Antec NSK3300

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:13 pm

Expecting the worse, I was (pleasantly) surprised as well. I do have an optical drive installed above the HDD, and SpeedFan was used to read temps.

aidanjm2004 · Post by **aidanjm2004** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:22 pm

frostedflakes wrote:Expecting the worse, I was (pleasantly) surprised as well. I do have an optical drive installed above the HDD, and SpeedFan was used to read temps.

How are you finding the ASUS N4L-VM DH and Core Duo chip? Are you using it for a media/ htpc machine, or a desktop machine?

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:58 pm

For a desktop PC, so far, so good. The T2500 seems peppy enough, hasn't effected performance in the few games I play. And, of course, it sips power. The included heatsink is pretty quiet once the fan is turned down far enough.

dlpolnet · Post by **dlpolnet** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 9:28 pm

My Maxtor hd has an idle temp of 55 C according to Speedfan!

I have the hd installed at the base of the main compartment. The CPU has a reasonable temp of 45C. I increased the 120mm Tricool fan to mid setting, and even removed the NSK3300 side panels. Yet the idle temp of the hd climbed to 55C in about 40 minutes from an initial temp of 40C. I don't think 55C is a good temp for a hd. Does anyone know what is a good temp for hd?

Is there a problem with this Maxtor 250gb sata drive?

aidanjm2004 · Post by **aidanjm2004** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 12:01 am

dlpolnet wrote:My Maxtor hd has an idle temp of 55 C according to Speedfan!

I have the hd installed at the base of the main compartment. The CPU has a reasonable temp of 45C. I increased the 120mm Tricool fan to mid setting, and even removed the NSK3300 side panels. Yet the idle temp of the hd climbed to 55C in about 40 minutes from an initial temp of 40C. I don't think 55C is a good temp for a hd. Does anyone know what is a good temp for hd?

Is there a problem with this Maxtor 250gb sata drive?

That does seem very toasty. My 3.5 inch Samsung sata drives typically idle at about 30 degrees (with front fans in Antec 3000B) or 40 degrees (in the upper CD area in 3000B). The Samsung drive in the NSK3300 is hovering at 30 degrees idle. 55C seems a bit disturbing.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:49 pm

55 is getting very hot for a drive. 60C is the maximum temp and don't expect it to last long. 45C is considered warm and about the limit I would want my drives to sit. My server sits in my garage and on very hot days the hd temps can reach 45C. Is this case worth getting considering the drive temps? I was planning on putting in a Raptor.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:04 pm

No offense to dlpolnet, but considering he seems to be the only one with high drive temps, I'd tend to think it is something related to his setup and not necessarily a fault of the case itself. aidanjm2004 and myself are both reporting very reasonable temps with the drives installed in this case.

dlpolnet · Post by **dlpolnet** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 10:27 pm

I agree. I'm blaming the Maxtor hd. I plan to switch out this hd, and recheck the temp.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 12:15 am

dlpolnet wrote:I agree. I'm blaming the Maxtor hd. I plan to switch out this hd, and recheck the temp.

Your cold start temp was 40C, climbing to 55C. A 15C rise in the optical bay is pretty much standard for a 3.5" drive. You just have a temperature offset problem in your Maxtor, which is not uncommon - my newest Samsung, an SP0842N, has a +7C offset (about a third of your Maxtor's).

dlpolnet · Post by **dlpolnet** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:39 pm

Actually, the temp rise of 40 to 55 was in the main compartment. In the optical drive compartment, it rose to 60 C.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 2:52 pm

dlpolnet wrote:Actually, the temp rise of 40 to 55 was in the main compartment. In the optical drive compartment, it rose to 60 C.

Warm drive or no air flow, or both. Still, considering the ~20C offset your HDD has, the real temperature in the optical bay is ~40C. If your site is air conditioned, you should have no problems, even this summer.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:20 pm

Ok, so I finally got my NSK3300 and got a chance to work on it. Here are my components that i installed. It is for a work PC that is mainly internet and office work.

Biostar Tforce S754 Geforce 6100
A64 3400+ Venice core @2.4Ghz (maximum undervolt is only 1.35 from 1.4

)
Zalman 7000AlCu 45C full load 950rpm (was a Ninja but did not fit well. more on this later)
1Gb Ram
74GB WD Raptor ( 48C in upper chamber. Looking for fixes for this)
BenQ DVD burner

I am happy with the case. It looks nice and is smaller than i expected. It is a little harder to work in than most cases I am used to but that can be expected from the small size. Quality is high and i don't mind the painted front. It looks as good as my P150 sitting side by side.

