Excess heat - A modern myth?

[Alan]

I have a CoolerMaster 200 with 4 case fans, a fan on the chipset, two PIII 933MHz CPUs ovreclocked to 1,050MHz, Enermax PSU with 80mm and 90mm fan, the CPUs have reasonably big 60mm fans. I have disconnected all the fans except the CPU fans and the 80mm PSU fan.
Using business type software the CPU temps. don't go above 30°C and running 3DMark 2000 several times takes them to 40°C. When all the fans were on, 3D Mark took them to 37 - 38°C. In all cases, the chassis temp. stayed at 25°C (with and without fans).??!!
I also have an Athlon 1200 clocked to 1330MHz with a copper bottomed Taisol HSF, an 80mm fan in the PSU and two 80mm case fans (exhaust/inlet). I have switched off a drive bay cooler which has 2 x 90mm fans exhausting the case insides. This case is only an Enlight midi steel case - nothing special. Repeating the 3D Mark 2000 several times gave a score of 5,017 (Hercules Prophet 4500) and took the CPU temperature to 43°C.
How is it that here and in other web sites like Bit-Tech, heat appears to be a massive problem for others. Have I got it wrong, or am I doing things right?
(Tongue in cheek) Or is it that all the hot air comes from people determined to sell cooling kit that isn't really required?

[Alan]

P.S. Ambient temperature at times of these tests was 23°C and Motherboard Monitor 5 was used.

[Alan]

P.P.S I do realise that ambient has a lot to do with the other temperatures and in warmer situations, more cooling is required - but still!

[Alan]

And another thing (this isn't a rant, honest). I re-connected the 90mm fan on the PSU (the fan that sits over the CPU position) and it made no difference whatsoever.
I disconnected it again and re-connected only the top blow hole on the case. This was worth while - a 4° C drop when the CPUs were being heavily used. I will try all the other combinations over the next days to see which fans make a difference and which don't. The score so far is 2nd fan on Enermax PSU - no effect.

[Tami]

Intels dont generate that much heat, are you dissapointed? I'm running three systems at once and I have less fans than you. Be happy less noise hehe :)

[The Pimp]

Just don't use Coolermaster Premium compound!!! Spend your money on something that actually lowers your CPU temp not increases it by 10C!!!! This was on a Antec Jet Cool (that I bought a couple of weeks ago from here) and using the stock thermal pad of the Antec HSF, the idle temp of my t'bird was 31C, after changing the thremal compound to the coolermaster crap , it rose to over 41C IDLE!!! They may as well have coloured the compound brown than grey as the brown would have suited it better!!!
Any chance that you have got a spare JetCool thermal Pad lying around have you Graeme??? :D :D

[Psycho]

I have 4 SCSI IBM hard drives (2x 7200 & 2x 10k rpm) Ge-force 2 Ultra 64mb AGP and am runing a 1.33Ghz Athlon TB @ 1500 (10x150FSB) & 512 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM on an Asus A7A266 DDR motherboard.

My case in a Lian Li PC60 with 2x 80mm Delta's for intake from the front, 80mm Delta exhausting at the rear, and a standard 80mm exhausting in the top center of the case. I also have a YStech 120mm intake fan cooling my cards from the side.

On the CPU I have a copper shim + Arctic Silver compound coupled to a Thermo-Engine heatsink & 60mm Delta fan.

Ambient temp is usually 20 d/C and after an hour of Quake3 my motherboard registers 25d/C and CPU registers 40d/C. My case sounds like a hoover, but it keeps everything cool and I never suffer from instability or random crashes. My friends all run 1GHz - 1.2GHz Athlon's and regularly hit temps of 50 - 60 d/C without problems, so I think things have become a little over-rated in the heat=imminent death stakes. :p null

[scottie]

it seems to make a difference where the pc is sited - I got 15C difference in cpu temps at one end of the room compared to the other!! i got a long room though.

[Graeme*Kustom*]

now that's one cooling mod the modding sites haven't covered yet.. any takers? :)

[Alan]

Thanks to a trip to "Kustom House", I have changed my Cooler Master 200 for a 110. I stand by my previous comments and I haven't even bothered to connect ANY of the case fans. Top CPU temperatures have peaked at 36º C and the case remains at 25ºC. Ambient temperature is 22ºC (Pair of PIII 933MHz CPUs clocked to 1,050MHz)
My kids' system mentioned before (1.2GHz TB clocked to 1,320MHz) with a Prophet 4500 card and 10,000rpm SCSI drive, has only 2 x 80mm fans (intake/exhaust) in a steel midi case, ususally runs Max Payne or CMR2, is almost enclosed in a computer desk and CPU temp. only hits 41ºC sometimes. (Ambient temp. 25ºC)
I reckon unobstructed space in the case and good airflow are the main requirements for a cool system.

