Beware of messy cabling! (aka details of my new rig)

Show off your quiet rig.

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mexell
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:52 am
Location: (near) Berlin, Germany

Beware of messy cabling! (aka details of my new rig)

Post by mexell » Fri May 11, 2007 1:13 am

Hello everyone,

yesterday I completed my new rig which consists of:
- E6420
- 2gig PC2-6400
- MSI 8600gts silent
- Gigabyte 965P-DS3
and some hard disks, also two optical drives.

My main concern was to cool the vidcard sufficiently but also quiet (The system doesn't have to silent by SPCR means because I live at a rather crowded area. It just melds into background noise. When it becomes quieter in the evening or on sunday mornings, I can still hear it. But mostly not.)

To start things off, I'll show you the main pic:

Image

The fans are:

- two Antec Tricool on low at the case's exhaust postitions
- one Scythe fan (the one which came with the ninja) attached in the middle of the picture, hovering around 500rpm, controlled by the bios
- and finally one more Scythe (which came with another ninja) in the case's front, controlled by a fanmate (I'm still experimenting with it because it doesn't seem to influence anything else then the two drives in the upper chamber)
- and, of course, the NeoHE430's fan which is cooling itself and another hdd.

The temps are quite good:
CPU 27/~40 (idle/load)
GPU 43/55 (staying constant over an hour of rthdrible)
System (don't know where it's measured) 35/40
I haven't checked a combined cpu/gpu load yet. Due to my cooling setup, high gpu loads also feed the cpu with heat. When checking the gpu load temps, I noticed the cpu temp to go up about 5°, which I'm quite happy about. I'm not planning to do heavy overclocking, so I can live with that.

more overall pic:

Image

As I mentioned, I'not interested in the best-looking or quietest-ever system, I'm just interested in a system which blends into background (which is quiet loud at my place). But I could kick myself for mounting the fan on the ninja with the cables facing in the wrongest of all possible directions. Have you ever tried to unmount and remount a fan on a ninja in such a position? That was too awful to be done, and it's just affecting optics, not function. But I also did something about the tricool's cables.

What do you think?

EDIT: typos. Excuse my phone's crappy pictures :D
Last edited by mexell on Thu Jun 21, 2007 12:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

mexell
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:52 am
Location: (near) Berlin, Germany

Post by mexell » Fri May 11, 2007 2:08 am

Of course, the opening on the back is sealed, but with clear tape.

angelkiller
Posts: 871
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:37 am
Location: North Carolina

Post by angelkiller » Fri May 11, 2007 4:47 am

Looks pretty good. My cables aren't clean either, but the mess is out of the path of airflow. I think your cables don't block too much airflow. I like the fan position on the Ninja. It sucks hot air from the 8600GTS and blows air into the ninja. Because of the close proximity, the other two case fans ensure you CPU doesn't overheat.

Good Work! :D

TK421
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 11, 2007 5:45 am

Post by TK421 » Fri May 11, 2007 5:48 am

What type of cooling are you using on your NorthBridge? The DS3 NB is notorious for getting scorching hot. It's probably fine if you aren't planning on any overclocking, but the stock NB cooler without any decent airflow could cause you some problems.

I do like how the fan is sandwiched between the GPU/CPU sinks, as it kills two birds with one stone.

mexell
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:52 am
Location: (near) Berlin, Germany

Post by mexell » Fri May 11, 2007 6:07 am

I hope the this setup makes somehow something like ...erm... forced convection because of the (kind of) push-pull-arrangement and the fin orientation at both the base of the ninja and the nb heatsink. But you surely noticed the somehow, the something, the erm and also the kind of, so you see that I still have to monitor that.

mdrnhl
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri May 04, 2007 5:15 am
Location: Medina, OH

Post by mdrnhl » Fri May 11, 2007 8:25 am

You have a pretty similiar system to mine...but I like your temps better!

I have a DS3 rev3.3, e6420, and Scythe Ninja RevB as well in my P182, but I am getting idle 29 / load 50 temps.

Are those temps of yours with the side panel on or off?

Some differences in my layout:
1.) the Scythe fan on my Ninja faces to the rear exhaust, not top.
2.) I moved the top Tricool exhaust fan to the upper drive bay as an intake. I have removed the upper HDD cage altogether.
3) my (1) HDD is in the lower bay.
4.) I am using eVGA 8800GTS Superclocked with stock cooling...but that shouldn't be impacting the cpu temps.

All 3 tricools are at Low currently.

mexell
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:52 am
Location: (near) Berlin, Germany

Post by mexell » Sat May 12, 2007 3:30 am

I did some additional testing, and I found out that when I apply heavy cpu and gpu loads the cpu fan ramps up to 750~800 rpm, which doesn't add anything to my daytime noise level. That should be the cause for the mild temp increase. GPU temp with crossload is about 55.

Lt_Dan
Posts: 199
Joined: Fri May 18, 2007 4:37 pm
Location: IL

Post by Lt_Dan » Sat May 19, 2007 2:45 am

i have a question regarding your setup - is it ok that the Ninja blocks most of the rear fan? i thought of installing the Samurai Z and was a bit discouraged because it disturbs the rear fan in my Case.
thanks,
Dan.

mexell
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:52 am
Location: (near) Berlin, Germany

Post by mexell » Mon May 21, 2007 4:11 am

I haven't got the feeling that it blocks much of the airflow, nor has the ninja got very much airflow impendance. Before I built that setup I used a lower-powered graphics card which needed no additional cooling, and with that the CPU ran completely passive.

Please consider also that these are very crappy photos which might be a bit misleading in terms of perspective and correct measurements. For example, the ninja's edges look like they wouldn't be parallel to the mainboard - but in reality they are.

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