My almost 1 fan system

[Zhentar]

I just finished upgrading my computer to an Athlon 64 3000+ venice, DFI Lanparty nf4 Ultra-D, and eVGA 6600GT. I kept my old ram (512 DDR333 + 512 DDR400), hard drives (72gb Raptor, 120gb Maxtor DM9), PSU (Seasonic SS 400), and DVD burner.

I put a Thermalright XP-120 on the CPU, and undervolted it to 1.15v I get 35C at idle, and 55C under full load. I replaced the chipset heatsink with a NB47J. The stock heat sink seemed pretty quiet with the speed control, but that was probably thanks to the video card. That was a real screamer. I replaced it with a ZM-80D; temps stayed the same but the noise sure dropped. Inspired by the P180, I've made a cardboard duct so that the PSU pulls air over the hard drives (and it keeps them at 30C and 39C).

I haven't tried everything I can yet, but it looks like I still need a fan for the chipset. Hopefully I'll be able to underclock something to get the temps down. I never thought that I'd have a harder time getting the chipset passive than the CPU!

and now, the pictures:







As you can see, I have decided to use the boxes my stuff came in to isolate everything from the empty case it is sitting on.

The loudest fan is the Super Silencer exhaust fan. Since I'm pulling less than 90 watts from the wall at idle, and it's spinning at 1500 RPM, that's not much. The clicking of the NMB fan I'm using on the northbridge and the spindle noise aren't noticeable over it, but that's probably because they don't have a clear path to me, whereas the PSU exhaust points right at me.

[ronrem]

I think some Lan Party mobos have managed with the blue zalman-with some pins cut away

The NF4 chipset is great....except for the heat it throws off. The DFI Lan P arty is one of several mobos that shine in overclocker drag races,BUT make it very difficult to put a decent quiet cooler on the chipset.

Abit has a spiffy new board with a well done PASSIVE chipset heatpipe cooler that takes the heat out the back.

The ECS KN1 has a lot of space around the chipset-enough for the new coolermaster blue ice with heatpipes...with it's fan removed...in which form it still should outcool a zalman. There are several others also able to use the coolermaster.

The point here is that a mobo CAN be the overclock champ (with enough fans)and can have a few nice features,or just a cool look-and have a few quirks making it hard to silence.

Likely in a noise don't matter OC contest the Lan Party would beat the Abit by a little-but if you do the contest with a NOISE limit-the Abit wins EASY.
Most hardware review sites fuss over 2 frames per sec,and ignore the racket even if it sounds like an F 16,so there are many kinds of "performance".

A bracket can easily be glued or bolted to the case wall to enable a low rpm fan,an 80mm,or a 120mm,in position to blow air at the chipset,even if its the stock sink with its fan removed. That solution can also run into trouble if you went for the smallest possible case. For most,it's a pretty easy improvisation