Suggestions For Further Cooling A 1ghz Thunderbird

[bishop1134]

oOo OverView oOo

• Case: Fong Kai FK-320
  60mm fan set to intake in front (across hd's) (generic)
  80mm fan set to exhaust in rear (generic)
  120mm fan set to intake in front (generic)
  Power supply fan exahusting in the rear
• Motherboard: Abit KT7-RAID
• Memory: (2)256m cas2 Crucial SDRAM
• CPU: 1ghz Thunderbird (clocked at 1ghz)
• Alpha PAL6035 w/Sunon exhausting down across the heatsink.
• HardDrives: (2)IBM 75GXP 30g RAID
• Video Card: Guillemot GTS2 64m

oOo Problem Statement oOo
I am not getting the temperature pull down I expected from the cooling equipment I used. All temperatures are recording using the VIA Hardware Monitor included with the Abit motherboard, they were double checked using Motherboard Monitor 4.06 and 5; CpuIdle is not being used as this is running a W2K OS.

At idle the cpu is running approximately 30° - 31°C and the System temp is around 20°C. As I write this while converting an .ASF -> .MPG the CPU is running at 66° - 67°C with a system temperature of 21°C. The temp goes to about the same temp running SETI@Home and Rune.

Originally I installed the heatsink with a thin layer of the included white thermal compound, after noticing that it was not cooling as well as I expected I pulled the heatsink off and added a liberal amount of the compound as it appeared to run down a bit. I changed the orientation of the rear fan and the the cpu fan.. neither made any difference. These numbers are consistant with the case side on or off, though the cpu runs about 1° cooler without the side panel on. I keep my house around ~21°C day and night.

oOo Thoughts oOo
I don't consider myself uneducated or stupid, and I have done a bit or research on everything I have purchased as well as after I purchased it. The only things that I can think would make a lot of difference would be to:

1. Switch to Artic Silver Compound (assuming it's a lot more efficient)
2. Add a copper shim between the CPU and the PAL6035 (more heat transfer off the ceramic)
3. Change all the generic fans to high performance Sunons or better.
4. Add a peltier to the CPU (Something I want to avoid for now as I don't know that the case cooling is adequate at this time.)
5. Put the thing in the sub-zero and say scew it... (yeah right..)

Seriously.. there's a considerable investment when you add up the things I just mentioned, and while I have no problems actually spending the money to increase performance and stability, I was curious if anyone can offer any suggestions or if I am expecting too much. Right now the system is randomly locking up no matter what the load is.

Sorry for the length, any comments would be much appreciated!

thanks in advance
bish..
mailto:bishop@ou.edu

I have checked the faq, but if anyone could point to a more detailed explanation of bios settings would be cool too...

 

[bishop1134]

moving up.

 

[Dulanic]

Sounds like crappy thermal compound.... with a case temp of 32C under full load my CPU hits 43C.... Thats with a very thin layer of Artic Silver and a FOP 38.

 

[Dulanic]

Also it could be the clip on the Alpha isnt the one for Socket A and isnt putting enough pressure.

 

[Mem]

Sounds like the heatsink/fan is the problem check it`s seated right & the thermal compound,btw I`m using the standard Taisol heatsink/fan with no special thermal paste(only the Taisol thermal stuff) & get under full load(48c) & (41c)idle for my 900T-bird so I don`t have anything special apart from two 80mm Sunon fans in my not very efficent case.

 

[cptnwinky]

try the fridge. seriously. if you shop around at garage sales and stuff i'm sure you can find someone that's getting rid of an older one and you could probably pick it up pretty cheap. i know that when my dad opened up his shop about 2 years ago he wanted one so we sent my mom at to look at yard sales and she found a decently sized fridge for like $25. it was an old guy that had it sitting in his garage and didn't have any use for it anymore. if you get the right one, you can modify it(ie cut holes in it=) so that all your cables can slide in and out as you need them to. you might need a couple extenders, but nothing major. good luck

 

[bishop1134]

Thank you very much for the responses...

Dulanic:
The clip is the revised alpha clip pictured in Anand's review... I'm placing the order for arctic silver compound right now. I figured that would be the focus of the problem considering the system temp is so low. Right now writing this, the system temp is 21° and the cpu is 32°.. but this is just IE, mIRC, and a few other featherweights.

Mem: I'm going to check the seating on the clip too.. maybe I put it on backwards.. if such a thing is possible.. worse comes to worse.. maybe I'll pull the board and see if I can see how it's seated from the side.

Cptnwinky: I don't have room, plus with a standard fridge, I would think condensation might be a problem... dunno.

Thanks again for all the responses.

bish...

 

[Mem]

One last thing,sometimes people put too much thermal paste on which rises the temperature it should be a very thin layer almost see through.

 

[DaddyG]

Bishop,

What you are experiencing is typical of the clip on the 6035 being 180 off. As the clipjust goes through the fins, its not easy to see that when its on the wrong way it doesn't provide pressure over the core.

Radio Smack grease is another story. The high clip pressure just squeezes most of it out, ya can't fix it by applying a thick layer.
Whats left, simply dries out cause of the high temps.

 

[bishop1134]

Thank you to everyone; apparently I was a little too excited to get it all setup. I reversed the clip and the system is running at 42°C with a full load.

Time to see what it can do overclocked...

Thank you.
bishop