Cooling my new box

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T

TLW

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Dec 7, 2005
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Got my new rig up and for the most part running solidly, some network gremlins seem to have been ironed out and now the worry du jour is the temperatures in the case

Hardware config is in my sig, the two upper section fans in the P182 are on low, anything more and they're too noisy, the TRUE has a 1400rpm fan blowing onto the sink and the GPU has the stock cooler, everything is running at stock clocks

Idle temps from Speedfan:

CPU:
39
Cores 0, 1, 2, 3:
44, 44, 48, 42
System:
41
GPU:
74 <--This concerns me

Load temps:
CPU:
55
Cores 0, 1, 2, 3
57, 56, 59, 54
System:
41
GPU:
80-85

These seem high to me, coming from my old A64 and x800 system, the computer is in a warm house, i have a sneaking feeling the TRUE hasn't connected well with the CPU as i'm sure i should be getting less than 45-50 idle temps!!!!

Any ideas? I'm getting increasingly tempted to watercool the system to try and get a balance of high performance without the noise level of having all the fans turned up to hurricane settings
 
RallyMaster

RallyMaster

Diamond Member
Dec 28, 2004
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8800 Ultras are always hot. If you can, you can grab an aftermarket cooler and that will drop your GPU temps quite a lot. The other method would be turn the fan speed up on that sucker to full blast the whole time.
 
WoodButcher

WoodButcher

Platinum Member
Mar 10, 2001
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You don't need water. Water is a hobby unto itself. As RM suggests an after market air cooler on the vid will turn the trick provided the case has good airflow.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
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how can i get better air cooling without sacrificing noise though? as that's the appeal of watercooling is the performance to noise ratio, not outright cooling power

i was under the impression the 8800ultra cooler was one of the better stock ones, which cooler for the 8800 will do the business and keep compact? the P5Q seems to have been laughably designed with a PCI slot either side of the GPU so there's zero room to play, i've already had to put the wireless adapter in upside down as the soundcard covered ~75% of the fan intake on the 8800
 
WoodButcher

WoodButcher

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Mar 10, 2001
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Are you using the upper hard drive bays? can they be moved to the lower? Does the upper HD cage have a fan in the front on the chassis? can you put another fan in the 5.25 bays? Water will add 2 fans outside the case so this would add noise as well, you need to get air to that vid card. Maybe a little creative ducting would help.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
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Originally posted by: WoodButcher
Are you using the upper hard drive bays? can they be moved to the lower? Does the upper HD cage have a fan in the front on the chassis? can you put another fan in the 5.25 bays? Water will add 2 fans outside the case so this would add noise as well, you need to get air to that vid card. Maybe a little creative ducting would help.
Click to expand...
Upper HDD bay will be coming out completely once i lose the last IDE drive in my system tomorrow and replace it with a sata in the lower compartment, there's no fan on the front of the chassis in that position but could probably fit one once they're removed. watercooling it would lose the CPU and GPU fans so adding a couple of quiet 120mm ones in compensation wouldn't create that much extra noise would it? could you mount two fans at the front of the case occupying that HDD cooler spot and the lower two optical bays so it was blowing cool air over the radiator and also blowing air through the case perhaps? i'm not looking for silence, just quiet
 
WoodButcher

WoodButcher

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Mar 10, 2001
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I don't believe you'll be able to cool that quad and gpu effectively with anything less than a triple rad or dual loop setup. IIRC the total length of my swiftech 120x2 is 11+ inches so fitting this in the front of your case is unlikely.
 
Lemon law

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Your CPU is a 45nm fab, bottom line, unlike most intel 65nm fabs that have a red line of 63.4 C, you do not have any heat cpu heat problems until you get to 71.4 C.
And while your load temps may approach 63.4 C, they are light years shy of the 71.4 minimum alarm point.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16883229054

You do have a big temperature problem with your GPU. Since your CPU and GPU live in different neighborhoods, you address the specific heat problems totally differently. And while I am not familiar with your GPU specs and its red line point of reduced life, putting more fans on your GPU may be the the low cost biggest bang for the buck.

But end conclusion, you may gain something water cooling the GPU, you gain nothing water cooling the CPU. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. At some point a better GPU card is far cheaper than than a $130.00 minimum water cooler.

 
error8

error8

Diamond Member
Nov 28, 2007
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First of all, the G80 cores always ran hot. 80-85C for a full load GPU is a normal temperature! An aftermarket cooler for your videocard, besides that fact that you throw money on it, will cool the gpu better, but it will probably warm up your case further.
Your cpu temps are perfectly fine. You have a 40 degrees delta until T junction and that is just cold.
My advice to you is, download Riva Tuner and create some fan profiles for your GPU, so that the fan will speed up whenever the card reaches a certain temperature threshold. It's the most logical and economical solution, really.
 
error8

error8

Diamond Member
Nov 28, 2007
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Originally posted by: Lemon law


You do have a big temperature problem with your GPU.
Click to expand...

