Hey all. First post here. Great forum.

I am trying to find a quiet fan for my cpu, but I'm not quite sure what to get.

I want to just get a 70mm to 80mm fan adapter, and slap a quiet 80mm fan on the stock heat sink. I just don't know what specifications I should be looking for to ensure that it will powerful enough to keep the cpu cool, and still be quiet.

Thanks for any help.

You are using the stock heatpipe cooler right?

if you specify how much $$$ you can spare it would be easier to select a nice cooler. sometimes a few bucks more can buy a surprisingly efficient cooler which will still remain reasonably queit.

also, afaik there are no 70>80 mm fan adapters (not sure tho). 80>120, 60>80 - yes. if you are on a tight budget you could also buy a decent 80 or 92 mm fan and DIY a thingy to keep it on top of your heatsink. my idea here would to place a closed cell foam pad on the hub of the fan, stick it with a v mild glue or double side tape, and secure the whole contraption with zippies (somehow). if you have a stock heatpipe heatsink i would guess it's reasonably efficient so a good 92 mm fan would be quite ok.

what rpm you should aim at - don't know exactly so won't try to guess, but whatever you need can be easily accomplished with software like quietfan or motherboard monitor. or you can go manual but that will require additional investment in a front panel.

a cheap aftermarket cooler to consider would be ac freezer pro

Hello & welcome to SPCR,

I would try the Enermax thermally controlled 80mm fan (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999014), with a 70 --> 80mm adapter. This fan has double ball bearings, so it will do well in hot areas, and except for possibly different bearings, it is probably identical to the (much more expensive!) SilenX 80mm fan, that was tested in the SPCR fan roundup #1. (They are both made by Globe, btw.)

In my experience, when the Enermax is running at minimum speed, it is significantly quieter than the low speed NMB (which is the same as the new Scythe Minebea NMB, and than the Enermax Enlobal 80mm, too.

It is very quiet at it's lower speeds, so depending on the temperature where you locate the thermistor, you can likely get the CPU temp that you want, at a noise level that is much better than the stock fan.

I take it you have already exhausted the options of running AMD's Cool n Quiet and have enabled the Abit MB BIOS FanEQ to control the speed of the fan?

yes

how ever much it takes

thanks for the welcome, and the suggestion. i will try that out.

no, i have not. not sure about either of those. i haven't messed with any of the fan controls because i don't know what speed the fan should be running at.

That's definitely the first thing to try!
My CPU fan went from 4000rpm to 1240rpm after installing cool n quiet and enabling 'smart fan' in my BIOS.
Give it a go, it's free after all.

the only cool n quiet software i am finding for Athlon 64 X2 is for Linux.

the Windows processor driver doesn't say anything about cool n quiet.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Tec ... 18,00.html

shoud i be looking somewhere else?

maybe first check bios settings and make sure c n q is enabled there. don't know about abit bios but my asus bios settings are marked pretty obviously, so i guess if you roam thru your bios you will spot it. to go to bios try holding shift key while your machine is booting up. once you got that, make sure you have the latest amd drivers & soft. it's quite probable you'll have c n q drivers on your abit cd rom (heck, i'm not sure you even need to install them once your bios is configured properly). to get the most of your double cojones download amd latest drivers. IF you want to go a step further get rightmark cpu utility and search the forum on how to use it - it can replace c n q very nicely, especially if you overclock your cpu. but i guess that's another story...

i got it to work. all i had to do was ensure that CnC was enabled in bios (which it was already) and install the amd cpu driver. then set the power managment to minimal. it's not very obvious that it's running. and the noise from the fan was only minimally cut. it is still way too loud. i even enabled Abit Fan Eq, and it's still too loud. definitely need a new fan. thanks for the help guys.

Minimal power management means it manges power consumptipon as little as possible, at least when using that setting on a laptop the CPU runs at full speed. Download CPU-Z and see what frequency the CPU is running at, and try the different power management settings.

Which is the correct setting for CnQ.

Or use AMD's Power management software.
Your fan speed really should have dropped right down and be near silent if everything is enabled.

Try turning off the smart fan controls in the BIOS and using a program called Speedfan. I'm using the stock cooler and fan on my Mom's Athlon 3500 and was able to turn the fan down to about half-speed so it was drowned out by the exhaust fan (Antec Tri-cool) and the HD (WD 2500KS). Temps stay very low too. If you do this and have a problem with temps, you could always use CrystalCPUID to try undervolting your CPU further. Is it a Socket 939 or AM2?

Good luck.