Athlon 5350 cooling

First of all, this is truly a wonderful low power APU, just perfect for my needs, there is only one small issue:


I am using the boxed Athlon 5350 cooler and it was already prebuilt. It was the easyest CPU/APU assembling i ever did, it was just a matter of min, AMD surely did a geat job in order to make it as simply as possible. The processor surely suits everything a "low profile PC" enthusiast can wish for, including dynamic clock for maximum efficiency and all the other fancy tech but i think i have to find a way on how to handle the somewhat noisy fan.


Option A: Have to find a way in order to lower the RPM, that would mean i have to use some sort of resistor so the Volt will be lowered. The cooling may still be sufficient. The question remains if the lower RPM is able to make big contribution. In term the cooler is finest junk it may not change a lot (i cant judge). But i truly think AMD was going over the top always running the fan at max speed, that APU is a 25 W TDP, not to easy to burn. Although the APU is 70 C max (and as soon as Tjunction is exceeded the clock may be lowered) but i dont think it will ever exceed 50 C, still, i lack a proof because i was unable to read out the load temps so far. Because all the tools i found such as RealTemp was not compatible and Catalyst isnt reading out temps, not even GPU.


Option B: Replace the cooler... no idea what to get instead. The heatsink should be sufficient so i only will have to get a better fan including 4 wire for controller support.




Any useful feedback?

Hw monitor just updated to include among others the kabini series of chips

Uhm, i think its bit to complicated to understand so i made a revision for max transparency:


Case used: http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00001514 ELEMENT QUI> one single fan, but i think its not the case fan (located inside PSU) creating the high pitched noise. According to techreport its 38 dBA at 6 inch range, but my sitting range is three times as much, so it may barely exceed 30 dBA for real term. That can be considered audible but not noisy.


CPU: Atlhon 5350: That fan is probably not noisy at low speed but most likely pretty noisy and high pitched when driven by 12 V (i had some hints). I guess the people not annoyed by the noise either arnt running the fan at 12V or they simply got bad hearing, i cant tell.

I have to add: In my experience only a few hightech Noctua/Phanteks coolers was able to stay quit when driven by 12V, and the sound was mainly from the air itself (aerodynamic issue), not from the fan mechanics. Quality difference of fans are very huge. The other thing i have to say is that the Athlon 5350 isnt hard to cool down using the stock sink. Someone already made a test with ZERO fan attached and ZERO cooler inside case (no airstream) and the APU was put under full load, but it was just a little bit above Tjunction of 70 C, so even the slowest fan speed mode would totaly be sufficient in order to cool the APU down, there is neither a high speed nor good fan required.


Conclusion: So the question remains, how to solve the issue and is there any way to sort out the RPM using my AM1 board https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AM1IA/ ?



Thanks, hope i was clear enough.

I cannot find a download for the AM1I-A manual.
Asus Fan Xpert may be able to adjust the fan heat to speed curve.
I don't know if the CPU fan header is 3-pin variable voltage control or 4-pin PWM control, and if 4-pin does it also have variable voltage control.
Some Asus motherboards have only 4-pin PWM control on CPU fan header..

It's something you'll need to test. The motherboard may well be able to adjust the speed via the 3p header.
If not, AMD box coolers are very cheap here, the 140w rated ones are $14 or so.
Might be worth looking into.

OK i found out the issue, Asus fan Xpert was able to make some fine tuning regarding CPU fan and its able to use PWM mode (no voltage, i guess its 4 wires only). So the fan is now running between 1000 and 2000 RPM in usual. As soon as CPU fan is above 2000 RPM it may become noisy but up to 2000 its pretty quiet. The max speed is around 4000 RPM, but surely not recommended (it will be noisy). ~1000 is the lowest "safe RPM" spot, which is rather high but i guess it can be worse.


However, it seems like the PSU cooler from Element Q is another spot with noisy fan. Its not that high pitched but as long as CPU fan stays below 2000 RPM the Element Q (PSU) fan is the major source of noise. Well... it got 2 or 3 different fan speed modis but those cant be adjusted using the BIOS or Fan Xpert, so either i get new PSU (hard to find a fitable one) or i simply have to live with rather high noise. Its probably around 30 dBA, but a dream condition would be 20 dbA or lower.


Btw: Was editing my first post because made some wrong statement, a 3 wire indeed can have a speed (RPM) control but PWM only (im really no cooling expert so i had no clue). Ah well, i always learn something new, reason i like to use a forum. The stock 5350 cooler isnt actually that bad at noise as long as the RPM is keept below 2000 and thats totaly possible taking into account the low TDP. I made temp testing using the Xpert tool and the CPU can easely stay below 70 C without a high RPM.

Ivy said:

OK i found out the issue, Asus fan Xpert was able to make some fine tuning regarding CPU fan and its able to use PWM mode (no voltage, i guess its 4 wires only). So the fan is now running between 1000 and 2000 RPM in usual. As soon as CPU fan is above 2000 RPM it may become noisy but up to 2000 its pretty quiet. The max speed is around 4000 RPM, but surely not recommended (it will be noisy). ~1000 is the lowest "safe RPM" spot, which is rather high but i guess it can be worse.


However, it seems like the PSU cooler from Element Q is another spot with noisy fan. Its not that high pitched but as long as CPU fan stays below 2000 RPM the Element Q (PSU) fan is the major source of noise. Well... it got 2 or 3 different fan speed modis but those cant be adjusted using the BIOS or Fan Xpert, so either i get new PSU (hard to find a fitable one) or i simply have to live with rather high noise. Its probably around 30 dBA, but a dream condition would be 20 dbA or lower.


Btw: Was editing my first post because made some wrong statement, a 3 wire indeed can have a speed (RPM) control but PWM only (im really no cooling expert so i had no clue). Ah well, i always learn something new, reason i like to use a forum. The stock 5350 cooler isnt actually that bad at noise as long as the RPM is keept below 2000 and thats totaly possible taking into account the low TDP. I made temp testing using the Xpert tool and the CPU can easely stay below 70 C without a high RPM.

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This one will do the trick:
http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/alpine-m1-passive.html

Im guessing that It will fit in your case with no probs, but you should double check the height of It. As long as u have some ventilation inside I would say It can do an awesome job there. They say Its great.

And heres another one:
http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/alpine-m1.html

I would definitively pick up the first one If It fits in your case.