No he doesn't. G80 gpus have a "core slowdown" threshold of over 100C. So staying bellow that, will not kill the GPU. Of course that the card will probably live longer at 50 C then it does at 100C, but how much longer, nobody can say that.

My 4870 could touch 95C under load, if I let the fan at stock and there was no problem. Modern gpus are working at very high temperatures these days, because they generate a lot of heat and it's quite hard for the producers to create a cooler that is compact and quiet in the same time, so they create GPUs with high resistance at high temperatures.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
82
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Well i've removed the IDE HDD box, cleaned up the wires (what few wires there are in my case, only 2 GPU power connectors and 3 SATA leads) and assigned a custom fan profile so it's just quieter than the case fans when idle and idle temp has dropped to 71deg in similar ambient conditions

hardly the fonz but better than 80 i spose...
 
disports

disports

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2008
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Sall good, the GPU normally runs that hot. I think mine idled at 80 degrees with the default fan speed. I did try higher fan speeds but it would get a little too noisy. Idling in the low 40s with accelero s1 rev 2 now.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
82
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Arctic cooling doesn't have the accelero as being 8800Ultra compatible, is yours passively cooled? even if the accelero did fit my ultra i don't think i'd want to passively cool it and the turbo module isn't going to fit between the PCI cards in my case

ideally what i need is a cooler that sucks air in at the front and sends it out the back of the case through the PCI slot under the GPU, but such a product doesn't seem to exist, perhaps some butchery of a zalman GV1000 or similar with some ducting to the 92mm fan opening at the front of the case so the GPU airflow is kept completely separate from the rest of the case...
 
WoodButcher

WoodButcher

Platinum Member
Mar 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: TLW

ideally what i need is a cooler that sucks air in at the front and sends it out the back of the case through the PCI slot under the GPU, but such a product doesn't seem to exist, perhaps some butchery of a zalman GV1000 or similar with some ducting to the 92mm fan opening at the front of the case so the GPU airflow is kept completely separate from the rest of the case...
Click to expand...

AHA!!! now ya got it! Really I don't know what can be done in your particular situation but you can "mock up" ducting from card board to find out if it works and then make something out of clear plastic or plexi if you find a winner. I save the clear packaging many items come wrapped in, I'll cut out the large flat sections and store them untill something like this comes up. I'll bet you can find sheets of similar materiel at Staples or a crafts store.
 
disports

disports

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2008
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Yeah, I don't have any fans on top of the accelero. Too lazy to put any on and it's nice and cool anyways.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
82
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well. today i got my package of 5 new scythe s-flexs in the mail, and with an additional fan on the front where the top HDD cage sits and the fans installed throughout my GPU idle temp has fallen to 66/67deg on a warm night, and my CPU is down to 33

still work to be done with the GPU i think but i'm happy with the CPU temps now
 
WoodButcher

WoodButcher

Platinum Member
Mar 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: aigomorla
http://www.performance-pcs.com..._196&products_id=23475

get this and call it a day.

water is a hobby, not a necessity.

Well if your already on water, it becomes a necessity, and no longer a hobby.
Click to expand...

LOL! no joke, all my old boxes when I upgrade are given to family and friends but before I give them away they go back to air. I won't give a machine with water to anyone unless they are ready to take care of it themselves.
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
82
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well, i got bored over the weekend so decided to dismantle the 8800 and replace the thermal interface paste, which has now knocked the temps back to a slightly more realistic 60 idle <80 load

or i can turn all the case fans down so it's less ausible than a whisper and still keep it cool

added another fan in the lower portion of the case as the raptor was getting hot to the touch, i have the space to do so and it adds nothing to the noise of the computer when set on low just to keep the airflow moving
 
T

TLW

Member
Dec 7, 2005
82
0
0
Righto, time for another update

After re-seating the stock heatsink the temps experienced a slight dip but they gradually crept back up to over 70 idle and 95-100 load, i'd had enough so ordered an AC Accelero Xtreme 8800 to see what it was like

The answer is... very good, stable idle temp is now 48-49 and perhaps more impressively the load temps fluctuate between 60-65 even after several hours of roaming the wastelands in Fallout 3, which really causes the 8800 to strain (1680x1050, All settings at maximum with 2xAA and max AF)

edit: even more impressive is that the load temps are occuring while the fan is only spinning at ~75% - i'll have a play in the rivatuner settings and could probably knock a few degrees off them at the expense of some noise, anything over 70% duty cycle is audible through my P182 case, but nothing like as moisy as the stock cooler

the only downside is that it takes up 2 adjacent PCI slots, meaning i can't install my wireless NIC, i've connected via cable for now and have a mini PCI-E card on the way to take the uppermost slot on the P5Q board
 
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