The biggest disapointment for me is that my Ninja did not fit. While physically it fits in the case it got in the way of the power supply cables coming out of the upper chamber. There was maybe 3/4 cm between the ninja and the upper chamber and this prevented me from running the power supply cables without running them through the heatsink. The Ninja could work for some people who have more space between the top of the motherboard and the cpu but the Tforce is a little tight. I ended up switching the Ninja for a Zalman 7000AlCu and it seems to work just fine. My office is not that quiet so this should work for me.

However, I switched the Ninja into my home office machine and now it won't boot. I traced it to the Antec NeoHE so I am giving it some time to settle. This happened once before and letting it sit for a few hours allowed it to boot again so I'm hoping this works. Don't know why this happened but it booted with another power supply so i'm praying the NeoHE boots up so i don't have to switch it out and mod the other supply cause it is not that quiet.

vapb400 · Post by **vapb400** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:47 pm

Thanks for the mini-review, any chance you could snap a couple pics? I'm interested in seeing a pic of the bottom hard drive case as well as the interior space.

Thanks alot

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:26 pm

I'll get some pics up when my other pc starts working. Still no life from the NeoHe. I'm starting to get annoyed. I blocked the top vent and the drive temps went down 4 degrees to 44-45. Like I said before, this is the limit of the drive temps i am comfortable with. Being a work computer, this baby needs to be reliable. It is night here and I can really start to hear the noises from the computer. I have a slight ticking noise from the tricool and a broadband wooshing sound that is mostly coming from the power supply.

Overall, this is a pretty quiet system and should be inaudible at work. I suspect my noise floor at my house is really low but i have no way of measuring it. If I kept it here at home I would switch the tricool for one of my Yate Loons I have laying around. I could live with the woosh. One more thing to note; both my P150 system and my new nsk3300 system use raptors. The p150 shows temps of 42C on the drive and the nsk is now showing 44C with the vent closed. Not too bad but not great IMO. Also, drive seek noise seems to be more pronounced in the nsk3300. Covering the top vent helps slightly. Both systems use the rubber grommets for drive suspension because i feel safer bolting my drives down and i don't knowtice a huge idle difference and I kinda like the seek noise. Tells me when its working too hard.

One more thing off topic:
The computer shuts itself down after being on for some time. I can't pinpoint the time because it has only done it after I leave. I suspect something is going on with turning off the monitor because it does not do it when i am here. All other power saving features are off. Wondered if anyone had any ideas on this. Its getting late so I will play with it more tomorrow.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 2:14 am

autoboy wrote:The computer shuts itself down after being on for some time. I can't pinpoint the time because it has only done it after I leave. I suspect something is going on with turning off the monitor because it does not do it when i am here.

Bill Gates built a feature into your OS especially for you. When you come back to your computer and the monitor is off, hit "a" for autoboy on your keyboard, wait 5 seconds, and see what happens.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:51 am

Hmmm, hitting "a" does not work but for some reason typing "Felger Carbon is not funny" worked. Thx for your help buddy.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:45 pm

Ok, so i had another problem here and it seems like the power supply is shutting down for some reason. I was playing with the ACPI fuctions in the bios...I don't really know what they are... and after disabling ACPI it would not boot again. It would come on for a few seconds and then quit. Resetting the CMOS did nothing and as I tried it would turn on less and less time. I let it sit as I went to lunch and it booted, i fixed the bios for smart fan and then it died again after the reboot. I said save and reboot in the bios and it shut down nomally but would not come back up. I started it again and it died shortly again. I started it again and it came up long enough for me to type this message but I don't know when it will die again. It seems to be only when it turns off the monitor or on reboot. I don't know what is going on here. Maybe there is something with the minimum load on the power supply i'm not sure. I'll try updating the bios when i get a chance. My P150 is still not booting also. This really sucks.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 11:22 am

Hi,

I wanted to update people who may read this forum on my situation even though nobody seems to respond. I fixed my P150 and it turned out is was related the the Intel ATX 2.2 spec requiring a minimum load of 1A on the +12V line. My system must delay the cpu voltage because as soon as I removed the Zalman and Antec tricool fans for lower amp fans it would not boot. I put a Yate Loon on the Ninja controled with speedfan if I need it and put the Tricool back in. This setup would still not boot so i stuck the fan speed switch out the back and it boots fine if I set it to high then back to low manually. This will have to work for now.

