm thinking/hoping it's the later. Any input appreciated.

 

[carrot]

Arctic Silver Thermal compound (from Antec) and a copper Zalman heatsink.

Some mobos will control the speed of the fan to keep noise levels down. Sometimes even turn off until the heat hits a certain point. I probably wouldn't worry about it.

 

[zespectre]

Alpha PAL like these http://www.overclockers.com/articles454/
very quiet

 

[IsaacHayes]

Thanks for more reccomendations guys.

I am worried about it, because while my MB does control the speed, It shut off and kept climbing and climbing until it reached 74C or so and then I heard the fan come on, allthough not full blast. I also verified the fan was not turning by opening the case in a fury. It's a northwood and at 55C they start throttling back.

 

[Arkayne]

Maybe you should bypass the mb connector that powers the CPU fan with a cable from the power supply. That way you can determine if there's a fault with the cpu fan power circuitry. You can probably buy one at the shop or simply fabricate your own temporary harness.

that or plug the cpu fan connector into another mb fan power connector.

edit: bah, I should read more carefully. The stock fan sounds like toast if it's squealing like that. Yep, time for a new fan/hs combo or simply replace the fan. I love Zalman products and the suggestions posted earlier sounds like a winner.

 

[IsaacHayes]

Ok, my tube of AS-5 came in today. I was using Arctic Alumina & Intel HS/Fan from the very start (never used the wax pad). Now I'm using Arctic Silver5 and the Zalman HS. I had to remove my NB chipset HS and dremel 3 of the fins shorter on the corner so the Zalman would fit without hitting it. Cleaned off the old silly putty paste, put on Arctic Alumina for the NB HS. Got the Zalman on, and even routed the fanmate-2 and mounted that next to the PS on the back of the case. I have the fanmate-2 on the Case fan, as that is noiser than the fan that came with the Zalman for the CPU.

Well CPU temps are THE EXACT SAME! (*@#$&@# WTF!

Like every test I've done it's exactly the same. Could it be that my CPU isn't perfectly flat and that is causing it to run at this level and not get any cooler no matter what HS I use? I know it's not perfectly flat, as it leaves scratches on the HS in a square outline of the P4 heatspreader, meaning the edges are higher than the center where the core is underneath where it counts!

Is that what I should do next, is lap my p4 chip? Kind of nervous about that!

 

[IsaacHayes]

bump! Any ideas? HELP!

 

[IsaacHayes]

Well I took off the HS, inspect the AS5, looked just like the photo on the AS website. Well I wiped it off, re-installed etc. Temps seem a couple degrees lower. I used a little mroe paste this time I think. Temps have stabalized to (34 MBM5) or (38 CoreCell MB software). Not sure which is most accurate. I need to check BIOS, last time it read 46C. Should be lower this time.

I'm wondering that if I reverse the flow of my case fan what will happen. It will blow right across the HS, but maybe the turbulance would be bad? I have a duct right over the fan above HS too BTW. If I have 2 fans blowing in, that leaves the PS to take out the heat and the case might heat up more... Hmm.

After playing DooM3, my temps the other day were 52C peak acording to MBM5, it would be higher with the MB software... That's the same as with the Intel and Artic Alumina. I even turned up the case fan to max. I'm gonna try it again now and see what happens. I'd like to see it not get in the 50's under load...

 

[jtr1962]

I'm not sure that you're going to get that much lower temperatures with the Zalman heatsink. It's designed more to make the system quieter than for cooling ability. You might get better cooling with something like this while still remaining fairly quiet. The Zalman "flower"-shaped heatsinks seem more like a marketing gimmick than anything else. Sure, they cool decently enough without much noise, but you probably can't beat the conventional shape heat sinks made of copper and packed with fins.

Just out of curiosity what temperature is the air in the case? If it's much above 35°C you really need to have more air flow via your case fans. Another route is to get a power supply with a 120mm fan such as a Seasonic. That will pull a lot of air through the case without making much noise. I'm in the process of building a new system around a motherboard and XP2500 which someone sent me. I'm using a Seasonic S12 330 power supply. I was able to disconnect all my case fans, cut the processor fan voltage to about 6 volts, and still not have temperatures go above the high 50s. With the processor fan running at normal speed my temps were in the low to mid 40s. Despite the higher temps, the system is still rock stable, and barely audible.

The main thing is not to be too obsessed with temperatures. As long as the system is stable the temperature is fine. Most processors can happily run in the high 50s, even low 60s, and last many years. I'd rather have a quiet system than something which runs 15°C cooler but sounds like a 747 revving up for takeoff.