old comp for parents

[imported_Truenofan]

yeah i got a old athlon xp 3200, and as soon as i get a new hard drive in my current computer im using im gonna give em my old one, thing is, they smoke alot and its gonna be in a basement, i wanna know how do i underclock it so i can use the current heasink(thermalright slk-900U copper heatsink) as a passive cooler since the house its going to be in has air conditioning and its going to be in the basement.

 

[quakefiend420]

drop the front side bus down from 200 to 166 or lower...also when you do this, you MAY be able to drop the voltage as well to drop the thermal output even lower

 

[imported_Truenofan]

yeah im tryin to drop it as low as i can to give it passive cooling, since they arent computer wise and they really dont know how to shop for computer parts n stuff. only thing is, is that their gonna use this computer for mostly internet n stuff, no heavy gameplay or medium gameplay, if not any games at all...mostly word stuff...so i figure making it equal to a athlon xp 2000 or lower will be more than enough for them. any tips on how to get it that low?

 

[imported_Kensai]

Set multiplier to 10X
Set FSB to 166 (333, when doubled)
Total speed = 1660MHz

Slowly drop the voltage in "0.0-" ammounts.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Truenofan
yeah im tryin to drop it as low as i can to give it passive cooling, since they arent computer wise and they really dont know how to shop for computer parts n stuff. only thing is, is that their gonna use this computer for mostly internet n stuff, no heavy gameplay or medium gameplay, if not any games at all...mostly word stuff...so i figure making it equal to a athlon xp 2000 or lower will be more than enough for them. any tips on how to get it that low?

AthlonXP with passive cooling? Not in this lifetime. Unless you want a keychain

 

[imported_Truenofan]

well as stated before, it has a copper thermalright slk-900u wich mounts up to a 92mm fan, its quite big, i have pretty good air flow and its going to be in a basement with central air, so its going to be really cool in the basement, even in the summer time, id guess a max ambient temp of like 70 if it gets thereit has 2 60mm panaflo's going in an 2 60mm panaflo's going out. it wont be under heavy strain. the stock speed on it is 2.2ghz so if i can slow it down to passive(id i'v heard it can be done) it will be great, if not ill leave it be and throw it all back together back how it is....but idle and load temps when i had it werent all that high, idle was mid/high 30's and sometimes low 40's but load it never broke 40's.

 

[Porter21]

The procedures that everyone before is descirbing are correct. I'm kinda confused why what they're saying isn't waht you want. What exactly do u mean by passive cooling??????

 

[imported_Truenofan]

minimal fans in the computer, ill probly leave the panaflo's since their silent but i if it comes down to it, no fans in the front and only the psu and the rear case fans. or like if the fans die it can still run later down the line, since it wont be under strain.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Nexus fans. Not Panaflo. Nexus is far quieter.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

ok, missing the point. im not going to be doing anything further with this computer, its staying as is and im trying to go passive cooling with it. next to this, is there anything that may need to be different.

 

[Jeff7]

How I do underclocking - drop the CPU voltage to as low as the motherboard supports. Then lower the CPU's clock speed accordingly. Example - Tbred 1700. Dropped it down from default of like....uh, 1.65V? to, I believe it was 1.3V. Then I dropped the multiplier to 5.0, but kept the FSB at 200MHz. Result - 1GHz CPU, with low heat and power usage.

Even so, just make sure there's still adequate airflow over the heatsink. Modern CPUs do still generate a lot of heat, even when fed less power.
I would also recommend you find a really quiet fan. There are 80mm fans out there that are nearly silent. Maybe snoop around Silent PC Review for a little while. There is a section there, toward the bottom, about quieting your fans down. That's probably most advisable. Passive cooling is best left to things like the chipset, and maybe even the videocard, with one of those big wrap-around heatsinks - or just a really old videocard, like some 8MB ATi Rage thing - that doesn't need active cooling.


Ooh, just saw that you said they smoke. That stuff will coat heatsinks in a slightly sticky layer, to which dust will adhere well, effectively insulating them.
Hm....well, the PC will need airflow. If it put out the heat of a 386, maybe then you could seal it up and rely on the case to radiate the heat away.
Maybe give it a powerful, yet well-filtered intake fan? And impress upon them that it must be cleaned regularly. At least the filter might catch some of the tar in the air, and at the very least, the dust.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

thank you, thats the answer(as well as kensai's and quake's response's) i was looking for, i have seen silentpcreview, but mostly for cases and psu's yeah the tar is an issue, and this case used to have a filter, i never thought about that(put that filter element back in again) the video card i should do as well since it used to have a 9550 super deluxed or something(dont remember the exact name but could oc the thing like mad). but i think my dad wants to do some kind of gameplay at some point....he's not a gamer like most people but he likes to play some goofy stuff sometimes. im just going to say this, but i'v never underclocked anything and i'v rarely overclocked a processor as well..i'v never reallymessed with voltages n stuff and thats kinda why im asking for some assistance.