AMD X2 3800 AM2 w/ Thermalright HR-01
Asus M2N-E motherboard
Corsair 2x1GB TwinX DDR2-800
PowerColor X1900GT w/ Zalman vf900
WD SE16 Caviar 250GB
Seasonic S12-430 psu
The 120mm Nexus fans on the CPU and exhaust are running at 750rpm and 810rpm respectively (same voltage, so evidently the orange ones are a tad faster), which gives me CPU temps of ~35 at idle and ~55 under load. I tried leaving the CPU fan off and running the HR-01 passively, but the loaded temp was getting into the high 60s and still climbing (albeit very slowly at that point) when I shut down the test. I got the flexible duct for it, but my exhaust fan is too far offset from the heatsink to make that work, and I'm not overly inclined to go to the bother of building a custom duct.
The gpu with the stock cooler was idling around 60 and peaking at around 90 under load. With the fanmate turned to max on the vf900 it idles in the high 30s and peaks in the mid-50s. That's noisy, though, so the fanmate is turned all the way down, giving me idle temps of mid to high 40s and peak temps playing Oblivion at around 65.
The one slight temperature issue is the motherboard. The base of the heatpipe northbridge cooler gets rather hot, what with the fins of the cooler being in a bit of a deadspot, airflow-wise. I can hold my finger on it for about 2 seconds, which likely puts it around 70-80, higher than I'd really prefer. A makeshift deflector intended to divert about 30% of the cpu hsf airflow over the mobo heatsink had no discernable effect, so I'm still debating what I can do to improve the airflow in that back corner.
Noisewise I've lost some ground. The machine is still very quiet, but it's now emitting a hum that's audible from ~1', or from my chair on those rare occasions when neither the fridge nor the waterpipes are making any noise. What's happening is that old fan vibration/wood resonance bugbear. Both the cpu and gpu fans are not isolated from the case, and I'm getting some resonant humming from that. I have not yet decided whether I'll do anything about it, as it's rarely audible and even when it is the sound isn't particularly unpleasant. Isolating the cpu fan would be easy enough, but the Zalman would be tougher, though just removing the fan and sticking an 80mm L1A over (under?) the heatsink might be doable.
Next up: the old hardware is going to be set up as a Linux/MythTV htpc box. Yes, that's right, it's going to be Doug's Quiet Wood Case MkII: HTPC Edition, with a design thread coming soon to a cases forum near you.
