Anybody out there?

Only two fans I trust (SPCR trusts) are the Nexus 120 PWM and Scythe Kama PWM, both sleeve bearing. I can not understand why these expensive fans don't at least have ball-bearing.

A sleeve bearing eliminates my wish to have the fan blow up out of the CPU heatsink (in the heat), rather than down. And it really shouldn't be mounted horizontally as I need, since much faster wear.

But at least the CPU will have a PWM fan. My mobo has a PWM header for the CPU fan, but only a 3-pin for the case fans. I wish I could use PWM fans for the case, fer cryin' out loud. I guess I could jumper the CPU's PWM signal over to the case fan header, so the case fans are changing speed with the CPU, but this is not ideal.

I notice that some fans have a temperature-controlled diode in-line with the power wire, but where to find one of these diodes in the right voltage with the right thermal coefficient? Exactly what are they? Not available on Scythe or Nexus.

(Am I ten years ahead of everyone else?)

the durability problems of horizontal sleeve bearing fans are not as bad as people think. given the relatively short (<5 years) lifetime between upgrades of most systems, sleeve fans provide perfectly acceptable lifetime. as to why expensive fans do not use ball bearing, it is because most ball bearing fans are much more noisy than sleeve fans (there are exceptions, but they are few and far between).

you may want to consider fan controllers such as sunbeam rheobus, zalman ZM-MFC-1/2, if you have the room for them.



in what way?

Point taken, but I want to reverse the fan to blow up so it'd be in the heat stream. This would have a major impact on this system-critical component if sleeve bearing.

But I have now found the Arctic Fan 12 PWM, which has the advanced liquid bearing and blade design, AND has the vital PWM, AND is under $10. So this looks like my best candidate at this point. Only drawback is it cannot be mounted upside-down due to the cage design.

I am finding though that my chosen (Thermalright XP-120) heatsink is not well-liked on Newegg. This is disturbing, as it is the only one I can find so short. Only other option is a miserable box heatsink, which I'd like to avoid.

And sometimes it seems that I am far ahead of the crowd, when I can't find reviews on the products I'm investigating, and nobody in the forums can advise.

P.S. I am a progressive/liberal too; and Dems have betrayed us by not holding the Cheney Administration to account, nor stopping all these damned Wars... as they were elected to do! Nothing will change with Obama, and in fact he just baldheadedly voted for telecom immunity! Bought and sold they all are, so Nader in 2008!

You want the AF12025PWM. Basically the same fan without the special frame. It can face either direction. I have two of these in my case and they are mostly inaudible at 50% PWM (~750 RPM).

Thank you Jesse. Ah, I see; I'd taken the box-style to be an older fan, but it seems to have all the features of the cage-style. I've ordered a 120mm for the XP-120 heatsink and two 80mm's for the GD-02 case, and will daisy-chain them all off the CPU's PWM header. It ought to make a pretty quiet system most of the time.

I guess AFA the heatsink's size, all I can do is buy and try it, risking that 15% restocking fee.

Quantumstate, there is a post by "cthulu" directly before your first post that showed he used a NT01 with very good results. Perhaps you can give that a try too.

Ya saw that, but its performance is quite inferior. Will try the Thermalright.

Are people using the included touch screen software or has someone found something else that works well on this size screen? Really only need it for music playback.

Thanks!

Running Debian, so my solutions wouldn't apply to you.

According to our own data, the NT01-E can cool an E8400 passively (with assistance from case fans) inside the GD02 without any problems. This would make the system very quiet, was this your goal in the first place? Or are you looking to overclock the processor as well?

The included software has a "Frontview Player" that allows for fairly easy browsing and playing of media files (music, photos and videos) in your system right on the touch screen. The player has most of the decoder already included so it works quite well on its own.

SST don't think I'll overclock. It may will be that the Thermalright will cool passively as well, but heck for an extra $9 I might as well put a liquid-bearing, quiet, PWM fan on it. (if it'll fit in the height) The Arctic Cooling fans seem to be unrecognized gems.

After much research and planning, I am now asssembling what is shaping up to be the perfect HTPC:
- Silverstone GD02
- Seasonic SS-350ET (+80, 99% Active PFC)
- Asus P5Q-EM
- Thermalright XP-120
- Arctic Fan 12 (PWM, liquid bearing, daisy-chained)
- E8400
- 2x2GB Crucial nonbuff/nonECC
- 1TB Seagate 'cuda 7200.11

What a beautiful sight it is! But a couple things bother me:

- The mobo's book says that POST only shows on the DVI-D, and not on VGA nor HDMI. It specifically says this is a DVI-D port and is not a DVI-I. I want to see POST on either the case's display or on the projector, so it sounds like I must get a DVI-HDMI adapter block?

