athlon 1.4gb cooling

Supercell

Had a deal from a friend that recently fell through for a mobo and cpu , my appetitie was whetted so went ahead and ordered from dabs after doing a little reading arround,

So heres what i ended up with,

Abit KG7-RAID mobo
Athlon A1400AMS3C (1.4gb cpu)
Couple of 256MB 184DIMM PC2100 NP CL2.5 (registered ones have an unknown lead time) (Crucial)


My question is regarding cooling, whats the best solution available , dabs have a "Mini Super Orb Socket A to 1.5Ghz"offering from Thermaltake (DU0462-8) which i am considering, but to be honest i'm not entirely convinced by it, anyone got a reccomendation of something better, most importantly available over here?

Sonic

ThermalRight Sk6

ive heard good things about it, not too expensive

Jak

Yah I put one together last night .. very good and all but makes a hell of a lot of noise.

Lemming

Originally posted by Longfield
anyone got a reccomendation of something better, most importantly available over here?

try http://www.scan.co.uk They've got some good looking cooler units priced. But you might want to NOT look at the 'today specials' page (just in case you feel ill! ). They sell Abit KG MoBo's with cooler units, 256MB DDR ram and some stuff for ludicrous priced packages. And from what I've seen they're cheaper than dabs.com

Supercell

Thanks for the info, sound isnt an issue, i'm always listing to music too loud , anyhow i enjoy the jet engine effect a decently cooled pc makes on boot

The OcUK Super ThermalRight SK6 (Socket A/FC-PGA) looks particularily tasty but their prices are pretty expensive, just buying the cooler includes a £30(sterling) shipping charge which seems a bit much.
I was hoping at least one Irish vendor was selling a quality cooling solution, but that doesnt appear to be the case.

So looks like i'll be sticking with the dabs Thermaltake offering, and have amended my order accordingly.

Though if anyone's got an Irish vendor they know of that has something better, i'm all ears (order hasnt shipped yet so still can amend it)

Thanks

BKtje

I know this sound stupid but just thought i'd say it
make sure heatsink is on proper as the 1.4 will fry in just over a second without it on and it will take mobo with it

probably preaching to the converted but just thought i'd say it

Boston

Personally i went for a ThermoEngine V60-4225( thats the one with the delta,)its an excellent cooler, Its allso on sell at www.Scan.co.uk, if you trust then that is. Im pretty sure either peats or malpins stock them.
i allso have a 1.4ghz. The Abit KG7-RAID mobo is a very nice board. I considered it when buying my rig.

Ps Get Artic Sliver 2 allso, its great

Spoonman

Toms Hardware has a nice article on what happens when CPU's overheat. Its well and good getting a huge heatsink but make sure that sucker is well attached to the chip before turning it on.


http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html

Supercell

Heheh Spoonman, i read that and think i'm going to have nightmares tonight, you scary person you!!

BTW «Bo§ton» thats some rig, mind me asking how much that hit your wallet altogether?

Had a look on both Peats and Maplins websites, Maplins cooling solutions (at least for socket A) appear to be completly pants, Peats do have a decent enough Titan Majesty Twin Cooler Socket A/462 Heatsink & Fan but its out of stock, bahh.

BKtje

That article in Toms' Hardware is what happened to my brand spanking new comp

hf with nightmare

astrofool

thermaltake super orb ain't great, REALLY REALLY LOUD, but cooling wasn't great (had one here) got a thermalright sk6, now the chip can be cooler than the system, one of my better buys (get some arctic silver also)

OSiriS

I have one of them at home, and it has really impressed me.

Boston

£2500 but I got some bargains and it would probably cost £3000 at this point in time, when the euro hits it will go up in price again(sterling exchange). So it was extremely fair price as it wont depreciate as fast as others.

That article is nothing to go by, since the 1.4GHz has some features of the athlon mp. It doesn't overheat as much and hardly ever locks. I mean I know people that wouldn't dream of putting a 300w psu on a 1.2GHz let alone a 1.4GHz.

But that said these babies are hot, and I wouldn't really feel safe with anything that hasn't got a delta. Some people actually think the 80mm delta is less noisy, due to lower pitch then the 60mm, so think about that.

bonkey

As a matter of interest...

when you guys have your 1.4 under load (e.g. games playing, or heavy processing) for any length of time, what does the operating temperature stabilise at?

Put more simply...how cool does your cooler keep your chip?