[PJ Matthews]

well my tbird 1.4 gig is running at 67 degrees c after being on for a whole day. This is my third system that runs at those sort of tempretures, all AMD. Two were ordered from different manufactures (one was time - no good, one is evesham - VERY good) and one I built myself. Friends using identical systems are getting tempretures around the the 40 degree amount so I'm not sure if its what I'm doing, where I keep it or what. I think the major factory may be the power supply, they get very warm.

My next system will be based around the Coolermaster 201 so we'll see what sort of tempretures we'll get from that. I'm nto a big over clocker/keep system cool freak but am looking forward to modding a coolermaster 201. Its great to see KustomPCs have then in stock, pitty they can't stock the laser etches ive mentioned in the suggesions forum, looks like I'll be importing those myself, so if anyone is interested in getting THE BEST etches you can get, contact me at:

walibe@walibe.com

Cheers

[Drexel]

I am running an XP1800 with a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ (no thermal comp) and temp starts at about 30 degrees and works its way up to about 52 deg and sits there whether idle or load.

I have lifted the mobo up to the light with the HSF fitted and I can see a very small amount of daylight at one side. I think that one of the rubber mounts on the processor is a bit too fat and is holding the 7+ away from the chip.

Any ideas what I can do? Can I shave the rubber mount down a bit so that it sits flush or is that just stoopid?

[Dizzie]

Originally posted by Psycho:
<STRONG>
My case sounds like a hoover, but it keeps everything cool and I never suffer from instability or random crashes.</STRONG>

wouldn't you prefer a nice silent system? P3 1ghz with quietpc.com HSF and PSU. Ah - bliss :)

[Alan]

I've since changed my kit - now a CM ATC 600 desktop case which does not have the best of air flows, a P4 1.6GHz overclocked to 2,130MHz, a 2,800 rpm stock fan, Radeon 8500 and 2 IBM 10,000 rpm SCSI drives. It ticks over at 31°C and game maximums are 44°C
There's no issue here, is there.
Athlons must really be toasters!

[HomHomHom]

I get 45*c at idle and a good 49*c load, but its a cheap taisol with a panaflo 60mm on top, not very quiet and also crap so I'm going watercooled....

Graeme: how quiet is the papst "silent" fan - quieter than the fan on a geforce 2 mx400 I hope?
Mine's making grinding noises, so i'm getting a gfx waterblock as well, cool the lot off.

Does anybody know how I can watercool a psu safely? and does anyone know of a manufacturer of these blocks?

Thank god for my Moddin.net (http://www.moddin.net) discount and Be Cooling (http://becooling.safeshopper.com) :D :D :D

£75 quid here we come....

[ 07 June 2002: Message edited by: HomHomHom ]

[McToby]

HomHomHom, have a look @ BladeRunners page, ZeroFanZone (http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk) he has done a very nice guide on how to totally watercool your puter....

[iggy]

&lt;pimp&gt;www.coolhardware.co.uk&lt;/pimp&gt;

and ocpc (http://www.overclockedpc.co.uk) for w/c components made in britain!!

[Dingo]

For those of us who do not have a cool P4, cooling is a pain in the neck. The made in Britain cooling parts may be OK for some, but the crapy look and extortionate price of those plastic tubes they call reservoirs decided me to post this link to Innovatek (http://www.innovatek.de/sites/wkuhler.html) Hope you can read German. Very nice stylish w/c stuff. Some of it I have seen posted in the UK, but not the radiators.
Has anyone seen any performance figures for radiators and coolers?
Do Kustom PCs do any of this nice water cooling gear?
PS those Antec blue fans still look good with one of your Alluminum filter meshes. And excellent service from Kustom PCs, thanks.

[ 27 July 2002: Message edited by: Dingo ]

[ 27 July 2002: Message edited by: Dingo ]

[CrazyOC'er]

Well ive got a lian Li PC 60 case with 5 case fans, an exhaust over my graphics card, and a huge coolermaster heatsink and fan and my temps are up in the 60's somewhere!!! Feck knows what im doing wrong!!!