Will Seasonic ST 400w be enough? Storage system power reqs..

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:09 am

For what it's worth, I have read through the 300w PSU thread... very impressive.

My workstation is in dire need of quieting down. My power supply is a cheap generic unit I picked up a few years ago... the very fact that it is still running amazes me. I have been lurking on SPCR for over a year - reading about everyones near silent rigs with envy.

Based on the recommended PSU list (and reviews, and forum posts) I just placed an order for a 400w Seasonic Super Tornado. This is to replace my no-name 400w that is in the box now. I'm having second thoughts if this will be sufficient, as my system is more storage centric than most around here. Here is what I have...

Antec SX1440B case Link to review with pictures
8x Panaflo FBA09A12L 92mm case fans (all running at 5v)
Athlon XP 2500+ (Thoroughbred Core, no O/C)
Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu CPU cooler
Soyo Dragon KT400 motherboard
3 x 512mb PC3200 (one may be PC2700?)
Memory running at 333mhz (the KT400 didn't support 400 it seems)
Geforce 5900XT video card (also not overclocked)
Intel 10/100 S network card
SB Audigy
Floppy drive
2 x Promise ATA 133 Controllers (non-raid)

Hard Drives:
120gb 7200rpm Maxtor
160gb 7200rpm Seagate
200gb 7200rpm Seagate
160gb 7200rpm Maxtor
160gb 7200rpm Western Digital
250gb 7200rpm Western Digital
250gb 7200rpm Maxtor

Yes, that's 7 x 7200rpm drives!

Optical Drives:
NEC 3500A
LiteOn 411s

Current temps:

Case - 33C
CPU Diode - 59C
CPU Socket - 46C

Hard drives: 28C - 34C

I need help! My system is not as loud as some (I recall my old Dual Celeron BP6 system.... 14 Sunon case fans!!!) but it is a droning noise that is killing me. I need the hard drive space, but I'm willing to consider consolidating into less drives -> more space per drive. This system handles live storage of video data, as well as general workstation uses. I don't play many games so speed is not a primary concern. I've been looking into replacing the processor with an Athlon mobile, perhaps that will reduce the heat slightly.

All in all - I'm at my wits end. Will the ST 400w be enough to power this? What should I do to lower noise? I'm generally unwilling to give up storage space, but I'd consider underclocking the CPU, replacing the hard drives with quieter models, replacing various other components as recommended.

Note: Edited title to be more descriptive.

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:26 am

For comparisons sake... I'm running an enermax 365W noisetaker, with 4 hard drives and a 9800 pro vid card. my opinion? You should be fine with the 400W

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:32 am

wooglin - Even with so many drives? My single greatest concern is the hard drives.

Oh, just for everyones amusement, here are the voltages currently reported by SiSoft Sandra:

Voltage Sensor(s)
CPU Voltage : 1.65V
Aux Voltage : 3.33V
+3.3V Voltage : 3.06V
+5V Voltage : 5.27V
+12V Voltage : 9.73V
-12V Voltage : -9.32V
-5V Voltage : -2.94V
Standby Voltage : 3.20V

9.73V on the +12V has got to be wrong. According to MBM5:

+3.3V Voltage: 3.37V
+5.0V Voltage: 5.16V
+12.0V Voltage: 12.72V
-12.0V Voltage: 2.52V
-5.0V Voltage: 1.5V

Go figure.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:48 am

It'll be able to sustain your drives without a problem.

The bigger question is, can it start up your hard drives? Drives draw a good chunk of power on boot up, but they don't draw that all that much once they're running.

I don't know if it can or not. You may overload the PSU, but it'll only be for a few seconds.

Back when my server worked, I had 6 hard drives in there. Not as modern as your hard drives, though 2 were big SCSI beasts (23GB Full height 5.25"). It was my dual PIII system. Running 2x F@H, it drew something like 110W. Booting up, I saw it peak at around 350W+. An Antec TP350 still booted it up without too much of a problem.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:12 am

Are you already powering this system with your cheap generic PSU? If so, then wouldn't a 400W Seasonic cut it? Either way, with that many hard drives, "staggered spin-up" sounds like a good way to reduce boot-time power requirements. This feature should be available on many SCSI controllers, and I've seen it on on-board SATA RAID controllers as well, but it may not be a feature your Promise cards support.