- The CPU heatsink fits fine under the case's center support member, but I must do some trimming to get a 25mm fan in there. Is there any way this heatsink will suffice for the E8400 without a fan? It is positioned between 1" and 2" of the case exhaust fans horizontally (2 Arctic Fan 8's), which will pull air right over the heatpipes and from the inside-top of the case.

- The only optical drive this case will take is a slim one. No big deal, I don't need a BD writer right away, and can use my IDE DVD for now outside the case. I'm sure I can put a notebook drive in there as the market matures. But if I have to use a CPU fan there is only 145mm from the front of the case to the fan. Is this potentially enough room for an optical drive?

Sorry to revive this thread, but I'm planning to get a GD-02 as a HTPC case as well.

Any more recommendations on CPU coolers?

Is the Silverstone NT01 or the Thermalright XP-120 the better choice?

What about the Scythe Ninja Mini or the Scythe Shuriken / Big Shuriken?



Regards,

Thorstein

The big problem with fitting a larger than stock CPU HSF is the depth issue due to the optical drive. If you plan on using an optical drive, Mini Ninja is out. XP-120 and Shurikens can fit, but only without fans, and they are not adequate fanless coolers. I'm thinking an XP-90 could probably fit, as the issue isn't so much height but depth. Also one of those really low profile Zerotherms (CF800/900) should work. Silverstone's NT01 will definitely fit and works well as a pseudo-passive solution (using case exhaust fans), but it is so damn overpriced (especially when you consider the GD02 itself is no bargain). If you don't need an optical drive and feel comfortable leaving out the brace for it (helps reinforce lid), Mini Ninja would work excellently.

I like this case a lot, but lack of room for CPU HSF is its biggest flaw (given all the wasted space inside the case). I'd be tempted to try the stock Intel cooler. It seems like the newer ones have much better fans than they used to and with a 45nm dual-core you should be able to run it at very low speeds at idle. Combine that with the greater distance from user in an HTPC scenario and I think the stock HSF might just be livable.

Can anyone possibly give any specific dimensions for the size of CPU cooler tha would fit? This would be really appreciated.

The Scythe big shuriken is only 58mm tall (but wide). Does anyone know if this does or does not fit?

There is another thread [oops, it was the second post of this thread] about this case that discusses some specific coolers that do not fit. Can't remember if it was the Big or just original Shuriken that was mentioned [it was the original], but the situation was that the cooler fit, but not with a fan mounted on it. I think the deal is that if your cooler is more than ~100mm in the smaller of the horizontal, than vertically you've got <70mm to work with. The X-factor here is that CPU socket is not constant across different motherboards, so you could easily have a few mm more or less in the horizontal, before you have to worry about the vertical, than someone else if you are using a different motherboard.

Thanks.

Yes, someone mentioned that the Scythe shuriken doesn't fit with its fan (64-65 mm tall) because of its width, but does fit without the 12mm fan.

The big shuriken is 58mm tall. From the above, the room available for something of this width is less than 64mm, but greater than 52mm - the big shuriken is bang in the middle of this range. I'm guessing theres a potential flexibility of about 1-2mm with the ODD.

This is a lot tighter than I would have liked, but can anyone with the case confirm/deny that there is/isnt enough space? Or point out a reason why attempting this is a bad idea? (I'm beginning to think this won't work at all...)

I think <5mm of clearance for your fan is untenable. I think typically you want more like 20+ mm. Given that this is is a low profile fan, I think the situation is even worse (ie lower profile will work even worse in a low clearance situation).

Well the hope was it wouldn't matter too much, since the <5mm clearance is only on one side of the (large) heatsink surface, covering <10mm of it. The rest of the heatsink (including all the part directly above the CPU) should have >50mm clearance (i think about 60mm). Since fans are circular, I'm guessing (hoping) that only a small part of the fan is obstructed, providing only a small extra resistance and not affecting cooling too much.

Does this make sense or am I heading for disaster?

Try it and find out! Seriously, it's the only way to know for sure, and if no-one else has tried then it's up to you to bite the bullet

I've measured and measured my GD-02 and I've decided to not bother risking £30 for a Big S. It's really too hard to judge without having the thing in the damned case.

If you've got a short (*the* shortest) optical drive, and you're willing to take out a Dremel, it might work. Or it might not.

Actually, that is a very good point. I'd say if >50% of the fan has decent clearance you may be in decent shape.