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The forum for non-component-related silent pc discussions.

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Poseidon
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Post by Poseidon » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

So a couple weeks ago I finally decided that the noise from my PC was becoming unbearable. I did some experimenting (disconnecting fans) and found that the loudest source, by far, was my heat sink fan. It was a ThermalTek Volcano, and it was LOUD. I think the fan was slightly off balance, becuase it made the entire case vibrate in a most obnoxious manner. The exhaust fan was also a little on the loud side. Strangely enough, though, the fan in the 300W power source that came with my case is almost completely inaudable as it is. So I ordered a Zalman flower heat sink and fan, plus a Panaflow exhaust fan. I have already noticed a significant improvement in both noise reduction and cooling. Previously, my CPU (an Athlon 1.2GHz) would idle at or near 50 C. After the new sink/fans were installed it idles at about 42 C and peaks at 52 C. And that's with the HSF turned down pretty low.
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<BR>Last night, I did some more experimentation and found that I could disable the chipset fan and the MB temp only went up a couple degrees C. My next target is my GeForce 3 video card. It is now the loudest noise source. Any suggestions?
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Dru
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Post by Dru » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

I have a GeForce3 Ti200 and ripped off the fan (well, took off hehe). I have a <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://xdune.com/Dru-NewPanaflos.jpg" TARGET="_blank">Panaflo fan hovering over it</A><!-- BBCode End -->. I am either looking at getting a quiet GeForce4 Ti4200 which has a quiet stock fan (hard to find) or might wait on <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/zm50-hp.htm" TARGET="_blank">Zalman's new video card heat pipe solution</A><!-- BBCode End --> (August 2002?).
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Dru
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Post by Dru » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

Also, I've only found Tom's Hardware do a <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/0 ... 00-03.html" TARGET="_blank">GeForce4 noise test</A><!-- BBCode End --> on a bunch of video cards. Looks like the Abit Siluro might be a good bet. Anyone have one of these and want to share your findings?
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Gxcad
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Post by Gxcad » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

I think the leadtek gf4 is the best choice for quiet operation combined with a fan much like yours dru, hovering over it. The reason is the leadtek cards have the biggest heatsinks and with the fan disabled and a fan over it I think it would provide good quiet cooling. As for the original poster who said they disabled their northbridge fan, I also recently got a abit mobo with a northbridge fan and I tried disabling it, the heasink under it got really hot (although I did not use a thermometer, my fingers are trained to tell how hot something approximately is by touching the heatsink) I'd say it was running around 50c (burning hot), which is probably operational but a tad hot, the mobo temp has nothing to do with the northbridge temp. I decided to leave the fan running and the heatsink is nice and cool, probably well under 40c because I don't burn my fingers even leaving them on the heatsink of the northbridge. I'd be careful on your northbridge, I plan to replace the pathethic abit heatsink with a zalman northbridge heatsink to get rid of the fan.
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<br>-Ken
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MikeC
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Post by MikeC » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

If you position the hovering fan over the video card just right, a lot of the airflow will go over the NB, so fan removal is ok. Did this with an ABIT KT7A -- no problems.
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Poseidon
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Post by Poseidon » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

I'll check the temp of the northbridge chip (by touch) tonight. Though, it has been running constantly for several days now with the fan disabled, and I haven't had any problems. The MB is an ASUS KT266.
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<br>I think what I'll do is scrounge through some of my old computer parts and see if I can find some heatsinks. Old CPU heatsinks or video card heatsinks. Then I'll attach them to the video card chipset and NB chipset and blow air over them with a large fan like Dru did.
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Gxcad
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Post by Gxcad » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

Apparently Leo's incredibly popular article on undervolting and such answers some of the nb questions as he mentions they are fine up to 100c or more if I remember correctly. If this is true, 50c is childsplay...
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<br>-Ken
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quokked
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Post by quokked » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

I took off the stock fan off my northbridge as well, a loud as coolermaster sleeve bearing fan, I have a hot northbridge (KT133A) so the computer kept on dieing from a Northbridge that kept on reaching 40c+ temps. What I did was rip off the small sink and thermal epoxy a large CPU heatsink onto it, cheaper then buying the Zalman Passive Northbridge heatsink <IMG SRC="modules/phpBB_14/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif"> , also I've noticed that the waste air from my Microfinned Al CPU heatsink is cooling off my northbridge <IMG SRC="modules/phpBB_14/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif"> , so one less fan for me to worry about silencing. So my tip would be to get a Zalman Passive Northbridge cooler or just stick a big ass old CPU heatsink, but make sure it's the right size because they u can cause some clearance issues with things like caps on the board and the CPU heatsink.
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Poseidon
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Post by Poseidon » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

For what it's worth, I've been running it with the NB chip fan disabled for a couple of weeks now. It is only warm to the touch, and I haven't had any stability issues. I still haven't found a good way to cool my video card, though. It's a GeForce 3 Ti500, and it runs pretty darn hot. A large fan mounted over the card didn't keep it cool enough for my taste. I was able to pull a larger heat sink off of an old TNT card, but I'd have to glue it on, and I don't want it to be permanent if it turns out to not work well. I may just wait for Zalman to ship their heat pipe cooler.
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