Cooling and Silencing my PC (safely!)

Red Alert

I'm beginning to suffer from loud PC syndrome.

So far i've replaced the two case fans with more silent models, and I have replaced the PSU with an uprated one which runs cooler and has a huge quiet fan.

The CPU fan is just incredibly loud sometimes, but only when the cover's on (it seems to speed up with load), it's still loud otherwise. I have an ABit AV8 motherboard and Athlon64 processor, which I think has some CPU fan management ability. This leads me to believe that the case is getting too hot inside. With this in mind:

Given that the PSU fan blows from inside to out, what way should the case fans blow?

Should I replace the CPU fan too with one of those Zalman jobs like Peat's have: http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=8889&type=6&path=14x122x308

Cheers!

PogMoThoin

Front in, back out normally. Is it oced? Check whether its heating 1st with speedfan.

8T8

Do replace the CPU fan with Zalman unit much better than the stock cooler.

In the interim you can also enable AMD's cool & quiet feature which will dynamically alter the speed of the CPU fan and clock speed of the CPU under load (in short it runs quieter when not running anything intensive).

Enable C & Q in bios.
Install AMD CPU driver
In Windows control panel under power options set the power scheme to "minimal power management", it will kick in a moment after if all goes well.

DirkVoodoo

Wow, you can get the Zalman for a good deal cheaper (£35 on OCUK - about 50 euro on OCUK) but unless you are putting in a good sized order then it obviously aint worth it. Just interesting to note the mark-up in Peats tho.

The AKASA Amber fans on komplett are meant to be good. Normally Akasa are quite loud but these puppys push 45 CFMs of air at a peak audible sound intensity level of 18dBA. Was thinkin about gettin one myself for the front fan. Can these be bought in Dublin, anyone know?

Im shocked that a UCD engineer would wonder why a computer fan speeds up with load tho, especially an elec, thought u guys slept with computers

My stock AM2 fan does alright, i aint overclocking tho, but it isnt exactly 'noisy', do those Abits have chipset fans on them?

Red Alert

i was actually unaware the board changed the CPU fan speed at all. i always presumed it ran at one speed!

i run linux most of the time so the Quiet 'driver' isn't an option although i think i can use Speed Step to do that.

no chipset fans on the Abit, it's cooled by a smallish enough heatsink.

DirkVoodoo

Well, if the sound is annoying you then get the Zalman. I was thinkin about one myself but plan to go conroe in a few months . If your getting the Akasas, grab me one too!

Is the AV8 not a socket 939 board? You could go with a Zalman CNPS 7700

8T8

AMD actually provide a Cool & Quiet driver for Linux so the feature can be made to work in Linux but how to go about doing that is beyond me (but I'm sure Google will reveal how). There are also some brief instructions in the text description for the driver.

jozi

Just incase you want to look more into quieting down your pc SPCR has a wealth of information on said subject.

irlrobins

Speaking of silencing, my OEM Ati X800XT card can get a lil noisy, espec this days with the summer temps and humidity. Anyone recommend a good quiet fan for it?

uberpixie

You can buy the Akasa Amber series 120mms in Peats in Dublin.

My friend picked up 2 of em from there and loves them.

For an X800XT have a look at an artic cooler.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Arctic_Cooling_System_Coolers.html

Bout £13 off clockers. Not too shabby!

irlrobins

uberpixie wrote:

For an X800XT have a look at an artic cooler.

Cheers for that.