Beware Golden Orbs

[dmcowen674]

Just about every HSF out there has a flaw or two, they're obviously made cheap so that we have to buy new ones but at the prices and sophistication of them these days I think they should be made to last longer than they are. Lost a machine today (meltdown around the CPU) due to the fan blade popping off the Golden Orb. John W told me he has seem this happen a couple of times already. My rant for the day, on the bright side, means I have to tinker with some hardware and that usually means an upgrade

 

[MoFunk]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
My rant for the day, on the bright side, means I have to tinker with some hardware and that usually means an upgrade

Gotta love it!!!!

Just on a side note, I have nothing but love for my Alpha PAL8045. Sure it can be a slight pain in the booty to install, but this bad boy has been a SOLID performer since day 1. I have no intention of replacing it!

 

[networkman]

Likewise, I have nearly a dozen Thermaltake Volcano 6cu HSFs running here.. some on singles, others on duals, and no problems from any of them.

 

[Assimilator1]

I never thought they were particularly good coolers, but a blade coming off shows really poor build quality!:disgust:

I've just switched from my trusty GW FOP32 to a GW CAK 88T ,it dropped cpu temps by about 9C!

 

[Smoke]

Be sure any upgrade has some sort of thermal protection built in to the BIOS, if you are going to stick with AMD XPs, so you don't suffer another similar loss in the future.

Though I'm having some problems with a cheapo ECS L7SOM at the moment (actually getting it RMAed), even this relatively inexpensive MB has a Shutdown Temperature option in its PC Health Status BIOS. Now I must admit I don't have any idea if it would really work and save the CPU but at least that is what it is supposed to do.

 

[Evadman]

I bought one golden orb, and just from looking at it saw that it was not the best quality. I ended up giving it away, and using a $6 HSF from Coolermaster. No problems. I think I am going to switch a bunch over to the SVC GC68

I am also thinking about the 2 galaxy Coolers

and probably a few of the older GC 10's for some duron baised systems.

 

[dmcowen674]

Hey Greg, it was an Intel that bought the farm. It was the best of the Intel bunch PIII 800E 133 FSB 256K cache running near 1 Gig. Out of the 6 machines, 3 were Intel.

 

[Robor]

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the G.O. I've had a few running 24/7/365 all o/c'ed and they're still working okay (fingers crossed).

Now I'm running a big bad factory Intel HS/F.

 

[Smoke]

Intels, dang. :Q

I didn't think that happened to Intels! I just assumed it was a xxxx+ XP.

 

[Crazee]

Originally posted by: Smokeball
Though I'm having some problems with a cheapo ECS L7SOM at the moment (actually getting it RMAed), even this relatively inexpensive MB has a Shutdown Temperature option in its PC Health Status BIOS.

Hey Hey there is a difference between cheapo and inexpensive That board is an awesome board for crack racks

For my crunching on the crack rack I use this Coolermaster. It runs between $8-9 and with the 70mm fan it is not as loud as some of the other inexpensive HSF on the market.

I have used the PAL8045 and I must say it is an awesome cooler I have also used this Coolermaster and it cools very nicely but it is LOUD! I think I am going to replace the fan

I just put these Volcano 9s on my dualie 1700 and they are nice and can be adjusted to be quiet

 

[Smoke]

People tell me the Volcano 6CU+ are loud but I don't even hear them. One dubious advantage of popping the cap on over 30,000 Shotgun rounds per year for 14 years.

Ouch! LOL

 

[poopaskoopa]

Originally posted by: networkman
Likewise, I have nearly a dozen Thermaltake Volcano 6cu HSFs running here.. some on singles, others on duals, and no problems from any of them.

I like 6cu as well. Though mine(the fan) died after 7 months or so.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Evadman
I bought one golden orb, and just from looking at it saw that it was not the best quality. I ended up giving it away, and using a $6 HSF from Coolermaster. No problems. I think I am going to switch a bunch over to the SVC GC68

I am also thinking about the 2 galaxy Coolers

and probably a few of the older GC 10's for some duron baised systems.

Evadman,

I'm using 4 of those GC68 HSF on XP1600+....using an adjustable 80mm fan...set to medium/medium-high speed..and temps remain around 45 to 49C all day long....that's with two 80mm case fans in cheap cases!

Smokeball.....best of luck to you on the L7SOM...I just got two more in!

David...sorry about orb....maybe time for a new rig, eh!

more..more..more! :Q

 

[Crazee]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Smokeball.....best of luck to you on the L7SOM...I just got two more in!

