Is a fan controller/temperature monitor necessary?

[prism]

Hi I recently purchased the following system on newegg (haven't received the parts yet), and I was wondering if anything other than stock cooling is necessary if I don't plan on overclocking anything

Antec Sonata II with 450w Smartpower 2.0
MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
Sapphire Radeon X800 (PCI-Express)
512k Corsair Value RAM
Lite-On CDRW/DVD combo drive
Old 40gb 8mb buffer 7200rpm Western Digital Hard Drive (I think it's IDE)

Also, is the only way to tell if a component is running at a good temperature is buying and installing a fan controller/temperature monitor?

 

[intogamer]

Don't really need it unless you want to control fan when you want quiet
I have a PC toys(nexus) fan controller(black) if interested

 

[CrispyFried]

CPU and mobo temps, plus some or all fan speeds are usually reported by the mobo its self. Most new hardrives and many new video cards can report thier own temps too. Motherboard Monitor 5 or Speedfan will report them for free, except for maybe the vid card, the vid driver will report that one if the card has that capability.

 

[Elcs]

Software reads temperature diodes in hardware.

With appropriate software such as Motherboard Monitor, Speedfan or Everest, you shouild have no problem whatsoever reading off temperatures from your CPU (CPU Temp) and Motherboard (rough estimation of case temperature).

Certain HDD's contain their own thermal probes which may or may not be picked up by the above software. Likewise for graphics cards, most recent generations of graphics card do contain thermal probes but there is always the chance that there isnt one of its 'software hidden'

So in the case of a temperature monitor, they definately are not necessary and act as a decent guide as to how hot things run. If you are experiencing any troubles, temperatures are useful as sometimes the problem may be heat-related. If you have any bother with setting up your pc or getting readouts of temperatures, Anandtech Forums is an excellent place to start... just make sure you try and get the right forum, some of the older folk get a bit frustrated since we seem to be under troll attack recently.

As for a fan controller, I just bought one and expecting delivery shortly but I am overclocking my Socket A system with an old generation AGP graphics card 🙂. Im trying to hit a balance between silence and speed which I hope the controller will give me.

I say, set up your PC and see what happens. We can give you specific advice on how to rememdy any problems you get once your pc is up and running such as how to reduce heat and what fans will give you a noise level you feel comfortable with.

Hope Ive helped.

EDIT: On a side-note, my 80Gb Western Digital Sepcial Edition IDE PATA (8 meg cache) does not have a temperature sensor so I wouldnt be worried if you cant find one via software on your old 40 Gb'er.

 

[prism]

Thanks everyone for all the info, I really appreciate it! I downloaded Motherboard Monitor 5 and am testing it on my Athlon 1.4 Thunderbird on an Asus A7V133 mobo. It's giving me readings of 36c on the case, 59c on the cpu and 0c on sensor 3. Do those readings sound right? I thought 59c sounded really high, and all I'm doing on the computer at the moment is typing on here. And also what's "sensor 3"?

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: Prism
Thanks everyone for all the info, I really appreciate it! I downloaded Motherboard Monitor 5 and am testing it on my Athlon 1.4 Thunderbird on an Asus A7V133 mobo. It's giving me readings of 36c on the case, 59c on the cpu and 0c on sensor 3. Do those readings sound right? I thought 59c sounded really high, and all I'm doing on the computer at the moment is typing on here. And also what's "sensor 3"?

59C on a 1.4ghz Thunderbird sounds ok. They were a hot chip at the time and heatsinks werent as well developed at the time.

Sensor 3 is probably not a sensor at all and its some sort of erronous report in the software.

36C in the case is pretty warm. What is the ambient room temperature? If the room is around 34C I wouldnt be concerned at all. If its lower than that, Id consider some slow, low noise fans for the new A64 system.

Best way to tell is to get that A64 system up and running first 🙂

 

[prism]

Q]

59C on a 1.4ghz Thunderbird sounds ok. They were a hot chip at the time and heatsinks werent as well developed at the time.

Sensor 3 is probably not a sensor at all and its some sort of erronous report in the software.

36C in the case is pretty warm. What is the ambient room temperature? If the room is around 34C I wouldnt be concerned at all. If its lower than that, Id consider some slow, low noise fans for the new A64 system.

Best way to tell is to get that A64 system up and running first 🙂[/quote]

Heh, I'm workin on that, should have the parts by Wednesday at the latest. The hottest the room gets is 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but usually it's 75 or below. I don't know what that would be in Celsius 😱. Is there any danger in letting my new system run for awhile before I check the temperature? If the temperature was too high would it be damaging to run it in the time it would take to install windows and download upgrades/mobo monitor 5 (less than a day) or would that potentially be harmful at a higher-than-recommended temperature? And finally, what's the recommended temp area of a 3000+ Venice. Again thank you all for any input and advice.

 

[prism]

/shameless bump 😱

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: Prism

Heh, I'm workin on that, should have the parts by Wednesday at the latest. The hottest the room gets is 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but usually it's 75 or below. I don't know what that would be in Celsius 😱. Is there any danger in letting my new system run for awhile before I check the temperature? If the temperature was too high would it be damaging to run it in the time it would take to install windows and download upgrades/mobo monitor 5 (less than a day) or would that potentially be harmful at a higher-than-recommended temperature? And finally, what's the recommended temp area of a 3000+ Venice. Again thank you all for any input and advice.

You should check and monitor temps as soon as possible really to make sure you have no problems there. I believe that processors have good thermal shutdown mechanisms so hardware should be pretty safe if temperatures are creeping way up (case in point: if you seat the heatsink incorrectly)

With aircooling, temperatures you want will typically be between 35C and 60C. All processors are different but taking a stab in the dark based on what Ive read around the forums, Id guess 45C would be a reasonable temp to ask for given your ambient temperature and stock cooling. This is purely guesswork though. Guidelines, its best to stay below 60C. Things tend to get a little more unstable at various points past 60C, processor specific temps so you may experience different.

As long as you take your time and dont rush things, you'll be fine.