What about moving your storage to a server in another room, and networking it to your workstation with gigabit ethernet?

With 1.3TB of data, consolidating drives and switching to quiet models can only get you so far, and it would be way too expensive. If you suspended all the drives it would cut down on the noise. The system would still be loud, but probably not nearly as loud as it is now. The nice thing is, since it looks like your case mounts drives in the 5.25" bays, you probably have room to do a mass suspension.

Question about your case: it looks like all the intake fans bypass your hard drives. What if you turned off the intake fans, so that the exhaust fans had to pull air over the hard drives as well? This might improve hard drive cooling while reducing the noise a bit at the same time.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:48 am

Yes, I am currently powering the drives (and everything else) off my generic 400w. The reason I ask if the 400w Seasonic will be sufficient is I am not sure if 400w in general is enough. The old PS has a +12V rating of 14A or 16A (I'll have to open the case up and check again). Obviously the higher rating for the Seasonic is appealing, yet I really don't know what the proper power supply for this sort of setup is.

I've read so many threads on SPCR regarding using 300w - 400w power supplies to power high end processors, video cards, and other components - yet I have read very few that address situations that involve numerous hard drives. It seems the average user doesn't have 7 hard drives

I may try powering down the front air intake fans. That would reduce my total number of fans by 4. You are correct that the intake fans do not bring cool air to the hard drives - in fact, they hardly have any effect on that side of the case.

Moving the drives to another room is not an option. I need local access to the data on them. Gigabit might work, but running cables would be worse than tolerating the noise.

jimbobUK · Post by **jimbobUK** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:21 pm

I talked about this on this thread

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... highlight=

I've been living with the OCZ power supply ever since... i've just brought an artic cooling vga silencer and now i can hear the PSU noise more clearly i'm wondering about going quieter but at the same time i'm not sure if the Seasonics will be enough..

The thing about hdds is the current on the 12v line.. the OCZ PSU impressed me with its >30 amps on the 12v rail, as oppossed to most PSUs at 16-18amps ... i've noticed a lot of PSUs (the seasonics included i think) have two 12v rails.. 12v1, 12v2 ... each supporting up to 18amps.. i'm not sure how these 12v rails are seperated and whether this means across the two you have the equivelant of a PSU with a single 12 rail rated up to 36watts.. anyone care to clear up this confusion?

After buying the OCZ for my main machine I've also moved out a lot of hdds to let the case breathe a little better... i now dont need the OCZ for just 12v amps anymore.. at least not for the time being... but i may increase the number of hdds again in the future.. i'm running a 9800 pro at the moment.. in the future this could change to a 6800GT or above.. along with a more power hungry CPU ... if i move the OCZ PSU to my server with a similar number of hdds as what you are talking about and went with a Seasonic, is it going to have the legs to support such an upgrade path..

If anyone could elaborate on the two 12v rails and how you actually use them seperately.. ie. are one set of molex off 1 rail, another off another .. that'd be helpful..

As to the original question.. for ultimate hdd support, unless these dual 12v rails are equivelant to a single 12v rail as far as total watts is concerned then i can recommend the OCZ psu's as good alternatives.. its not too noisy in my current system and has dependable power up to crazy levels.. i'm not 100% sure but i did look and think that it looked one of the quietest PSUs when you start to get up to 200watts usage and above.. for a system that may approach that a lot of the time, perhaps it is one of the quietest ones you can get.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:43 pm

One 12V rail is for the CPU, the other is for the rest of the system.

jimbobUK · Post by **jimbobUK** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:10 pm

Thanks Tephras, so its only the power connector into the motherboard (and any extra power connectors for the motherboard other than the standard ATX one) that gets one rail..