Argh how am I supposed to catch the Feds if you keep adding more computers Engineer?

I would accuse you of being Borg and assimilating my crack rack technology if I didn't know you found the L7SOM on your own

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Crazee

Originally posted by: Engineer
Smokeball.....best of luck to you on the L7SOM...I just got two more in!

Argh how am I supposed to catch the Feds if you keep adding more computers Engineer?

I would accuse you of being Borg and assimilating my crack rack technology if I didn't know you found the L7SOM on your own

Hehe...StarFleet didn't steel it from you...we stole it from the nice review of their setup at BBR!

Actually, a great board for the price.....since it is all included!

I just noticed that it doesn't have an AGP slot, so no serious upgrade of video later....like that really matters anyway!



SVC heatsink/fan similar to Volcano 5...for $1.99 each...good up to XP1800+

 

[dmcowen674]

Interesting. It wasn't just a blade that came off, it was the whole fan. Was able to put some super glue on the permanent magnet and press it back into the fan casing. It's working fine now. I have to report the Intel 800EB is also OK. I didn't try it in another board until a little while ago, figured with the fan popping off the chip was fried. Turns out to be the MB as the casualty. I'll get the Intel back up in another MB. I put the 800Eb back in service and have a 533 idle now so actually production is basically the same now even though down one machine since the slowest chip is offline and the rest are running 1 Gig or better.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

how are they for noise? i want to replace my fop 32-i.... how's their cooling performance too?

Originally posted by: networkman
Likewise, I have nearly a dozen Thermaltake Volcano 6cu HSFs running here.. some on singles, others on duals, and no problems from any of them.

 

[Choralone]

htmlmasterdave -

Have you tried strapping a decent 80mm fan onto that FOP32-1? I've got a good but relatively quiet (well quieter than the 60mm fan it came with) 80mm fan on my FOP32-1. I've got an XP 1800+ O/C'd to 2000+ speed at 1.80v. The temps usually are in the 45C-50C range depending on how hot it is in my 'puter room. Just bend the fan clips outword a bit and an 80mm fan fits fine.

 

[kmmatney]

Orbs suck! A company we work with is using the orb to air cool their X-ray tube (see link)

Orb cooling an X-ray tube

I tried telling their engineers that the orb is a low grade cooler, and there are better coolers out there, but they like the orb. (I think they just like the way it looks).

 

[Evadman]

I tried telling their engineers that the orb is a low grade cooler, and there are better coolers out there, but they like the orb. (I think they just like the way it looks).

That is the only reason I bought mine in the first place.

 

[Baldy18]

I was putting a golden orb on one of my machines one time and accidentally hit the fan and a blade came off. The thing that conufsed me was that the small force I applied to it should have never made that happen. I tried pushing on the other blades up to twice as hard and none of them came off. So I called Thermaltake and they sent me a new one no questions asked. I haven't had that problem with the new one and, it has worked perfectly for over a year.

 

[dmcowen674]

Baldy,

After examining it and putting it back together found that it is a good design as far as the motor itself being a permanent magnet design riding on a spindle. The two flaws I found is they need to have a hole through the top of the fan assembly and use a C clip to hold it in place. I will modify one that way myself (3 of the systems have this fan) to test it's longevity set up that way. The second flaw is the magnet itself is not secured to the fan housing, they simply pressed it into it. I put some super glue in it this time but will drill 3 holes around the assembly and insert small allen type screws to hold it in place. These are just ordinary physical engineering practices that should've been in place for this type of mechanical design.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Originally posted by: Evadman

I tried telling their engineers that the orb is a low grade cooler, and there are better coolers out there, but they like the orb. (I think they just like the way it looks).

That is the only reason I bought mine in the first place.

As the purchaser of the broken GORB I thought I'd put in my two cents worth. At the time I was buying parts at computer shows in Dallas (1st and 3rd Saturday) the GORB was the only real option I had. Plus, they were reasonably priced and looked cool! If I would ever see an alpha I'd buy it, but I think I only got one from the Dallas shows. A few times I ended up with GORB knock offs. A few months back I had a system acting strange. When I opened the case I found the GORB fan blade separated from the HS. The bottom part of the fan housing was still attached. It was not fixable. Having a second one go out pisses me off and means that I need to replace them all to be safe.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Avoid Dragon Orbs as well. Pure junk. :|

 

[nagger]

I had a nice key holder made out of a Golden Orb.

Since it was heavier than the keys it was holing I switched to a nicer leather one