Any suggestions on a cost-efficient, quiet, heatsink for an AMD XP 1900?

[Crucial]

Sorry to say your problems are not with the heatsink. How fast is the panaflo? What cfm rating was it? Do you see any difference with the side panel off? What are your room temps like?

With a cold boot temp of 40 it sounds like your temp sensors might be off. But you are locking up when getting real hot. Are you overclocking at all? I know it's a lot of questions but at this point it could be anything.

 

[mcvan]

The thing to remember about the AX-7 is that it is normally supplied / tested with a fan that does 80CFM. 80. I think my old stock Celeron 300 HS would do great with 80CFM! That has got to be one hell of a LOUD combo: 80 cfm fan smack up against the resistance of a HS - the rubulence would resemble a tornado.

Your Panaflo is wonderfully quite, at just 21 dBA, but it rated to blow just 24 CFM. Less than a third of the "stock" AX-7 fan.

3 points:

1) Try a more powerful fan -- maybe 35-40 cfm.
2) Let the Arctic Silver "set" properly - the inventor says 2 days of heat makes it cool 2 - 7C better.
3) Don't overclock and see if the CPU will run with Vcore set 0.1 - 0.2 LOWER than normal. Your temps will drop by 2-3C with each 0.1V drop.

 

[Witchfinder]

I finally got MY AX-7 on monday and at 70degrees room temp, it idles at 34 degrees and under load doesn`t get over 38, that`s on an 1800+ slightly OC`d at 138/138 (almost 1900+) with a YS-Tech 34DB 80MM fan on (about 42CFM) in a Lian Li case.. Previously I had a GLobalWin FOP38 with the delta removed and a quieter FOP32-1 fan on and the reduction in noise even compared to this is bliss, the temps dropped about 6 degrees too..

 

[Grendel99]

drwoo123 it sounds like you HSF isn't seating properly. If you have it installed right, even with such a low CFM fan it, it should be running a lot cooler than that. I have a PAL8045(which performs the same as a AX-7) w/ Panaflo L1A (21dba, 24cfm) on a 1600+ at 1800+ speeds. It never get's above 46C under full load. I can think of a few things to help you out. For one, if you are using a shim, get rid of it. They do nothing but help you NOT destroy the core. But if you take your time and be careful you will not crack your core. IIRC you only have one fan in your computer and it's exhausting air? You need to have a intake fan as well, to get some good cool air in your case. Also make sure your fan on the AX-7 is BLOWING on the AX-7. To make sure it is, there is a little arrow on the Panaflo fan on the side that points to which direction the air is coming out. If your temps are STILL not any better, I would suggest getting a higher CFM fan. Perhaps a Panaflo M1A (28dba, 32cfm) or a Panaflo H1A (32dba, 39cfm). You can get the M1A at
FrozenCPU and the H1A at Plycon. Hope that helps!

EDIT: Make sure you get a tailed fan too! Either 3 or 4 pin, it really doesn't matter. And when you put the Thermal Compound on, do a VERY tiny layer. Almost transparent!

 

[Crucial]

You might want to check out the Enermax adjustable 80mm fan here at Newegg.com. It is the model#: UC-8FAB. You can dial in what speed you want from 1000rpm to 3000rpm. Combined with the AX7 it makes a great cooler. I have mine at 2500rpm and it has been keeping my XP 1600 at 42deg C idle in this 90F weather. All while being no louder than my case fans.

 

[sodcha0s]

Sorry if you mentioned it before, but what is the temp inside your case?

 

[Crucial]

Currently it's at 36C. Thats a little higher than normal because of the 85+ deg heatwave we're having right now. Idle temp is hovering around 42C. I have the antec ks282 with an 80mm 28cfm fan in the front and back, along with 2 cold cathode's. I'm very happy with it. I am concerned with noise and this system is much better than when I had the 60mm on there.

 

[drwoo123]

Alright some new info about this accursed 1900!!! I waited the 2-3 days as some people said this might help with the Arctic Silver II. No difference in temp. I have the AX-7 with the panaflo L1A. People said I need a better fan and I think they are right. I was thinking about the YS TECH Adjustable 80mm. I found it on newegg's site OVER HERE. I figure a 48.7 CFM fan should be plenty powerful for cooling, but I could be smoking crack as well. Hopefully this is the final problem. People suggested adding an intake fan, but unfortunately my case doesnt have a vent / area for this. Has anyone had any experience with the YS tech fan.

