Help me cool this beast!

[Thump553]

What am I doing wrong-I cannot seem to get decent CPU temperature levels in my system, despite having oodles of fans. My system is an Athlon 1.4, Antec full size tower (forget model) with a 400 watt power supply (again, forget make-it?s a quality one-Enermax?) and a Radeon 9700 AGP video card. I have the following fans (all Panaflows L1A?s unless noted): one intake fan, low front of case. An Antec slot fan card (outflow) located on slot between AGP and just below CPU. New CPU heatsink is a Thermaltake 800A with Artic Silver 3 and an 80 mm Panaflow L1A fan. Just above the cpu is the power supply, with two fans (stock)-one sucking air in just above cpu and the other expelling it out the rear. At the top of the case I have a harddrive cooler fan attached to my hard drive and two Panaflows expelling air out the rear top. I have rounded cables throughout the case and the airflow seems reasonably unrestricted (there are a lot of cables and wires, so there is somel restriction). The system has a DVD, CDRW, two IDE hard drives and one floppy.

I just replaced my Volcano 7 and generic fans to quiet the noise down and lower heat. I was getting 57-59 degrees at the CPU. (Incidentally this went up at least five degrees when I upgraded from the original Radeon to the 9700.

Now with the Panaflows and Thermaltake 800A my system is reasonably quiet, but the idle cpu temp is 53 degrees and it goes to 59 degrees under load. The case temp is a very reasonable 26 degrees.

I?m very surprised and disappointed my changes so far didn?t solve my problem. I?m thinking at this point to do one or more of the following:

1) Replace the heatsink fan with something that moves more air than the Panaflow L1A. Quiet is extremely important to me-any recommendations?

2) Should I pull the Antec slot fan? Right now I have one intake fan and four outflow fans (counting the psu as one fan, it has two).

3) Upgrade the CPU to a more modern one. Its my understanding that the 1.4 is one of the hottest ones out there. I?d hate to do this, because its working fine, I?m cheap and I hate to admit defeat.

4) I really don?t have anywhere to add more intake fans, unless I cut a hole in the side of the case, which I would prefer not to do.

Any ideas?

 

[Icewind]

First off, how are you getting those temps?

 

[GAZZA]

Those cpu's do run on the hot side of around 55ºc (about same as mine idle and around 65&Ntilde😉, I would check to make sure that your heatsink is correctly orientated/mounted to your cpu core as this is one of the most common problems.

Are you having problems running at this temp at all ?
If not then I'd say your cpu temp is fine.

Upgrading the cpu will certainly change temps esp with the newer TBreds, mine is currently (according to the asus temp monitor) around 29c idle, with SK6 + Smartcasefan II.

 

[Thump553]

Getting my temps via MBM (motherboard monitor). I occassionally check the temps on bootup in the bios and they seem to correspond. The computer is generally left on 24/7.

When I had the original Radeon in it, and put in rounded cables, I was running about 47-49 degrees under load.

I'm positive the heatsink is correctly oriented and mounted. Redid it last night, after downloading mfr's instructions, just to be sure.

The computer seems to get slightly sluggish when the temperature nears 60 degrees, but this could be my imagination. No known errors or error messages.

 

[huesmann]

Thermaltake 800A?

 

[Thump553]

Sorry, was Thermalright, not Thermaltake.

Looks like I solved my problem. When I came home the system was at 62 degrees. I made the following changes:

1) removed the Antec slot fan, on the theory that I already had an abundance of outflow fans, that it might be sucking air out permaturely and to reduce noise.

2) Replaced the Panaflow L1A with a generic 80 mm fan I had sitting around. Due to tight quarters, this involved removing and reseating the entire heatsink (with cleaning and a new dose of Artic Silver).

Knock on wood, but my cpu temp has dropped from being around 59 degrees to 47 under a full load.

QUERY-what is a good, quiet as possible 80 mm fan that has average or better airflow?

 

[GAZZA]

Smartcase Fan II, which is adjustable either in auto mode with temp sensor or manually with controller.

 

[pelikan]

The enermax adjustable fan is probably the quietest way to push more air than a panaflo. I also like the SVC 28dB, 32cfm fan because it has a low-pitched hum. I wouldn't consider it as a case fan, but on a heatsink with a closed case its quiet. I have panaflos in my case and the svc fan on my slk-800.
I agree with Gazza: if a system is stable, then the temps are fine.