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underclocking

S

Squirlz

Junior Member
This idea may seem weird, but...

I am building a home theater PC. For this application, noise from cooling fans is a big issue. I would like to run a system without a fan on the CPU. Now I could buy an Intel PIII or Celeron CPU. They run cool, but that seems like a waste of money. How about buying a 1.4GHz Thunderbird (Athlon C) and UNDERclocking it to 1GHz. Do you think it will run cool enough to not need a CPU fan?

Squirlz
 
hey, my webpage is www.underclocked.net (nothing to do with underclocking tho)
i can run my celeron 300a @ 1.8v w/o a fan
heck, the power supply doesnt even have a fan!
its my dads system, so all he does is word processing/spreadsheets... nothing that really puts the cpu under a load

i recall another person on teh forums running their duron at lower speeds and voltages to go without a fan
 
Don't know how much nois eis produced because I have had no experience with them, but perhaps water cooling?
 
NO!!

even if you underclock it it will generate as much heat as a Athlon 1GHZ

Well, im not 100% sure but im pretty sure of it
 
u would probably be in luck...run it at 1ghz and undervolt it...undervolting is essential

i've seen it done...make sure u use a hefty high quality heatsink w/ thermal compound tho...of course.
use a lower watt psu (i.e. 230) w/out a fan....run a video card that doesn't require a heatsink and fan either...
use a cooler running hdd...maxtor are generally good temp. wise.
 


<< No matter what you do, you will still need case fans of some sort. amish >>


Ever saw LeoE's Athlon (with 1 low-noise fan that cools both the PSU and the CPU) and his completely fanless P3 rigs? 🙂
 
Squirlz,

Yes, it is possible, but I would still add a VERY LOW NOISE fan on it. Also, get a huge heatsink like one of the Alpha ones.

I used to run an underclocked Athlon 1 GHz at 500 MHz w/1.37V. I could undervolt it lower, but I was limited by the MSI K7T Pro2-A's BIOS settings. It was cooled with a small, low-noise Molex HSF until both the CPU and the motherboard died on me for some very strange reason. (that I still can't figure out why)
 
With any type of radiant air cooling setup, you'll have to have at least 1 fan. It doesn't need to be huge. Just something to recirculate the air in the case. If the air in the case gets too warm, the largest heatsink in the world won't do you any good 'cuz the air will be too hot to transfer heat off the heatsink.

amish
 
Yes, there is Undervolting...

But even if you used a lower voltage at 1GHZ you would only be able to get about a duron 800 temp no?
 


<< Yes, there is Undervolting... But even if you used a lower voltage at 1GHZ you would only be able to get about a duron 800 temp no? >>


I think it works like overclocking. It really depends on your CPU. Some run fine at lower voltages than others. Your system might run more unstable than running at spec voltage, though.
 
an underclocked duron is your best bet in getting a CPU to run without a fan. you would have to run at the lowest possible voltage.

or

You can get a Swiftech cooler and atach a VERY quiet Pabst fan or connect a Panaflo L1A fan and run it at 7 volts. <-- I reccomend this one

You won't need any case fans but you'll probably have to settle for a single platter 5400 RPM hard drive.
 
You can tryto low the votage on the cpu to lower the temp, but it would be bettter if you install clock throthling software. You can disable the math unit to lower temperatuer if you don't need it. Also, I have built over 200 custom firewalls that don't have any form of fan, and it uses solid state disk-on-chip as memory instead of hdd.
 
"...With any type of radiant air cooling setup, you'll have to have at least 1 fan. It doesn't need to be huge. Just something to recirculate the air in the case. If the air in the case gets too warm, the largest heatsink in the world won't do you any good 'cuz the air will be too hot to transfer heat off the heatsink...."

Not necessarily true.

Take the Apple Cube for example:

With that computer, there was an opening at the top, though which hot air could rise out of the case (hot air is lighter than air at room temperature, and naturally rises upward) ... the negative air pressure in the case draws cool air in from the bottom.

The natural convection created a constant movement of air, enough to cool a 450Mhz G4 processor, RAM, Video Card, etc. without the use of any fans! 🙂
 
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