Note - I am only asking about the 1.4GHz. Temps from other chips are meaningless.

jc

Gerry

Longfield, I hope you haven't bought an orb already. They are rubbish. The fact that they are supposed to cool up to a 1.5ghz chip means nothing. In practise they are crap. Get anything else. For a good cheap cooler, I'd recomend a top of the line coolermaster (cant remember the model number) but it is rated for 1.33 ghz, and is far superior to the copper heatpipe coolermaster which is rated for 1.4ghz, and is also much better than an orb. They are around 8 quid from itdirect.

Or you could get the best taisol cooler from ocuk. Shipping should not be too much, and they will cool a 1.4 ghz to about 45 degrees under load. (in a case with decent cooling)

po0k

Bout tom's article:

Once the heat conducting connection to the CPU is lost, the heat cannot be dissipated anymore and the processor overheats, which leads to different scenarios.

Also, any chance of getting any better sort of cooling for an 800Mhz Slot1 P3?

Boston

OcUk Have some nice Slot 1 coolers but measure your case first

R. Daneel Olivaw

I dont' suppose any tried to build that water-cooled unit that Tom's Hardware showed how to make? I am considering at the moment but it's a lot of work.

The results on the basic model he designed showed that it can cool down to room temp (around 24 celcius, or less) compared to the best of his recent review which could only manage 30.

Plus, you could track the transparent water pipes all aroudn the case which would look pretty good.

OSiriS

I have found that the chip will run a nice 26 degrees most of the time ... rising to 32 degrees after prolonged running at 100% CPU load using an SK6.

Supercell

Yeah Gerry , i put the Orb on, best of a bad lot i suppose.

I haven't two pennies to rub together after it so it will have to do for the moment (is it so terrible that you would recommend not using it at all?)

That SK6 is probably a next paycheck wish list item, though it does gall me to have to double the price just for shipping, isnt there anywhere in Ireland that offers a goood cooling solution, rather than average no name generic rubbish?

I've several systems here that are all working fine so not overly bothered about waiting for funds for the next toy. Mainly want the speed for video capture which is cpu intensive, but will manage for another month or so on what i have if the wait is worthwhile in the end.
Not the type to jump in unless its right.
Toms hardware (thank you Spoon) has reaffirmed what i already knew :that getting cooling right is particularily important with an athlon system.

OSiriS

Get it from www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk, only cost me £5 stg postage, as opposed to £26 stg from overclockers.co.uk

Gerry

To be honest osiris, your temperature sensor is not accurate. The sensor is possibly not touching the chip at all. The temperature is more in the region of 40 to 45 degrees, depending on what speed chip you have. Read the reviews of the sk6 if you don't believe me! Its one of the best coolers around ok. Crap coolers will have the chip running 60-70 degrees, while most coolers can manage 50-55 degrees.

Supercell

Got the bits and peices from dabs this afternoon and assembled the pc.
Took your advice Gerry and tooted of to itdirect and got a coolermaster (your impression of the orb is backed up here http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/heat.htm )

Used the maplins 300w case (fitting hard drives is a pain in the ass in it), all went fine bar the power led connector having the print on the wrong side..no biggie

Anyhow, the case fans i salbotaged form a couple of old machines have the wrong connectors so its all open box..which leads me toi the original question..cooling

Idling in the bios the cpu temp is running at 50c, is this to be expected with an open box and no case fans?


Should it drop with an intake at the bottopm and an outtake on top in a closed case?

astrofool

with the coolermaster, as long as the case isn't excessively full of heat making parts (extra hard drives, overclocked graphics cards etc.) the system should be fine even with it all closed up, but to stop it getting too hot in there, an exhaust fan is usually the best option, and would be what most athlon cases have, removing the hot air seems to be more of a priority than bringing in the cold, so move the fan to the upper back of the case(full tower) or behind the chip in a midi system.

Using a supermicro here, nice big fairly quiet exhaust fan on it, keeps the case at reasonable temperatures all the time, and thats with almost every peripheral slot full

TacT

I bought a nice one that's designed for SocketA and Socket370, it's also helping to cool my gfx card since I installed The next one up was what I wanted but the clip looked to be just a mm too narrow, although looks like a nice unit, not too noisy either.

Supercell

Ran Pirch 95 in xp and the cpu went up to 54c at one point (a little high for my liking).

My tv card software just bluescreened xp everytime i ran it, and being into video capture it was time to kiss xp good bye.

Installed Win98SE and all the various via and athlon updates..and ran Pirch 95 again, this time it "only" maxed out at 52c.