Ok well that settles it then.. for multiple hdds a single rail on the OCZ of 35amps, has to be better than 1 of two rails on a dual rail PSU rated at 18amps.. if a hdd requires 2-3amps on the 12v rail, lets say 3amps to overestimate then 6 hdds takes you to 18amps without anything else.. yes if you can spin them up seperately then they're unlikely to all be used simultaneously, but my server system at the moment beeps as a warning on power up, and power off.. i'm assuming its the hdds straining it by spinning up and parking respectively.. i've had a few crashes/lock ups on the system whilst its been in this state where as before with fewer drives and no warning beeps at boot/shutdown it was mostly rock solid... what i'm saying is a system drive, a second drive for swop file, working on 1 drive and finally ripping to another drive (obviously simultaneously accessing an optical drive to rip from) and you are starting to get up to high current draws from all 5 drives without really thinking about it..

jfweaver · Post by **jfweaver** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:53 pm

undefined.. I used a 400W seasonic tornado on a similar system, it worked fine and it has been a benchmark for how quiet I want a psu to be. This is what I was running with it-

mobile 2500+, Abit NF7, 1GB ram, 7 hdds, dvdrw, 5900

then I upgraded to this:

a64 s939 90nm 3500+, 1GB ram, Asus A8N SLI with 6600GT, 7hdds, dvdrw

I ended up picking up a pretty loud BFG 550w SLI psu, and then upgraded to the same 600W enermax noisetaker that was just put up for review. The noisetaker is audible on boot but even with the 2x 6800GTs and all the same hardware as above, it is pretty quiet.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:57 pm

pissboy wrote:undefined.. I used a 400W seasonic tornado on a similar system, it worked fine and it has been a benchmark for how quiet I want a psu to be. This is what I was running with it-

mobile 2500+, Abit NF7, 1GB ram, 7 hdds, dvdrw, 5900

then I upgraded to this:

a64 s939 90nm 3500+, 1GB ram, Asus A8N SLI with 6600GT, 7hdds, dvdrw

I ended up picking up a pretty loud BFG 550w SLI psu, and then upgraded to the same 600W enermax noisetaker that was just put up for review. The noisetaker is audible on boot but even with the 2x 6800GTs and all the same hardware as above, it is pretty quiet.

I'm glad to see someone else on here with similar kit!

I'm looking at doing some upgrades, aside from the new PSU. What I'm thinking about right now is:

Replace Soyo KT400 Ultra --> Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Replace 2600+ Thorough Bred --> Athlon XP-M 2400+ 35 watt version (overclock to 2200mhz)

I've been looking at my drive configuration... I'm not sure how I could really consolidate at the moment. If the 300GB Seagate models (w/ 5yr warranty) came down in price I'd consider putting 4 of them in and pulling three drives. Even then, I'd hate to lose the flexibility of having an isolated OS/Software drive (120gb) + data drives. At least the drives are isolated from the board, they aren't adding much to the heat (not w/ 4 92mm fans venting from behind them).

I'm disappointed in the temperature readings I'm getting. At the moment I'm not sure if the high temps are a result of me improperly installing the Zalman 7000 (I'm not saying I did, I'm just saying it is quite possible), or if it is just residual from the drives. It concerns me that the "case" temp is being reported as 6C higher than my coolest drive - there is no active cooling on any of these drives?!?

Another possibility is the passive cooling on the Northbridge. I am using a Zalman heatsink on it instead of the noisy fan that was originally installed.

Any ideas?

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:32 pm

If the old PSU can do it with 14-16A on the 12V line, then the 400W Seasonic, with 22-24A, shouldn't have any trouble at all. It seems that Seasonics are conservatively rated, too: MikeC (SPCR founder) did some informal voltage-sag tests on various PSU's, and the Seasonics were able to handle internal amperages grossly over their stated maximum. Other PSU's shut down or blew up (literally). I'm running an old dual-Athlon system on a Seasonic 300W, probably running the system permanently near its peak amperage of 30A on the +5V line, with no problems.

Now let's get to the bottom of hard drive power requirements. Here are the specs for a 200GB Western Digital:

Code: Select all

                 12 VDC         5 VDC  	Typ. Power
Spinup           1.3 A (max)    650 mA    19.0 W
Read/Write/Idle  350 mA         700 mA    7.75 W
Seek             675 mA         725 mA    12.0 W

So 20W for spin-up and 10W for idle are reasonable estimates. The specs were the same for Western Digital's 120GB model. I couldn't find Maxtor's spin-up measurements, but here's what I could find for the 250GB model:

Code: Select all

Mode           5V   12V  
Seek (mA)      858  662 
Idle (mA)      668  334 
Standby (mA)   90   36

These numbers are similar enough to the WD's to assume 20W/10W is still a fair estimate. Let's say 13W for seeks.

