By pursuing a quiet pc will I risk instability?

[bupkus]

If you can see my sig you can see most of what I'm running.
Here's what I have for cooling:

Thermalright SLK-900U HSF w/ Zalman ZM-F2 92mm fan
According to the bios the cpu is doing 38C with the fan @ 2445 rpm.

I inserted the RC56 noiseless connector that comes with the Zalman fan and now I have:
41-42C @ 1400 rpm
Unfortunately, now I can hear the fan on the video card.

Now I'm thinking of a fanless video card. (I don't play UT2004 anymore so why not.)

Since my cpu is overclocked with a vcore @ 1.68, do I run a risk of instability?

 

[Rip the Jacker]

Well. My video card with the ZM80C-HP + ZM-OP1 is . . . Silent.

I run 1.68 as well or something near that and i get 40C idle and around 50C load.. so you're fine...

 

[Navid]

Check for instability by running prime95 overnight. While running, the CPU temperature goes up. If there is instability, the program (prime95) will crash and you will know.
If prime is still running the next day, you have no stability issue with your CPU.

The VGA cooler is not going to have an effect on your CPU. But, if your VGA is not cooled properly, you will have graphics instability.
You can check for graphics instability by running ATItool and scanning for artifacts. let it run for a while (an hour) If it finds artifacts, it will restart the search. At the end, you can tell by the time that it says it has been running with no artifacts.

 

[glorygunk]

If you're not playing games anymore, why risk overclocking your CPU? There is a tradeoff between efficient cooling and noise. I run a very similar setup. If you're looking for more office apps...why don't you increase your RAM size?

 

[glorygunk]

If you're not playing games anymore, why risk overclocking your CPU? There is a tradeoff between efficient cooling and noise. I run a very similar setup. If you're looking for more office apps...why don't you increase your RAM size?

 

[bupkus]

At 42 degrees C I can't even hear the cpu fan at 1400 rpm. Mostly what I hear now is the fan on the video card.
I'm going to trade my brother his Matrox G550 for my PNY Ti4200. That way I can get a quieter pc and he can play UT2004 with his son.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Should work out.

 

[bupkus]

I'm looking at my monitors now with the G550 and man, it's not as good as my Ti4200. Yes, I did an autoadjustment with the analogue model and it's still not as good.

However, my desktop is quieter right now than its ever been.

 

[Mrvile]

A passive GPU cooler would probably work quite well on a Ti4200, which is a pretty cool (temp wise) card. I'd be worrying if you had a 6800GT or X800XT or whatnot, but with that card you're fine.

 

[cyberknight]

ahhh yes, quieting PC's is a difficult and compromising exercise. You may wish to consider more quieter fanned solutions like the Zalman VF-700 or one of the Arctic Cooling VGA coolers.

 

[bupkus]

I'm gonna consider that, but I'm also thinking for the bucks of a VGA cooler I can subsidize the purchase of a new Radeon 9550. However, if a HTPC is something I want to consider into the future it appears from htpcnews that nVidia has the lead.