Fanless i3 4130T = 70C ???

[GTaudiophile]

Trying to build a fanless HTPC using a Haswell Core i3 with the lowest TDP (35W) I could find.

The CPU temp, at idle sitting in the BIOS, is 70C according to the BIOS health monitor.

Seems too high for me.

Here is the fanless cooler I am using.

I got this one partly due to its relatively thin size.

This is the case with plenty of ventilation.

Also inside the case is the mobo, RAM, SSD, and Blu-Ray Drive. The power supply is external / PicoPSU. There is no dedicated GPU and no internal case fans.

My thought is to go back and apply more thermal paste. Other then that, I may have to just capitulate and add a fan to the CPU heatsink.

Any other thoughts?

 

[jpiniero]

Bay Trail?

 

[podspi]

Yeah, I'm not convinced we're quite there for fanless AND small HTPCs quite yet.

Baytrail is pretty great, but still not what I'd like for an HTPC (though I have an Athlon II 620 -- so its gotta be at least as fast as that!)

 

[GTaudiophile]

Underclocking to 2.0Ghz (from 2.9) dropped idle temp to 59C.

 

[Ken g6]

Yeah, I don't think that's the best way to make a fanless HTPC.

When equipped with a 120mm fan, Samuel 17 will not only cool your CPU efficiently but also the PC components around it, keeping your computer running smooth and stable.

(Emphasis mine.) I did see a fanless ITX HTPC case in [thread=2371928]another thread[/thread] recently. Like most fanless cases, it has fins on the outside of the case, and heat pipes to carry the CPU's heat there.

 

[GTaudiophile]

^^Very familiar with those cases

I wanted to be cheap and try to do the same job with a $70 case instead of a min. $150 case.

 

[Ken g6]

Well, in that case (literally), try undervolting. (If your mobo supports it, which I don't know for sure either way for any particular chipset.) It's just like what you'd do after overclocking; just for a lower clock: Lower the voltage until it's not stable, then raise it back to a stable level.

 

[Arkaign]

I know the idea of a no-fan build, but honestly it'd be worth putting in an ultra-low-rpm fan in there. When you have zero airflow, that ambient temp is going to go up slowly to bathe the rest of the components in high temps, reducing their lifespan a bit (and higher temps = less efficient operation as well).

This is 1100RPM, Fluid Dynamic Bearing, and 12dBA : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835226041

I've used their higher-speed fans up to 18dBA rating, and you can't hear them unless your ear is REALLY close to it. If you walked into the room with nothing else running, you wouldn't be able to know it was on by noise at all.

 

[nwo]

60-70*C for idle temps seems way too high. I would definitely stick a silent fan on that HSF as Arkaign recommended.

 

[ehume]

I know the idea of a no-fan build, but honestly it'd be worth putting in an ultra-low-rpm fan in there. When you have zero airflow, that ambient temp is going to go up slowly to bathe the rest of the components in high temps, reducing their lifespan a bit (and higher temps = less efficient operation as well).

This is 1100RPM, Fluid Dynamic Bearing, and 12dBA : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835226041

I've used their higher-speed fans up to 18dBA rating, and you can't hear them unless your ear is REALLY close to it. If you walked into the room with nothing else running, you wouldn't be able to know it was on by noise at all.

While I might quibble with the exact choice of the fan, I would completely agree with the concept of a low-rpm fan of some sort. Your heatsink really isn't set up for passive airflow. You have to get some air in there.

If your case is set on its side, you could get away with a sleeve bearing fan like a Slip Stream 800 rpm. If it lies flat, the fan Arkaign suggests is as good as any -- inexpensive low-rpm fans don't often have "fluid dynamic" bearings, which is what you need when the fan frame is horizontal.

