Anything new on SilentTek?

lightforce · Post by **lightforce** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 3:41 pm

I read about SilentTek on the AOPen motherboards and it sounds pretty good, then I read some comments of a few people that wasnt too happy and didnt trust it completely, the software was a little buggy etc. but this was back in june 2003... so I just wanna know what's up, anything new about this? new updates? anyone else tried it since then?

I can get a hold of a AOPen with SilentTek for $150 or so here in Sweden, which is $30 more than the other motherboards but I'm not sure if it's worth it?

Would having a athlon 2500+, quiet case, nexus 3000, no graphiccard for a system and then running SilentTek help me? Would it quiet the whole system for me? (as you can see I dont have a clue about temperatures etc, hell a couple of weeks ago I hardly know what a PSU was)

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 5:56 pm

Well I've got an A-Open board.....the same one as the SPCR article. And I use Silent-Tek all the time. It has been stable for me, and there is nothing even close IMHO.

But I too have been wondering about newer versions....no news lately that I know about.

Downside · Post by **Downside** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:29 am

On aopen's site, they apparently have a Silentek2 version, although I can't find any way to tell what motherboard has what version.

NikoN · Post by **NikoN** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:30 am

AFAIK Speedfan does almost same as SilentTek quite reliably. And you are not stuck with AOpen MB. SpeedFan users, comments???

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 3:18 pm

NikoN wrote:AFAIK Speedfan does almost same as SilentTek quite reliably. And you are not stuck with AOpen MB. SpeedFan users, comments???

Speedfan's algorithm sucks and it's only software implemented -> no Linux.

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 2:01 am

SpeedFan is reliable and do best what it can do - pulse regulation is the mainboard limitation

Frankly, many mobos did not even support this regulation, for cost reasons, so...

And the pulse-regulation is known that can cause noise issues with some fans

I prefer Zalman fanmate, or directly 5V to the fan, instead of 12

On my curent machine i use watercooling anyway, so...

efcoins · Post by **efcoins** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 8:04 am

I criticised it in earlier posts.
Using newer BIOS, and other drivers has changed things considerably, but not for the better.
The minimum fan voltage has been raised to about 8 volts, on everything except Smart mode, so the fans never stop but are not that quiet either.
Smart mode is really bad, the fans have 4 seconds at 12 volts followed by 5 second completly off which is very distracting.
Also there is a big bug, when the temp reaches 40C, a warning popup box is displayed, even if I turn off all temperature monitoring. So playing a game, temp gets to 40C, the game is stopped until the popup warning is acknowledged during which time the CPU usage drops so the temp goes down to 39.5C. Then 5 seconds later the temp is back to 40C and everything repeats.
Result is the temp can never exceed 40C and anything that requires a lot of CPU power is unusable with silent tek turned on.

a 40C limit is way too low.

I now undervolt/ underclock my CPU so that it never reaches 40C with 8v on the fan, but you might not want to do that.

Get an ordinary motherbord and a hardware fan controller would be my advice.

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 8:17 am

Jezus christ!!!

Trash this crap out of window right now, thats unbeliable...

4 sec noise, 5 sec quiet - amazing...

40 degrees and warning pop-up? Impossible... Most my temperatures are WAY over 40 degrees and the chips handle even 85+ degrees, so...

So the conclusion is - NEVER ever got this "silent tek" crap to hands, not even for free...

efcoins · Post by **efcoins** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 8:30 am

Yes I wanted off up to 40C, then the fan ramps up to 12V at 55C

Originally I could have 6v up to 40C, but if the fan ever stopped then I was in trouble.
Updating the BIOS etc has made it unusable.

Tobias · Post by **Tobias** » Sun Jan 25, 2004 10:20 am

I just bought an AOpen board. SilenTek is good, as long as you are not in windows:) It puts the fans on like they should but keep the noice down somewhat while windows loads.

Whats good with silenttek when in windows? Well, every sensor and fansocket is connected to the controlchip, which means that speedfan has a fieldday running on that motherboard:) Works great.

Lightforce, Datorbutiken.com has the smaller version of the NVidia2 MAX board for about 100$, works like a charm:) Only trouble is that it doesn´t support FSB 100-132, which means that with an FSB 133 CPU you can´t underclock at all, although you may very well undervolt. (1.1-1.85V)