HELP!! i need to cool down my AMD (surprise, surprise...)

[fishsponge]

My CPU (AMD Athlon XP2000+) idles at around 45-50 degrees C, and runs flat out at about 57 degrees. I have a fan on the PSU, and another on the CPU (the default heatsink and fan that came with the Athlon). There is an intake fan in the front at the bottom, and an outtake fan at the back, near the top. 4 fans in total.

do you still think one of those 5.25" drive bay fans could help me?? i have three 5.25" bays free, so fitting one isn't a problem. I have a 400W power supply too, and only one CD drive, one floppy drive and one hard disk, so power shouldn't be an issue.

Also... can i attach this fan to my last remaining RPM sensor on my motherboard, so my nice little PCAlert program can tell me how fast it's spinning??

Do you know of any particularly good ones to buy (in the UK), and if so, do you know any direct URLs to the exact products??

I had a reply to this on another forum too, and here is my reply to that post...

The tower case is certainly big enough... i have two 3.5" bays, and four 5.23" bays, and i'm only using one of each. the hard drive is mounted underneath the floppy drive with a 2" gap above it. The intake fan is below this.

The IDE cables are extremely tidy, and are causing no obstructions at all... i was surprised how tidy this case was when it was all setup actually.

The holes in the case where the fans are mounted are indeed big enough too... there's no air-flow restrictions there

and yes... the exhaust fan is installed at the top of the case, at the back, just below and to the side of the PSU.

As for water cooling... would this have a significant impact on my CPU temperature?? i have a few questions regarding it...

- if it idles at 45-50, and runs flat out at 58 degrees C, then what would these values be with a water cooler fitted??

- how much would a decent water cooling system cost?

- are they easy to fit?? (i mean *really* easy)

- do they take much power (if any)??

- is there any risk of me messing it up, or risk of it breaking and spilling water everywhere and ruining everything?

thanks in advance for your help... it's massively appreciated

cheers!!

[mAdMaLuDaWg]

Nothing wrong with those temps IMO, my XP 2000+ idles at ~60Cs and runs on about ~70C on full load.

[fishsponge]

yeah, but surely 70 degrees is still a bit too hot in an ideal world...

won't it last a lot longer if i keep it as cool as possible? i'm just a little concerned because we are coming into summer now, and it can get very hot in the room that it's in. Unfortunately, i'm renting this room, so i have no other cooler rooms i can put it in. aircon units are way too expensive too.

[AlexanderAkulick]

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[beppodmime]

Several things you can try to reduce temperatures. One thing, is get yourself a better quality HSF. While the ones that come with the retail processors are of good enough quality for AMD, they may or may not give you the results you would like with temps. A couple good coolers I have had personal experience with are the Cooler Master HAC-V81 , which is a fairly decent fan at a good price. Comes with a variable speed fan with a fan speed adjustment knob that can be mounted using the included PCI slot cover. Thing is loud at full speed, but pretty quiet on low. Only costs 12=15 dollars USD, too, so it's really not too bad a deal. Only thing that may be an issue is the mounting clip. Depending on the orientation of the socket, you may or may not have to either bend the clip, or like me on the Biostar board I installed it on, it covered one of the RAM slots, so I'll have to remove the cooler if I ever need to change the RAM. Another good cooler that plenty of people here will recommend is the Vantec Aeroflow. This one is usually around 30-40 dollars USD, but the cooler is of high quality design, and moves alot of air at a respectable noise level.

Another thing you can try is lowering the core voltage on the CPU if your BIOS supports it. I guess you have a Palamino core CPU? If so, the core voltage default should be 1.75V, and if your CPU doesn't mind it like my girlfriend's computers didn't, lowering the core voltage to 1.65 or so should knock off a little bit of that temperature.

As for the watercooling question, a decent quality kit can cost you upwards of 200 dollars easily, probably more. I'm running an Innovatek Set5 right now, and all told the thing cost me around 260 dollars USD. It would indeed have a significant impact on cooling. Overclocked 400MHz and with a .150 voltage increase, my Barton 2800+ gets full load temps of 40C, 36 if I open the window next to the comp.

As far as what your temps would be if you went with water, it really entirely depends on where you have the radiator fixed and what kind of ambient temps you are getting in the room. Keep in mind, that with most mid-towers you are going to need to perform a bit of surgery on your case to get the things working. However, all is not lost. You can buy an all in one external unit that would require very little if any modifications. Corsair has a watercooling unit with an expected retail price of 215 dollars USD complete with waterblock on the way. A review is here:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles746/

Koolance also makes an external unit, but it's a bit pricier and does not include the waterblock.

With any water cooling kit, yes there is a risk of spillage. But if you test fit everything and pay attention to what you're doing when first setting it all up you don't really have to worry about it. I don't think you'll have to worry about things like hoses bursting or stuff like that. Most manufacturers of complete kits recommend you set everything up outside of the case beforehand and run it for 24 hours to check for leaks.

As for powering them, the Corsair kit works off of the power supply, but according to Corsair's help forum, it doesn't draw off TOO much power. The Innovatek kit uses a 110V plug for me, although I'm sure they have 220V versions across the ocean. The Corsair kit actually looks pretty darn good for the money, although they are just now hitting retail, so expect to wait a little while before you are able to get your hands on one.

Hope this information helps you a little. If you have any more questions, or if I failed to explain something clearly, let me know and I'll try and be of further assistance.

[wju425]

Originally posted by mAdMaLuDaWg
Nothing wrong with those temps IMO, my XP 2000+ idles at ~60Cs and runs on about ~70C on full load.

Those temps don't seem to bother you. How long you've running like that? My temps were like yours. I've been worrying my head off after reading what others say about their temps. After some mods I got the temps down about 10c.

\o/ Billy

[Omardeth]

i use the vantec aeroflow . my xp 2100 use to idle at 43-44c with retail stock amd hsf . i canged to the vantec aeroflow cpu and it droped idle temp to 33-34c .

[Bruneau]

I idle in the 50's and crack 60C on occasion. Been running like that for about 10 months, no probs.

These aint yo daddy's caddys. Chips these days can take a lot o' heat.

[wju425]

That's a relief to know.

\o/ Billy

[woodbutcher]

70 C seems a bit warm to me.
Thats 172 F, right?
I thought the max operating temp for the Tbred core was 185 F.
My palomino core slows down when it hits about 52 C. Not alot, but it's noticable.
Personally I like my max temps to be no higher than the mid 40's.

WB

[Dazbo666]

I've got my XP2600 at 45degrees when running SETI, and up to about 53-55degrees when gaming.... so those temps sound too high to me - at least I wouldn't be comfortable running my system that hot

BTW, I've got a Thermaltake Volcano 9 Coolmod, and a dual 80mm fan PSU to do the cooling

[wju425]

Aw gee guys, now you got me worrying all over again.

I got mine (xp1700 palo) set to throttle and I did notice some slowdown sometimes. At least it's less frequest now that I did some mods.

\o/ Billy

[Bruneau]

That's why I won't throttle mine. I overclock to run wide open. WHY, turn around and throttle it down? If you're going to use a throttle why oc at all?

[wju425]

I'm not overclocking now but I was at 137fsb. I found that it's faster at normal.

The options I have in my bios are throttle or shutdown so I chose throttle.

\o/ Billy