 

[BSim500]

SPCR is probably the best resource for that kind of thing. The truth is, any fanless setup will run up to 30-50c hotter than an ultra-quiet fan cooled due to heat build up over time, especially in small fanless cases. Unless you use REALLY big heatsinks (which are totally incompatible with slimline cases), the only chips that can be passively cooled with "sensible" sized air cooling are the lower powered Atoms, etc. There's actually a natural contradiction between wanting silent passive cooling and wanting the smallest slimline cases.

I'm a silent PC enthusiast myself, and TBH, full passive isn't worth it. A decent 120mm fan at 700rpm is bordering on the threshold of human hearing at normal distances, and at 600rpm it's virtually silent but runs a LOT cooler. Even 2-3 120mm fans @ 600rpm is really hard to hear. Same with slow-spinning 80mm fans. SPCR do a lot of high quality testing in an anechoic chamber for precisely that purpose.

A motherboard that can undervolt is highly recommended on any silent build even if it means paying a premium, as it can instantly knock off 20-40% of the TDP vs stock. I got my "77w" i5-3570 (non K) down to typical 45w even with a mild OC to 3.8-4.0GHz and -0.100v undervolt. At stock 3.4GHz with a -0.125v undervolt (a mere 0.896v load!), it's nearer 36w (4-cores loaded). If I lower the speed down to 2.6-3.0GHz (0.768-0.832v load), you're looking at 19-27w TDP's. And that's with 4 cores on a regular i5! An i3 under same conditions - same stock VID's, etc - should be roughly 2/3rds of that.

Aggressive undervolting is the true key to a silent system.

 

[bgt]

The Akasa Euler case has no problems with the 4130T. See sig.

 

[know of fence]

A fan serves a second purpose of pushing dust out of the case/heat sink. A slower airflow in a horizontal case is the ideal dust collector platform. The hot air rises upwards and leaves behind a part of it's heavier dust particles on top of the heat source.
Well, at least the heat sink has vertical fins.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Remember most parts are not designed to be fanless. But rather depending on secondary active airflow. Its a common misconception due to the lack of proper information on the products.

Also dont worry so much about idle temperature. Test under load instead. It might not be as bad as it seems.

 

[seitur]

We're not there yet to build fanless small cases having CPU of such performance. (it might be an option once we're at 14nm maybe).

Imho much better to buy ultra-quitet ultra-low rpm fans. There are few of those out there, they are ~2-3 times more expensive than ordinary average fans of same size, but they are really so quiet you won't hear them. I remember some German company specializing in making ultra-quiet fans which had good opinions, can't remember name now though.

 

[coffeejunkee]

What motherboard do you use? And did you make sure c-states are active?

Like others said, that case + cooler is probably not enough to go completely fanless but I still think 70 idle is on the high side since Intel cpu's almost completely turn themselves off. I just turned off all my casefans and cpu temps stay around 30-35. That's in a midtower and with a much bigger heatsink, but still.

 

[EliteRetard]

Trying to build a fanless HTPC using a Haswell Core i3 with the lowest TDP (35W) I could find.

The CPU temp, at idle sitting in the BIOS, is 70C according to the BIOS health monitor.

Seems too high for me.

Here is the fanless cooler I am using.

I got this one partly due to its relatively thin size.

This is the case with plenty of ventilation.

Also inside the case is the mobo, RAM, SSD, and Blu-Ray Drive. The power supply is external / PicoPSU. There is no dedicated GPU and no internal case fans.

My thought is to go back and apply more thermal paste. Other then that, I may have to just capitulate and add a fan to the CPU heatsink.

Any other thoughts?

BIOS might not be the most accurate way to check idle temps, from what I've seen the chips run full speed full voltage in the BIOS. At desktop with the proper power saving features turned on the chip should automatically drop clocks and voltage for a large temp drop. Unless your running a heavy load the chip shouldn't normally run full speed full voltage while in the OS.

As others have suggested though, one or more low speed fans can help.

If you've got the money I think the quietest would be one of those 120mm Noctua 800RPM units...but you may need more than one with the amount of airflow they offer. A max 1200-1600 RPM unit may be a better fit with fan control, quiet at idle but can ramp up a bit if/when needed...depends how good your MOBO is there.

