Specific cooling advice?

I am rather new to overclocking and want to give it a shot, but I am worried about case/cpu cooling.

My system now is AMD 2500+ Barton, ABIT NF7-S 2.0, 2 Kingston 256MB DDR 400 RAM, Radeon 9600SE. I have a Lian-Li PC60 case with rounded cables and decently bundled wires.

Right now my temps are 30C system, 44C CPU. I notice when I take my front cover, and 2 sides off temps go down atleast 2C

I notice that many people have 44C load temps for their CPU, overclocked, mine is this high stock... Would a new HS/Fan combo fix this?

Would there be anyway to impove airflow in my case? I have the 2 80mm fans in front, 1 in the rear as exhaust and 1 top blow hole exhaust. Would different fans work better than the stock fans?

Im not too good at gathering my thoughts and posting them all at once... Pardon if they seem so scattered and unorganized. Any help is appreciated, please question me if you dont understand what I am asking or info I didnt mention

Your case temps (delta case-room=10C) are reasonable for 25 CFM worth of fan power. If your fans are rated at more than 25 CFM for total intake/exhaust, there is some room for improvement in freeing up your airflow. The usual advice is to clip away fan grills that have been stamped into the case, and make sure that intake and exhaust are both flowing freely from/to the room.

CPU temp is normally (case temp + HSF_efficiency * CPU_Watts) but you can "cheat" on CPU temp by ducting cool air to your CPU from outside, so that CPU temp will be (room temp + HSF_efficiency * CPU_Watts). This would net you about 10C of CPU temps (down to ~34C) but not help case temps.

Ducting kits are available but the ducts involved are not very good - corrugated, small, twisty. You are probably better off having fun making your own duct.

You could probably get away with your current HSF for a while (14C is fine) but why not splurge and get something nice from Thermalright (try svc.com.) You will probably get a TR heatsink sooner or later if you overclock ...

the wesson

PS A Panaflo L1A - a fairly quiet 80mm fan - is rated at 24 CFM for one fan.

Thanks for the reply. I really want to tryout the duct idea, I have been reading about them throughout the forum. Most of them involve a side fan blowing directly into the HSF, but I dont have a side fan... Could I use the exhaust right near the CPU to suck heat off the HSF?

I am really looking at those copper heatsinks, but they cost quite a bit, I guess they would be the best option anyways though. What would you recommend to get my 2500+ up to 3200+ with decent temps?

Sounds like the Panaflo L1A is a pretty good fan, (almost better than both my intakes/exhaust in one fan?). Would it be a good decision to replace all my current case fans with these? Is there any alternative to these? I like newegg.com and they dont supply any Panaflo products.

After reading some of these posts about the Vantec Tornado, (I have got some good laughs reading reviews about this thing), I might concider buying one just for the shock factor of friends and family hearing my comp boot up like a hairdryer... not to mention awesome cooling?

Thanks for the help


**How would a Thermalright SLK900A paired with a Vantec Tornado keep my temps? Looks like the best possible cooling for a CPU with air...

What is your current heatsink by the way? A tornado and an slk900a would be a very good cooling solution. I'd just hope you don't go deaf in the process.

A Panaflo L1A 80mm is an excellent fan but it just plain does not push a lot of air. You may be better off getting an H1A and then volt modding it to preference.

labinnac said:

Thanks for the reply. I really want to tryout the duct idea, I have been reading about them throughout the forum. Most of them involve a side fan blowing directly into the HSF, but I dont have a side fan... Could I use the exhaust right near the CPU to suck heat off the HSF?

I am really looking at those copper heatsinks, but they cost quite a bit, I guess they would be the best option anyways though. What would you recommend to get my 2500+ up to 3200+ with decent temps?

Sounds like the Panaflo L1A is a pretty good fan, (almost better than both my intakes/exhaust in one fan?). Would it be a good decision to replace all my current case fans with these? Is there any alternative to these? I like newegg.com and they dont supply any Panaflo products.

After reading some of these posts about the Vantec Tornado, (I have got some good laughs reading reviews about this thing), I might concider buying one just for the shock factor of friends and family hearing my comp boot up like a hairdryer... not to mention awesome cooling?

Thanks for the help


**How would a Thermalright SLK900A paired with a Vantec Tornado keep my temps? Looks like the best possible cooling for a CPU with air...

Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to say you should get L1A's for your case - tho they are a fine choice for OK low-noise cooling - just saying your fans might be acting kind of wimpy because they have stuff in the way. They should probably be doing better ... even an L1A all by itself puts out 24 CFM ... so your two 80mm probably *ought* to be pushing at least 50 CFM or so, and the fact that they are not - judging by temps - probably means there is something in the way.

Like your front case bezel.

Lotta people like SLK900A. I hear a good budget choice is the ALX-800 from TR; almost as good as SLK and much cheaper.

The people that like Tornadoes are very noise tolerant. Here is something you might find helpful: every time you double fan CFM, you reduce the part of the temp rise due to airflow by 1/2.

Example:
25 CFM fan on heatsink. DeltaT (CPU-case) is 20 C.
50 CFM fan ... DeltaT is 17.5 C.
100 CFM fan ... DeltaT is 16.75 C
and so on.

After a while you're paying big noise for little crumbs of temp reduction.

So find the best balance - for you - between cooling and noise.

A lot of people here like ThermalTake Smartfan II -- you can adjust fan speed to find your own compromise between noise and cooling.

You should probably be able to get your 2500+ to 3200+ with pretty standard air cooling. I get the impression that overclocking is pretty easy until you hit sort of a wall, at which you have to raise the voltage a lot and do a lot more work to keep temps down. 3200+ (2.2 GHz) from what I read is before the wall - pretty easy. Getting to 2.5 GHz is more of an uphill struggle.

I have a Tbird/1400 overclocked with an Aeroflow heatsink (kind of wimpy) and an L1A (wimpy). But only to 1600. If I wanted 1733, I probably would need 2.0v, an SP-97, a 50 CFM cpu fan, etc.

...

Probably a good idea to have an exhaust fan right next to the CPU, but unfortunately the CPU heat goes blasting off to the sides and it's really hard to collect it. If you reversed the CPU HS fan, you can collect the waste heat easily, but for some reason most HSF's have a real loss in efficiency when the fan is reversed. The best ducting choice for most people is probably cool air right to the CPU HSF from a hole in the side panel right at the CPU. Get out your Wiss snips!

Or, what people also do is simply have tons of air going through the case, which also makes sure that CPU waste heat doesn't stick around long. Unfortunately this is a bit noisy.

the wesson