So how much power do seven drives pull? No more than 140W at spin-up, with 1.3A * 7 = 9A on the 12V line. After spin-up, if you defrag all hard drives at once you'll see 13W * 7 = 90W of power draw, with 5A draw on the 12V line. Idling, you'll be around 60W/3A.

With the Seasonic 400W, we have peak current handling of 24A, or 22A sustained. I'll take the lower number for argument's sake. 22A - 9A gives 13A to power the rest of the system during start-up. That's over 150W left on the 12V line alone, which is more draw than you'll see even when running CPUBurn + 3DMark + Nero Burning ROM, nevermind the idle load your system has during the first few seconds of boot-up.

I think I've conclusively shown that the 400W Super Tornado is a fine power supply for your system.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:43 pm

undefined wrote:Replace Soyo KT400 Ultra --> Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Replace 2600+ Thorough Bred --> Athlon XP-M 2400+ 35 watt version (overclock to 2200mhz)

If you're going to upgrade, you might as well replace old tech with new tech. Get an Athlon 64! Search around and you'll see the outrageously low power draw people are seeing from these processors, especially with undervolting. Here's a detailed thread full of calculations comparing the XP-M to the Athlon 64 in various undervolted/underclocked situations.

I missed the system temperatures you posted in the beginning of the thread--sorry. Those temps look healthy to me, I don't think there's anything to worry about. a 59°C CPU at the diode might be a bit warmer than expected, but it could be that the diode is mis-calibrated and reading too high (should the socket temp be that much less?), and in any case it's well below dangerous levels. The same goes for the case temperature. The hard drive temps are surprisingly low... do the drives feel warm to the touch? I would expect those drives to be in the high 30's, at least, but perhaps your case airflow is better than I thought, or your ambient temps are low.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:43 am

SometimesWarrior wrote:
undefined wrote:Replace Soyo KT400 Ultra --> Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Replace 2600+ Thorough Bred --> Athlon XP-M 2400+ 35 watt version (overclock to 2200mhz)
If you're going to upgrade, you might as well replace old tech with new tech. Get an Athlon 64! Search around and you'll see the outrageously low power draw people are seeing from these processors, especially with undervolting. Here's a detailed thread full of calculations comparing the XP-M to the Athlon 64 in various undervolted/underclocked situations.

I just finished reading through the thread you mentioned - very interesting! Thanks for the link!

I'm not sure if I am ready to move to A64. For one thing, I have yet to research compatibility w/ W2K. I know my Linux partition will enjoy the 64-bit processor, but I do not know much about the Windows 2000 support for 64-bit processors. I keep telling myself to give up the W2K partition completely.... but sometimes I have to get my gaming fix (generally 2 - 4 year old games, nothing new or high demand).

The other consideration is price. The cost to upgrade to XP-M would include purchasing a new motherboard (the Soyo is a POS), CPU, and one new stick of RAM (one of mine is only PC2700).

Motherboard: $90
CPU: $95
RAM: $67

Total: $252 + shipping <Newegg prices>

The cost of upgrading to A64 would be:

A64 3000+ : ~$150
Motherboard: ~$85 (Asus K8N?)
RAM: $67

Total: $302 + shipping <Newegg prices>

I'm assuming that the Zalman CPU cooler would work w/ the A64.

I guess the question is - is the A64 any better for split work in W2K and Linux? Most of my Windows time is spent doing video work (watching, editing), Linux time is limited to countless hours of tinkering...

According to these three links I'm not sure if the couple of percentage improvement (using XP 3200+ as XP-M figures, considering most users of this chip seem to achieve these speeds) justify changing architectures. I'm not a speed demon, mostly I want a reliable system that does what I need it to do without complaint. I'm generally a fan of "old tech" because it suites my needs and there is a wealth of knowledge and information already available on the subject.

Thoughts?

I missed the system temperatures you posted in the beginning of the thread--sorry. Those temps look healthy to me, I don't think there's anything to worry about. a 59°C CPU at the diode might be a bit warmer than expected, but it could be that the diode is mis-calibrated and reading too high (should the socket temp be that much less?), and in any case it's well below dangerous levels. The same goes for the case temperature. The hard drive temps are surprisingly low... do the drives feel warm to the touch? I would expect those drives to be in the high 30's, at least, but perhaps your case airflow is better than I thought, or your ambient temps are low.