 

[PliotronX]

BIOS might not be the most accurate way to check idle temps, from what I've seen the chips run full speed full voltage in the BIOS. At desktop with the proper power saving features turned on the chip should automatically drop clocks and voltage for a large temp drop. Unless your running a heavy load the chip shouldn't normally run full speed full voltage while in the OS.

As others have suggested though, one or more low speed fans can help.

If you've got the money I think the quietest would be one of those 120mm Noctua 800RPM units...but you may need more than one with the amount of airflow they offer. A max 1200-1600 RPM unit may be a better fit with fan control, quiet at idle but can ramp up a bit if/when needed...depends how good your MOBO is there.

Yup I never pay attention to anything but the rails feeding the mono in the bios and even its off from true voltage. Try running coretemp or realtemp in windows as it will give the most accurate readings (for Intel chips at least). I'll see how effective passive cooling is with a ninja 3 on a bare die 4330

 

[GTaudiophile]

Mobo = GIGABYTE GA-Z87MX-D3H

 

[BSim500]

Mobo = GIGABYTE GA-Z87MX-D3H

If it's a Z board then it's highly probable you can undervolt it. Try doing that a little at a time -0.01v then test stability, etc. Then another notch, then test stability (same way overclockers do), then back off 1-2 notches when you've found the limit, and you'll probably be able to knock off some watts and maybe up to 10c off those temps.

 

[Arkaign]

FWIW, I have a Cooler Master 212+ Evo on an FX 6350 (by far not a super cool running CPU) in my HTPC, and I swapped the stock fan out with the one I linked, and it's silent. Temps never pass 55c, and that includes the occasional game of Skyrim, BF4, Diablo 3, etc.

The i3 should be a much easier beast to cool, even a low-rpm single 120mm fan should be a miracle worker in your situation.

 

[coercitiv]

Trying to build a fanless HTPC using a Haswell Core i3 with the lowest TDP (35W) I could find.

The CPU temp, at idle sitting in the BIOS, is 70C according to the BIOS health monitor.

Underclocking to 2.0Ghz (from 2.9) dropped idle temp to 59C.

Are you, by any chance, checking cooling performance in BIOS only? From what I know and what your own post shows, the CPU will stay at maximum frequency while in BIOS, might not even use sleep states properly. Idle temps while in OS should be way lower. Haswell idle power consumption is a bit over 1W.

To give you an example, on my laptop I can watch 1080p video (DXVA or Quicksync) on a 4700HQ with fans turned off and not go over 53C CPU temp (24C room temp). Idle temps are lower and the only thing that helps cooling is the aluminium chasis of the laptop. The actual radiators have little room to breathe. In that case and with that cooler you have way more cooling power and I feel confident it will easily work in light/medium loads like movie playback, browsing etc.

Sustained loads like software transcoding might be a problem, but even then you have a lot of room for adjustment via undervolting/underclocking.

Adding even a very low RPM fan is still the safe choice, but i strongly suggest you try the system with power management active for the CPU.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Yeah, check temps in Windows, they will be a lot better. And with some undervolting it might just be possible to run fanless. I'd still add a fan to the cpu heatsink or the case itself. One of those 800rpm 80mm Noctua fans will be practically inaudible but still help a lot.

 

[Bateluer]

70C at idle, even in the BIOS, would make me nervous. I'd be looking for a quiet fan to put on the cpu cooler myself.

I've been mulling building a mITX machine for a few months now, but I don't think fanless would even be an option for me. Summers here are too hot. Unless I want to run up my electric bill, the ambient temperature in the house will be 86F.

 

[crashtech]

I don't think that heat sink is big enough to be fanless. One poster here uses the Akasa Euler chassis as a fanless setup and that is basically the entire chassis being a heatsink, one big heavy chunk of aluminum. I use that for my wife's desktop and it works. If you don't want something like that, you have to go big like a Megahalems or Thor's Hammer.