Disappointing Volcano 7+ performance

[scooper]

Hi All,

During a hot spell here, I decided to upgrade my cooling from the stock AMD cooler on my XP 1800. Said CPU is stuffed into a smallish InWin S500 with 2 80mm fans, along with an IBM 75GXP, GeForce 4 4200, and a Sony 16x DVD.

I figured I could kill 2 birds and knock the noise down a notch as well. Results with the Volcano 7+ have been somewhat disappointing. The lowest fan speed is about as loud as the stock cooler, even at ~1000 RPM less. Right now, after some browsing and email, case temp shows 38C, CPU temp 53C. Hi temp after a few hours of AA Recon is about 61C. I guess that's not bad -- 2 to 4 degrees better than stock, but not great for this copper monster. Still, 15 degrees above case temp seems reasonable. Perhaps the problem is the small case and it's limited ventilation?

No more stock fan spots, so I guess my options are: a) slot/bay cooler b) cut a blowhole or c) duct the intake fan to the cpu. Any experience with c?

A side note for others considering this cooler: I installed it three times with progressively less thermal compound, and better results each time. Take it easy on the goop!

--scott

 

[BoomAM]

hi,

to get ure temps accurately, try using sisoft sandra instead, my mobo software thing reports the CPU temp as the system temp and the PSU temp as the CPU temp for some reason, SiSoft Sandra gets it the right way round.

it may b because of the limited ventilation as you said, that the temps are so high.

As for imporving the ventilation, try/follow these steps.

make sure that u have at least 1 intake and 1 exhaust. the intake muse be located at the front. the exhause at the back.
if u have a fan next to ure cpu then have it as an exhaust.
or
Buy a new case. like a tower case with lots of room and lots of fan brackets. The Cheiftec Scorpio series are good.

hope this helps