My drives are pretty cool to the touch. Sometimes I'll have one that is warm to the touch, but not "hot" in any way. The air temperature is usually 65F. We don't turn the heat up much, and living at 8350FT elevation doesn't generally get too warm.

There is a lot of airflow through this case. The drives do not have any blowers on them, but they have FOUR 92mm fans drawing exhaust from behind them - they are also nearly isolated from the motherboard side of the case, so there is less heat distribution between those two sides.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:59 am

FYI re Althon 64 Architecture. The Athlon 64 functions normally under all x86 compatible operating systems. For the purposes of this software, it can be considered a 32-bit CPU with 64-bit extensions (which virtually nobody makes use of yet). The reason for buying an A64 is that they typically dissipate ~half the power of the older K7 chips. This, as I'm sure you're aware, makes cooling, and therefore silencing, much easier. The $50 you spend on the newer technology is well spent for the purposes of silencing, even if you don't need the additional power. Go here for the SPCR take on the A64 architecture.

Another advantage of the K8 architecture is that they now support SSE2 which, even if it's not as efficient as the P4 implementation, should make a considerable difference in your rendering and encoding times. You might need to upgrade your software though, so this might not be such an advantage.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:26 am

This may sound like a dumb question, but....

If I were to switch to the Athlon 64 architecture what should I buy? I know the Athlon XP motherboards / chips pretty well - I have a good idea of what to buy. I don't know squat about the A64 chips or motherboards.

Recommendations (or links) to a good motherboard. Which socket do I want? 754? 939? Which chip is better - "Newcastle" or "Winchester"?

Should I look into the A64 mobile (Newegg sells some for "DTR"??)?

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:05 pm

$252 or $302? I'd spend the $50.

I spent a fair amount of time looking at the various A64 boards and chips when I decided that a 3.2 gig Pentium 4 Northwood was going to be more expensive and harder to keep cool than the A64s.

I went a bit heavier on the budget and decided on a 3500+ Winchester and an ASUS A8V-Deluxe ( wanted the AGP slot for a Matrox P650).

Very pleased with the setup.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:46 pm

JimK wrote:$252 or $302? I'd spend the $50.

I spent a fair amount of time looking at the various A64 boards and chips when I decided that a 3.2 gig Pentium 4 Northwood was going to be more expensive and harder to keep cool than the A64s.

I went a bit heavier on the budget and decided on a 3500+ Winchester and an ASUS A8V-Deluxe ( wanted the AGP slot for a Matrox P650).

Very pleased with the setup.

I decided against the Winchester chip... mostly due to cost. I bit the bullet and purchased an Athlon 64 Clawhammer 3400+ (1mb cache). This is the desktop chip, not the DTR/Desktop Replacement Chip.

I guess now I need to find a good socket 754 motherboard. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm not concerned with overclocking, and would happily consider underclocking (modestly). I'll be happy with whatever setting lets me keep the Zalman 7000CU on the lowest fan setting!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 8:09 pm

Hello:

I'd go for the AOpen S754 mobo -- these have undervolting available in the BIOS, as well as fan controls.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 8:36 pm

DFI board is a little more expensive ($112 shipped from newegg) but also undervolts well and has DFI quality.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 8:39 pm

I have been looking at reviews on the Asus K8N-E Deluxe board. I've always been fond of Asus for the quality / reliability of their products - the reviews for this board seem pretty positive.

The next board on my list to check reviews for is the DFI Lanparty. My only gripe about that board, based on cursory examination is it seems gear towards those that are looking for more "bling bling" in a piece of kit. I don't care about how fancy the board is, I just want the *#$* thing to work properly

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 8:45 pm

SPCR member "EdwardNg" had some success with the DFI board and it does seem to be very stable and of good quality. However, it's tough to top Asus... The DFI board does underclock and undervolt well. I don't recall how the Asus board performs, but I assume it does well.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 8:52 pm

Trip wrote:SPCR member "EdwardNg" had some success with the DFI board and it does seem to be very stable and of good quality. However, it's tough to top Asus... The DFI board does underclock and undervolt well. I don't recall how the Asus board performs, but I assume it does well.