CPU temps - Idle - 49C --- Load - 57 ---> who knows...reboots without warning
MB temps - Idle - 28-31C --- Load - not sure actually.


I know this is a pretty big differential. I have no shim installed, and I took apart the whole machine and made sure the HSF is mounted properly. So I'm almost positive this isnt the reason. Some have said the ASUS A7A266 incorrectly reports temps (cold boot temp for CPU is 40C). I was wondering if anyone else has this same issue.

thanks for all the help people...anandtech is pretty amazing.

My Rig

 

[vicwang]

Drwoo123:

Man, so you're saying you have NO intake fan whatsoever? What kind of case are you using? That in itself would probably have more to do with your temps than your choice of heatsink & fan.

With that said, anything 40+ CFM should be adequate for the AX-7. I used a 40 CFM Panaflo for a while, and now I'm using a 47 CFM Panaflo. CPU temps are consistently in the low 40's with an XP 1600.

I also was using the adjustable 80mm YS-Tech for a while as my primary intake fan. With the RPM knob sticking out of the case, I could adjust the noise levels whenever I wanted to, which was pretty cool. It's a nice fan with good noise-to-RPM ratio; seemed pretty comparable to Panaflos in that regard.

As for the reboots, I wouldn't necessarily assume they are heat related. The Athlon XP has extremely high heat tolerance (much higher than P4's) and the maximum allowable die temperature is around 90 degrees C. I would try running it with the case off under the identical conditions that are currently causing reboots, and try to determine if heat is really the problem here.

 

[vicwang]

Oh yeah, if you really do not have any way to mount an intake fan, the least you can do is get one of those front-mounted HDD coolers that go in a 5 1/4 drive bay. This one, for example. By putting it in the bay that lines up directly with your CPU, you'll have cool air cooling your CPU instead of hot air from inside the case. In my system it reduces the CPU temps by 3-4 degrees C.

In fact, assuming you have negative case pressure, just removing one of the drive bay covers should work wonders by sucking in cool air without the use of any fans. I tried that just as an experiment and noticed a difference of about 2-3 degrees C.

 

[DeepFried]

Note on the Asus temps... I have built 6 boxes using Asus boards (a7m266 and a7v266-e) and every one of them reports CPU temps incorrectly. The mobo temps seem pretty close but using some third-party thermistors I have found Asus' hardware monitor reporting CPU temps anywhere from 5C-10C higher than the actual temp.

For example, my a7v266-e reports the CPU temp in the 41C-45C idle and 50C-55C loaded with both the stock HSF and my AX-7 w/68cfm Delta screamin-meanie. However, using a different thermistor butted up against the core with some arctic silver 3, I found my load temps actually hovering around 39C with the AX-7.

However, the temp monitor is the *only* thing I don't like about the Asus boards. The a7v266-e has a THEMCPU jumper reserved for using the AthlonXP on-die thermistor in the future, but they haven't put it to use for whatever reason.

 

[mcvan]

<< I have built 6 boxes using Asus boards (a7m266 and a7v266-e) and every one of them reports CPU temps incorrectly. The mobo temps seem pretty close but using some third-party thermistors I have found Asus' hardware monitor reporting CPU temps anywhere from 5C-10C higher than the actual temp... However, the temp monitor is the *only* thing I don't like about the Asus boards. The a7v266-e has a THEMCPU jumper reserved for using the AthlonXP on-die thermistor in the future, but they haven't put it to use for whatever reason. >>

Asus is not unique. The truth is that NONE of the socket-A motherboards CAN read CPU core temperature accurately. They can only measure the temperature of the external CPU casing. The relationship between the temperature of the external casing and the CPU core varies; ie, it's not just 10C off, it's 10C off when the core temp is 40C but not when the core temp is 60C -- at that point it could be 13C or 7C. The point is that not only is the external case temp not the same as the core, the difference between the two varies depending on what the temperature really is!

It's like trying to take a person's temperature by sticking a thermometer in his armpit -- over his down jacket. You got no idea what the real temperature is because of the insulating layer between the core & the outside.

The real error was not made by any of the mobo companies but by AMD for not putting an internal temp diode in the K7 in the first place, and now not insisting that mobos read and make the XP diode data available for monitoring.