Must say never experienced windows like it though..its click ..then in a blink of an eye its open..nice

Cannot wait to capture a few shows and convert to mpeg in Tsunami..should be hopefully a whole new experience.

OSiriS, that link was pretty good, OMG have you seen the stuff some of those guys get up to..the forum was an interesting read



The world of water awaits me i feel.:cool:

Gerry

If the coolermaster has a pink thermal mat on it, you need to remove that with white spirits and a cloth, and put some thermal compound on the chip ( only a thin layer). If you still have the orb, try that on the chip instead, and see what temps you get? I reckon they will be higher. Be very careful swapping heatsinks around though.

astrofool

with athlons its generally an idea to get the one heat sink, get it working and stick to it, swapping in and out many increases the chance of a crushed core ten fold, best way to know which heat sink to buy is to read reviews of them, get a few reviews indicating the same thing, and you should be safe.

The orb's are virtually impossible to get off, u have to apply huge pressure down and outwards at the same time with your thumbs, and you only have about 2 mm to work with, not the best situation, when you're sitting there 10 mins later praying that the chip will still work

Supercell

Put the orb in and sat in the bios for 10 mins looking at the temp,(the damn thing is LOUD..sounds like its doing something..) by then it had risen to 53c.., i switched off the pc.

When i have the energy to take out the motherboard ect etc etc the cooler master is going back on

Supercell

Coolermaster is back in ,all is well again...orbs...may you rot in hell!!

In fact things are a couple of degrees cooler, originally used the coolermaster with "chewing gum", for the orb i used some thermal paste got from maplins...decided to use it on the coolermaster too this time..is better.

Do NOT use an orb on a kg7-raid..its completly pants and its more expensive..how do they get this product off the drawing table??

astrofool

but they look so cool...

Supercell

Wow just used WPCREDIT and these are what i got, a MASSIVE idle temp improvement.



That was very very nice, cannot believe this feature isnt enabled by default.

WPCRSET is now making sure this happens every boot.

OSiriS

It seems motherboard monitor was lying to me, I powered down and checked the bios, and the temp read 41 degrees after a few hours use, still not bad. At least it means I installed it right.

JustHalf

Osiris, is the thermal sensor actually touching the die-mount?

po0k

Do any of ye know of a good cooler for the GeForce256?
I know the heatsink is well stuck on.
I'd like to try overclocking it a bit.
If i overclock the memory would i gain any advantage is hunting down those little DRAM heatsinks?

astrofool

if its an sdr geforce the best way to improve performance is to overclock the memory.

U can get ram sinks from overclockers.co.uk in the thermaltake memory pack, whether they make a difference is debatable, and if they do it's generally in the region of around 5mhz, nothing to get flustered over, still nice peace of mind to know that they are not overheating greatly. Ramsinks would only seem to make a difference when at high mhz, most chips are limited by silicon quality before they hit the heat barrier ram wise.

The original geforce was not hugely overclockable anyway, was a .22 micron 29 million transistor monster of a chip, so the highest overclock you might do would be 140, maybe more if you're lucky, but once again you'd be bandwidth limited. Overclocking the RAM will get your biggest return overclocking wise

Legion

Originally posted by Longfield
Wow just used WPCREDIT and these are what i got, a MASSIVE idle temp improvement.



That was very very nice, cannot believe this feature isnt enabled by default.

WPCRSET is now making sure this happens every boot.

Longfield,

What is this WPCREDIT?

Supercell

Checkout http://www.overclockers.com/tips481/

and here http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/heat.htm

logic1

Some useful comparisons:

CPU temps

.logic.

Gerry

WPCREDIT is usually used for problems which should be fixed by bios updates. I'm surprised abit did not have cpu idling working correctly. If you have an amd machine and it is running at the same temperature all the time, whether you are doing nothing or when the machine is under full load, you should check for a bios update, or if that fails use wpcredit.

syxpak, what I recommend is a socket 7 cooler for the geforce. You can leave the fan on the cooler, or have a case fan blowing over it. I have removed the (extremely crap) heatsink from a creative geforce ddr and a creative geforce2 gts. This sounds highly stupid, but I held the card in the vice by the heatsink, and then twisted the card. I attached the new heatsink by putting a drop of superglue in each corner, and thermal paste on the rest of the chip. Had to sand the glue off the geforce2 chip also. This heatsink blocks a pci slot, but the chip now runs at a few degrees above room temp, and overclocks to 260.