Unfortunately, I have found no evidence that the Asus board supports underclocking. This is a disappointment. At the same time, I'm still leaning towards the Asus board (I have 8 reviews of the DFI board open as we speak...) for the same reason why I bought the Seasonic - years of making a quality product means a lot to me. I've heard a lot of good comments about the DFI board, so it may be a good choice as well.

On a related note - thanks for your help (and to the others who have replied)! I have always been afraid to post to SPCR due to the utterly non-silent nature of my primary system. I've done what I can to calm it down some (replaced all 8 of the default SuperRed fans w/ undervolted Panaflos, Zalman Northbridge HS, Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu cpu cooler) but it still is pretty loud! I know that this is not the norm for SPCR, as some of you seem to have systems that make little or no noise at all! At any rate, I really appreciate all the help - I may not run a Silent PC, but I'm learning.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:06 pm

The folks in here are great. Ed posts on his experiences with the DFI board

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:17 pm

Trip wrote:The folks in here are great. Ed posts on his experiences with the DFI board

Wow - very impressive results (and thorough testing!). I think I'm pretty much sold on the DFI board. My only concern is the noise complaints some have made regarding the chokes.... I'm assuming that I won't hear that over my hard drives, fans, and nice 95lbs rolled steel case

I'm currently looking at getting the DFI board and replacing the stock NB HS w/ a Zalman 47J. Hopefully this will provide good cooling for the Northbridge... better than stock, I would assume.

Any recommendations for a quieter way to cool my 5900XT? Preferably something that would not interfere with the Zalman 47J chipset cooler....

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 10:39 am

For what it's worth, I went with the DFI Lanparty UT 250gb motherboard. This decision was strongly based on Edward Ng's experience with the board. I'm hoping to be able to underclock the CPU moderately yet still run it at stock speeds (I'm not generally an overclocker).

I ordered a third stick of Corsair PC3200 Value Ram to go with my other two sticks. My current third stick of RAM is Kingston PC2700 - it will be going on eBay

I also will do a Northbridge heatsink switch - time to go with another Zalman NB47J. I like how it has performed in my current case, and I'm hoping to have lower temps with the new CPU/PSU.

Thanks for the help - I'll post again with results.

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:07 am

The PSU came in today - so I went ahead and installed it prior to getting the new CPU / MB.

VERY NICE!

For one thing... I found that my temps dropped a lot just from cleaning out the dust. I sometimes forget that Colorado is nothing but dust and snow!

Another, the rails seem very solid. The PSU is incredibly quiet. I cut down from 8 fans (4 92mm intake / 4 92mm exhaust) to 2 intake 1 exhaust. I planned on doing 2 / 2, but the connector for one of the exhaust fans was giving me trouble so I went ahead and left it at 1 92mm exhaust. The case fans are Panaflo 92mm L, all running at 5V.

New CPU temps:
Idle: 34C case / 49C diode / 37C socket
Load: 35C case / 58C diode / 40C socket

Drive temps (remember, these are seperate from the MB/CPU side):

22C - 31C

The air coming out the back of the PSU is cool, not warm. Noise (from changing PSU and reducing # of fans to 3) has dropped by at least half, although I do not have any sound meter to give exact measurements.

I can still hear the computer, unfortunately. Although it is now inaudible when the TV is turned on, used to it was a constant annoyance even with the TV on. It is queiter than my wifes notebook (Toshiba 7020CT PII 366mhz).

Oh, another interesting thing.... I don't have a Kill-A-Watt, but I do have a UPS that reports current load (as a % of maximum). The UPS is 800VA. It used to sit at 41%, pretty much steady. Now it is at 36%. I don't know if that is because of APFC, or because of some other factors I don't understand.... I just know I like seeing a smaller load on the UPS

Update
Well.... the drive temps didn't stay so low

After about an hour of using the box the drive temps started going up... and up... and up. I finally rewired it so that 2 rear fans and 2 front fans were running. Drive temps have stabilized at between 39C - 51C. That is quite a bit warmer than I would like. I'm still having trouble with a couple of the connectors for my fans (I had to rewire the fans when I replaced the originals with the Panflos... some of them didn't go so well). I cannot run all of my fans at the moment, as I needed the splitters to run my drives. The Super Tornado only has 6 4pin molex connectors, compared to 8 on my old PSU.

