Well, I just gotta shake head at myself. I did something today that I felt was totally irrational, unnecessary, but felt compelled to do so.
Two weeks ago I purchased my latest setup--an Athlon Thunderbird 1.33GHz on Asus A7M266 motherboard. The 300W power supply has two fans--one sucking air into it from the case and one blowing out--as well as the CPU fan, the motherboard fan, and a front intake fan. The system, with Win2K SP2, was rock solid 24/7 with plenty of heavy processing. It ran hot--I knew Athlons ran hot, but it seemed to run hotter than what was the general trend--about 30/55-58 mobo/CPU idle, and 35/64-67 full load. But no problems whatsoever--it was very stable.
All along I hear people saying that's too high, get it down, your system will burn out, etc. Lots of doomsayer with very little factual data to backup their claim. At the same time a number of people were reporting the same kind of numbers (temperature-wise), with no adverse effect on the system.
So what do I do? Today I purchased two additional fans, one for intake and one for exhaust. Now the system idles at 33/53, and full load at 33/58-59. Will that drop of 7-8 degrees make that much difference in the longevity of the system components? I don't know, but my gut feeling is "no"--I would have far outgrown (or more accurately, Microsoft's then-operating system would have far outgrown) the CPU and system long before the components failed due to heat.
So I'm just sitting here laughing at myself... not sure if I'll keep the fans, or at least both of them. One is a PCI slot fan (Antec Cyclone Blower) sucking hot air out from around the AGP card, which runs pretty hot. The other is the Antec Hard Drive Cooler (three mini-fans), except that I
have made a makeshift duct to channel the air to the CPU. They are both very quiet and seem to work as advertised. I just don't know if I needed them...
Hyun.
Two weeks ago I purchased my latest setup--an Athlon Thunderbird 1.33GHz on Asus A7M266 motherboard. The 300W power supply has two fans--one sucking air into it from the case and one blowing out--as well as the CPU fan, the motherboard fan, and a front intake fan. The system, with Win2K SP2, was rock solid 24/7 with plenty of heavy processing. It ran hot--I knew Athlons ran hot, but it seemed to run hotter than what was the general trend--about 30/55-58 mobo/CPU idle, and 35/64-67 full load. But no problems whatsoever--it was very stable.
All along I hear people saying that's too high, get it down, your system will burn out, etc. Lots of doomsayer with very little factual data to backup their claim. At the same time a number of people were reporting the same kind of numbers (temperature-wise), with no adverse effect on the system.
So what do I do? Today I purchased two additional fans, one for intake and one for exhaust. Now the system idles at 33/53, and full load at 33/58-59. Will that drop of 7-8 degrees make that much difference in the longevity of the system components? I don't know, but my gut feeling is "no"--I would have far outgrown (or more accurately, Microsoft's then-operating system would have far outgrown) the CPU and system long before the components failed due to heat.
So I'm just sitting here laughing at myself... not sure if I'll keep the fans, or at least both of them. One is a PCI slot fan (Antec Cyclone Blower) sucking hot air out from around the AGP card, which runs pretty hot. The other is the Antec Hard Drive Cooler (three mini-fans), except that I
have made a makeshift duct to channel the air to the CPU. They are both very quiet and seem to work as advertised. I just don't know if I needed them...
Hyun.
