Thermaltake Volcano II Good, Bad, or just plain UGLY?

[canadianpsycho]

Hey all,

Getting a nifty new factory unlocked AXIA 1.2 GHz T-Bird and ASUS A7V133 set-up soon. The cooler included is a Volcano II HS+F. Is anyone running this cooler on their rig and would the recommend it for OCing? I plan on pushing this puppy as far as she'll go air-cooled, and I'm wondering if this will do the job. I know the Switec and Globalwin fans are supposed to be the best (but the cost, not to mention the extreme weight of thse puppies would be a dent in my Canuck wallet), but will the Thermaltake make me happy? As opposed to their golden orbs, which are pretty and all, but not exactly the bee's knees for higher temps.

Thanks everyone, and wish me luck

 

[Noriaki]

It's medium. AMD approves it for up to 1.33Ghz Athlon, so as long as you aren't doing any overclocking you should be alright.

Has a nice fan though....I stole it's fan for use with my MC370....

 

[velvetfreak]

I have a TT Volcano II (see my thread) on a 1.33 AMD which is running a little hot (55C). I have since learned that I should be using paste instead of the default heat transfer pad on the cooler...

Taisols and Alphas seem to be fairly popular too. If you do some searching you'll find the Volcano IIs have a mixed bag of responses which makes me wonder if they're not very consistent. Some people had noise problems related to how the fan was mounted on the heatsink (I think).

If Arctic Silver doesn't fix my heat problem I will be switching to an Alpha 6035 unless I find out about something better that's not too loud.

 

[Jake52]

Alright canadianpsycho, here's the deal. I got a Volcano II with a Duron 750 and I planned to overclock it too, but I ran into some problems. First you should read the thread "How to stop my Volcano II from Vibrating!!!". Yes, there's a problem with the Volcano II fan causing vibrations for some people. I think it has to do with the fan not being balanced right. Anyway, it actually caused my whole case to vibrate when the fan was on, and it was so annoying!!! I tried to fix it but nothing worked, so I bought a new fan and stuck it on the Volcano II, and its all good now. My temps are decent with the default TIM, but I'm definitely planning on taking it off and using some Arctic Silver II before I overclock. I guess the bottom line is its a good, quiet heatsink/fan set up if it doesn't cause vibrations for you, Good luck!

 

[MGMorden]

I almost got one of these but decided on a Taisol (the copper base one). Those are ~$35. You can get the same one without the coper base for about $20 (of course those are american $$. I don't know the currency conversion for canadian). I've got a friend running an AXIA 1ghz overclocked to 1.33 on a Volcano though, so you might be alright.

 

[Anaconda]

the volcano is running my duron 750@933 just fine at 40c idle

 

[foofoo]

i'm running a stock 1.33 266 (no overclock) with a volcano2 my cpu temp is 44c average. i know this is measured through the mothboard and that can be wrong by any number of factors but that's the temp that i can report. i'm happy with it, it's probably got some range when i start to push on overclocking.

 

[Zoltarc]

A friend of mine has one. He can get his 1GHz Tbird up to 1.5GHz and still retain goodish temperatures.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

its a decent cooler. It isn't the quiestest, but it isn't nearly as loud as the delta 38cfm fans.


Mike

 

[mrbios]

It's a pretty decent cooler. It is a lot quieter than the FOP38 cooler my friend has. Also, it keeps temps low enough. How accurate is my Abit board's sensor? I don't know, but Motherboard Monitor reports 22 degrees Celcius. That sounds pretty good to me. As for how well it will overclock, I don't know. I have my 1gig @ 1.125GHz right now, with a 150MHz bus. Gonna unlock it soon enough.

-Russell "Mr.Bios" Sampson

 

[tjdavis1138]

I just ordered a Taisol (cooper based) to replace my Volcano II. It's good for the money, but if you get one that vibrates like mine it will drive you crazy!

I'm going to put this one in my second machine. If I can't stop it from vibrating I will order another fan and smash this one with a HAMMER!!

 

[canadianpsycho]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the info.

I'll probably tinker with it for a bit, until one of the other coolers comes along in the FS/T forums.