The nsk 3300 is still having stability problems. I no longer believe it is related to the power saving features because it shuts down randomly when I am working. Sometimes it will not boot and other times it runs for several hours without fail. It is not a thermal problem either because the fan never ramps up. I must have gotten a bad power supply. The rails are a little low but well within spec so I am not sure how I can make sure. I broke down and ordered another nsk 3300 to replace this one. I'll rma the other one soon but I need this working as soon as possible and I can't just put in another SFX supply cause I don't have one and don't want to buy a crap one for now. I would rather have two of these sweet nsk 3300s then one and an extra crap SFX supply. I searched the web and found no other similiar problems except a guy on Newegg that got a really bad ps that would show 2.5V on the 5V rail.

Linus · Post by **Linus** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:27 am

For those of us eagerly awaiting an SPCR review of the NSK3300, this review from SFF Club may be of interest in the meantime:

SFF Club Review

frankgehry · Post by **frankgehry** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:47 pm

SSF Club is a nice site. The sound level readings are made in the labs at Virginia Tech.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:59 am

I am really liking this case more and more.

next workstation for the SOHO will probably be this and a Conroe.

aidanjm2004 · Post by **aidanjm2004** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:40 pm

autoboy wrote:It looks as good as my P150 sitting side by side.

it would look cute sitting next to the P150, like a baby P150

aidanjm2004 · Post by **aidanjm2004** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:52 pm

autoboy wrote: Hi,
I fixed my P150 and it turned out is was related the the Intel ATX 2.2 spec requiring a minimum load of 1A on the +12V line. My system must delay the cpu voltage because as soon as I removed the Zalman and Antec tricool fans for lower amp fans it would not boot. I put a Yate Loon on the Ninja controled with speedfan if I need it and put the Tricool back in. This setup would still not boot so i stuck the fan speed switch out the back and it boots fine if I set it to high then back to low manually. This will have to work for now.

that is bizarre. is that a problem with the NeoHe power supply that came with the P150? What motherboard/ CPU are you using?

autoboy wrote: The nsk 3300 is still having stability problems. I no longer believe it is related to the power saving features because it shuts down randomly when I am working. Sometimes it will not boot and other times it runs for several hours without fail. It is not a thermal problem either because the fan never ramps up. I must have gotten a bad power supply. The rails are a little low but well within spec so I am not sure how I can make sure.

you are having such odd problems. I've not heard of anything like this.

Hope you manage to get things up and running soon.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:54 pm

The P150 dwarfs the nsk3300. It looks kinda wimpy next to it. Everyone knows black computers are faster but this time I have to give the nod to the P150. The nsk3300 is just too small to look fast.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 1:30 pm

that is bizarre. is that a problem with the NeoHe power supply that came with the P150? What motherboard/ CPU are you using?

It is a documented problem with the NeoHe where you have toadd some dummy load. I think they have fixed it in later revisions although there is some debate on that still. The motherboard in the P150 is the MSI FID ( I don't remember the model number) but it is onboard graphics, two low speed fans, and a single harddisk running an athon x2 3800+. No PCI cards.

I'm still waiting on the replacement nsk3300 so I will keep you informed. It should be at my house already so I'll hook it up when i get home. I'm hoping this fixes the problem.

[edit] Got the new case and switched the power supply. Been in for a few hours. Still stable. Looks like I got a bad one.

bendit · Post by **bendit** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 5:32 pm

Is the hard drive mounted "hard"? Can someone describe how that little tray with the rubber feet for the drive works?

thanks

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:18 pm

It is a rubber gasket that isolates the drive from the chassis. The screw that holds the drive only touches the drive and the soft silicone of the gasket is the only thing that touches the chassis. It actually works quite well at preventing the vibrations from the drive entering the chassis and making the panels vibrate. Not as good as suspension but good enough for me. They are the same as on the P150. You can look at the review here of the P150 to see what they look like.

6 hours and no psu shutdown so it looks like it is fixed. Hope this is an isolated incident.