This weekend I will install the new motherboard and CPU. I'll also be finishing a cable sleeving job I started a while back. I'll post photos of the finished project. I'm going to pick up a couple more splitters to enable all of the fans, I'd rather sacrifice a little bit of silence in exchange for a few degrees lower drive temps. I might try to redo the 3 pin (only 2 being used) connectors on the fans that are causing me trouble. I am afraid of damaging the pins... any suggestions?

Update 2

Well, the drives seem to have finally mellowed out. Current drive temps read between 34C and 41C. That is within specs, and within what I'd like to see.

I used the Hitachi Feature Tool (very cool utility) to turn on Acoustic Management on the Maxtor and WDC drives. Let me just say there should be a big bold sticky on every forum telling people to do this - it is remarkable. I've never used a computer without hearing the drives read/write before. It's scary. When I open up Mozilla I can't hear any change in noise level.

Also, CPU temps have leveled off. They are higher than initial testing, but the heat has come on and ambient temps are probably 6F higher than earlier. Temps read as follows:

Case: 36C
CPU diode: 52C
Socket: 40C

undefined · Post by **undefined** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:16 pm

I finally finished building the new box. I started on Wednesday

No pictures today (I don't feel like ripping it apart again). I'll try to get some up this week.

My first mistake was trying Windows XP. I'm generally not a big Microsoft fan, so this was a big step for me. That lasted from 1am Thursday morning to 11pm last night. I will never try that loathsome piece of festering horse feces again. I would rather install DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 than use XP for another 5 minutes. To say the least, it was bloated, unresponsive, and generally buggy.

So, back to trusty Windows 2000 (soon to be joined with an equally trusty Redhat 64bit). Win2K didn't like the DFI board... I had to reinstall (driver issues). A fresh install of Win2K, and a couple of hours to get everything setup as I like it - not too shabby.

The Athlon 64 is a true work of art, or engineering, or a little of both. It runs significantly cooler, draws less power, and is noticeable faster. My first few days after install I didn't notice any of these, as my constant headache from WinXP overwhelmed me. Now that I am back to having an OS that I am used to I can say that this is a heck of an improvement. Temperatures went from the low 50's (XP 2600+ T-Bred) at idle to the high 30's. At the moment I am running Prime95, 100% CPU load, and the temp is sitting at 44C. This is after installing the 10/15 beta BIOS that fixes temperature reporting for the DFI Lanparty ut 250gb.

Some notes:

I did a paper thin spread of AS5 across the entire IHS, not just a blob in the center. I am not in the mood to take it apart again, so I cannot comment on how this compares to the blob approach.

The Lanparty motherboard is... interesting. The errors in reporting temps pissed me off at first, now that they are somewhat fixed I am pretty pleased with the board.

I am overclocking. Nothing ridiculous, just 2330mhz vs. 2200mhz stock. I am running 3 sticks of RAM, one of which is only designed to run PC-2700 - so my memory is running at 166.5mhz. I am considering buying a third PC-3200 chip, but since things feel pretty fast I may keep it as it is. It leaves me an easy upgrade option sometime down the road.

I did try out a third PC-3200 chip - it was made by Corsair and was a CAS3 value ram stick. This was installed with two other Corsair chips, both value ram CAS2.5. These chips do not play well together. I could not get the CAS3 to register at all. If I installed any combination of these chips only the CAS2.5 chips showed up. I RMA'd the CAS3 chip.

I'm very pleased with the Athlon 64. It seems to be providing a nice boost in performance and a drop in temperature. I can't think of a better combination.

Lastly - I have the Zalman 7000A set to between 1700rpm and 2500rpm. I cannot hear the difference within that range, my drives drown out any audible difference. CPU temps drop by about 2C at the 2500RPM. I can only start hearing the Zalman when I exceed 2500RPM, and even then it is almost indistinguishable from the other noise. My computer is nowhere near silent, but is pretty quiet for a overworked file server / media station.

I probably should have gone with the Winchester, at least for temperature/silence... then again, since I cannot hear the CPU fan and I'm seeing a 20C drop in load temps I am not complaining. I got the Clawhammer off eBay for $170 (3400+ 1mb cache non-DTR) - I am very pleased with my purchase.