Hey all, I'm a newb at this stuff but I recently pieced together a computer. The fan on the X4 955 is so damn loud I feel like I'm being drowned out in a wind tunnel when I'm alone in the room. I've seen the temps hit 62+C during gaming as well.

- Is there a way to just replace the fan? If so, recommendations?

- If not, I guess I would have to go with a fan/cooler solution. I've been given a lot of recommendations for a replacement but I was wondering if anyone could shed more light on how the installation process goes. I'm not looking to remove my mobo and re-do all the power supply wiring again; I'd like to simply open my case and get to work on replacing said fan/cooler.

If anyone cares, I have a NZXT Apollo case and a GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 mobo. Height doesn't seem to be an issue at least.


Any and all input would be apppreciated. Thanks again!

You can try and swap the fan, if your a DIY guy.

Any other towerstyle cooler hosting a 120mm fan ist suitable. Aim for something like Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO or larger and be prepared to change the stock fan.

Welcome to SPCR, where you will find noise prevention methods by the hundred.



62C is hot, but its not (quite) getting to the point of being a serious concern, at 62C while gaming with the default Heatsink/Fan is not that bad considering its a 120W CPU.

I have an X4 840 (95W), which I am currently experimenting with stability of overclocking the FSB in preparation for a RAM upgrade followed by an actual CPU overclock. As such I have been running Prime95 on all 4 cores for the last 2-hours and my CPU core temps have stabilised at 53C with the 120mm Arctic Cooling F12 fan blowing upwards through my Xigmatex S1283 Heatsink, the CPU fan varies its speed depending on the CPU temp via "Speedfan" with the 1450 rpm fan running at about 1250rpm.

You should bear in mind the case that I am using as well, its an Antec P180 with another AC F12 fan set to 5-volts (about 700-800 rpm) a couple of inches directly above the CPU heatsink, and a Scythe Slipstream of some form also running at 5-Volts at a similar speed blowing out the back - so there is plenty of cooling directly around the CPU as well.

If I wanted to I could easily change the threshold of the CPU fan speed (which is the only fan in my PC that changes its speed, the rest are set to 5v) to say run at a maximum of 1000 rpm which would stop the CPU temp from ever hitting 60C and still be pretty quiet. But as my CPU never gets pushed unless I am playing games it makes no practical difference as speakers will be on - I have chosen to have the fan speed set to low until the CPU temp hits ~50C and then it ramps up fast (Speedfan settings, start speed 20%, end speed 100%, set to "sum of speeds", with the speed graph basically flat @ about 40% until the CPU temp hits 45C at which point its a 50% and so on - I have never seen it pass 80%).

FYI, I just manually set the fan speed to 1000 rpm and the CPU temp has taken a few minutes to hit 55C and looks to be settling there, proving that my fan speed curve is more aggressive than it needs to be.

You can easily and cheaply have a much quieter system than you do currently even with a 120W CPU, (£35 inc delivery).

Here is a similar heatsink to mine (looks the same but has a "red" fan, my Xigmatek fan was not good, and was really poor when it was running slowly).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1395

And here is my CPU fan.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =FG-036-AR

This combination works very well as that fan has a low start speed (20% in Speedfan about 380 rpm), is very smooth and quiet at low speeds, but can ramp up to speeds faster than I need and is exceptionally cheap.

Hopefully on Friday (8th) I aim to be having some CPU overclocking experiments - it will be interesting to see what happens with another few hundred MHz of CPU clock-speed to keep cool.

UPDATE: Prime 95 has been running for over 13-Hours (now 1pm), the CPU temp has stabilised at 50C with the CPU fan at 1100 rpm, presumably due to the temperature dropping or Prime95 running tests that don't get the CPU as hot. That combination should be more than enough for your 120W CPU.


Andy

Interesting I'm using an X4 840, with a TX-3 CM cooler and 92mm Gelid fan
And I'm getting temps just over 50c thrashing it with prime 95.

I must be better at pc builds than I thought
There isn't a lot of OC potential with this CPU (a bit though) but it was good value and decent enough performance. A piledriver with greatly improved efficiency and better performance might tempt me (FX 8 95w is on the cards) Like this

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer ... 140WMW8KGU).html

Be advised that your case doesn't have the cut-out hole in the motherboard tray. So if you install a big tower heatsink you'll probably need to remove the motherboard to install the heatsink. If you want to avoid that, then go for a heatsink that doesn't need the motherboard to be removed. There's the Cooler Master Hyper TX3, Scythe Katana 3/4, Scythe Samurai ZZ... that's what comes to mind.

I run that cpu in an antec solo mk1 case, not clocked and get good temps with what i have always used, Arctic Cooler7 Pro rev 2
The fan runs as quietly as any other I have heard, inc case fans and (silent) psu fans. Fan hardy moves at idle, just a twitch every so often. Easily copes with the load on a non clocked machine.
Then again, you might want to take your system to the limits, in which case I cannot comment, well not usefully anyway.