Hi folks,

Well I've gone down the silent pc route over the last few months... using quietpc.com for most components to begin with.. I got really great silent performance out of my old P3 450mhz machine (of course being so slow and cool) i since upgraded to the XP2100+ and got the all copper flower cooler... fitted and played with.. seagate barracuda IVs within silent drives (x2) and one just out on its own (they're so quiet this isn't too bad

Anyways as is the flower cooler wasn't so quiet.. with the fanmate on lowest i got good volume.. near silent.. but under stress this ain't no good... I got no extra fans but I've left the side of my case off to aid cooling... having looked at the weekend i finally ordered a replacement fan after the recent reviews said that the flower coolers default fan is suprisingly loud...

Was going to get a huge fan by them till I read that these aren't so quiet.... well now is the dilema.. I just brought the 80mm fan.. just tested it before upgraded.. in standard config at full volts to the fan I got

idle: 45 degrees C
10mins CPU Burn: 56-57 degrees C (fairly stable)

The heavy use temperature is about what I have seen before having done a lot of audio and video encoding over many hours...

Having just fitted the panaflo blowing down into the heatsink as the old fan was I am VERY VERY impressed by the volume, a heck of a lot quieter... its not silent of course and up close there are some sounds that perhaps will annoy when room is in silent.. hard to say if its louder or not than the old fan on the lowest setting... the thing is that I have a huge increase in temperature...

idle: 52 degrees C

I am about to test with CPU burn and keep an eye on it.. but its looking like its not dealing with it as well as I hoped... I know want to know whether to get another 80mm or bigger panaflo and put two on the bracket... or go for the biggest 120mm.. which perhaps I'm able to run slower if it ends up being louder ....


How loud is a 120, 92mm panaflo or other derivative compared to the one with the Zalman flower cooler?!?!

The reason I compare the big fan at slow speeds to the panaflo is i'm sure temperature wise they're in a similar area... yes the panaflo is probably slightly quieter.. but obviously it doesn't get any faster!!!

Was looking at www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk/ to get the panaflo's

Panaflo 120mm High Volume Non Tailed
Panaflo 120mm Low Volume Non Tailed

High volume, low volume are we talking sound here or air volume... or both.. and for quiet I assume I want low volume...

Being non Tailed too.. I assume this is just slightly altered.. the one I ordered from koolnquiet has been altered to fit.. one of the tabs has been snapped on so that it will fit onto the 3 pin in a certain way (ignoring the RPM measuring wire I assume... can I do the same thing to the new panaflo or is there some rewiring occuring??!

Thanks for your help, I really could do with your expertise...

do I want

2 x 80mm Panaflos (1 is going to have to be blowing the side of the CPU, no more space above the CPU/heatsink.. how much could this help?)
1x 80mm (current one) + 1x120mm
1x 80mm + 1x92mm

How much help is a 2nd fan nearish to the CPU???

Right onto CPUBURN please don't live up to the name

Another thing.. how easy is it to daisy chain fans.. can I get a splitter of some sorts coming into the fanmate and then out to two fans.. I think my ASUS MB has 2 fan power things on board... there is a similar looking plug right next to the current one used to power the current fan.. so I should be able to use this to get two fans.. how do u go about getting more?

Cheers

easy to do just get one of this 3 wire splitters http://www.coolpc.com.au/shop/index.html?prod=96 only problem is that u will only be able to monitor RPM from one of the fans.........

The issue is not fans or airflow, IMO. Even with the original Zalman fan at 12V, which does at least 40 cfm (their 80mm is rated for 36.5 cfm), your temps are not great. Chances are, your 2100+ generates too much heat for the 6000cu to deal with unless you have higher airflow, which will give you more noise. Given your temps, I suspect it is a Palomino core, which is pushing 72W -- it is the hottest AMD proc. on this list, http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm, so don't be suprised about your temps. You could try tweaking down the Vcore a bit and see whether the system stays stable and how much temps drop. Check out the undervolting article here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/goto.php?t=s&id=37&a=1

The other thing is just replace the 6000cu. Naturally the thermalrights recently reviewed here are good candidates, as are swiftechs, alphas and some others. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ sells the Thermalright SLK800 for 38 quid. It is sure to cool your 2100+ fine with the Panaflo @12V, and probably good enough at 7V.

Don't get me wrong, the 120mm Panaflo L rated for 30 dBA & 68 cfm could be very good & maybe able to help the 6000cu cool adequately at min speed. But it's a 16 quid risk because it MAY not, and you may have as much noise as before.

Personally, I would pass the 6000cu on for use on a cooler cpu and move to a more powerful HS.

Thanks for the advice everyone... and MikeC

Funnily enough I continued looking after posting last night and started thinking about upgrading the heatsink... and yeah I'd focused on that following the recent review as the better heat sink out there... i tested with CPU burn... current setup has the following temp readings now..

idle: 52 degrees C
10 min CPU burn: 72 degrees C

Pretty severe.. I'm certainly not going to be doing anything expensive with my computer till I sort this out...

Probably get some Artic Silver.. followed their instructions.. bit worried about how I can clean the CPU.. don't have any of the products listed on there... not clear on how to apply it either.. the zalman said to apply to both sides I'm sure.. but the Artic Silver recommend... applying blob to heatsink scraping off there onto CPU thinly... rubbing into the heatsink but then dry wiping all off the heatsink... finally pressing together... sounds wierd...

THe thing is looking at the recent review of the heatsinks at 12v... using an XP1600

idle stressed
SLK800 33 41
6000CU 43 56

decrease 10 15

Current 52 72
~Prediction 42 58

Which means I could expect my performance to scale down similarly?!? Or is heat not this linear... this would put the new heat sink combo to be something like my old setup with the Zalman fan on full.. this is not too bad for me.. you say this isn't an ideal temp setup.. and I believe you but its pretty good.... most of the time it would be well below 50

I am hoping that things scale slightly differently.. and that less of a thermal failure occurs with the new setup...

I am also wondering if applying the fan directly to the new SLK800 would be better than a larger fan on the Zalman bracket blowing slower?!?! would there be any use in having on fan on the heatsink and another above it on the bracket... or would this disrupt air so bad to be not as super effective as you may hope!?!?

anyways £40 is quite a bit to just play at it, and am a bit worried about taking it all apart, cleaning and refitting etc.. but I'll probably get on and do it.. Thanks for the help..