Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe: more passive cooling

[xarope]

A review in vr-zone:

http://vr-zone.com.sg/?i=2993

looks like Asus is being realistic and providing a fan for people who run their CPU passive/watercooled

[qirtasiye]

I want that the "optional" heatsink cooler

[pcweltz]

They are shipping it standard with the board......mine came with it, anyway.

[Cisco]

looks like Asus is being realistic and providing a fan for people who run their CPU passive/watercooled

Yes...just don't expect it to be quiet.

I'm well on my way to making a very nice and quiet system with this board...The optional fan will reduce MB temps under load by about 2-4 degrees but it is surprisingly noisy for such a little thing... I could easily hear it above the stock AMD X2-4400 HS fan... and it is not quiet. So it is gone and the CPU HS/fan will be replaced tomorrow evening with a Zalman CNPS9500

Another problem is that it won't fit under the Ninja if passive/low-air-flow cooling is what you want.

With an X2-4400 and P180 fans @ 11V (Zalman fan controller) I get 34'/34' idle CPU/MB.

These are my results running 2 instances of the prime '95 torture test for 15 minutes with the little optional fan and without:

Without heatpipe fan:

Fans full blast: 41/36 (CPU/MB)
Fans @ 5V: 44/49

With heatpipe fan:

Fans full blast: 41/36
Fans @ 5V: 44/46

I'm sure the fan would show a more dramatic difference in a water-cooled system with nothing else blowing around the CPU area.

My initial temps before I adjusted the P180 for air flow and before replacing the 2 stock VGA heatsinks with Zalman VF700's? Idle at 39/46