How loud is the Athlon64 In-a-box cooler?

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:02 am

It looks like my motherboard is busted so I'll be in the market for a new mobo and CPU one of these days. I'm planning on an Athlon64 3200+ or 3500+. The cost of the In-a-box version over the bulk version is about 3$.

So my question is, how loud it the stock cooler? In either case I can always switch to a more quiet solution later.

Edit: Just noticed the thermalright xp-90 requires me to mount a different mounting bracket on the Gigabyte K8 motherboard i'm considering!?

Does anyone know if that goes for any other aftermarket heatsink I'd want to install on a Gigabyte K8 board?

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 1:44 pm

on 'full' (~3K rpm) the stock cooler is fairly noisy (no suprise).. but at 50% its pretty quiet.. definately worth $3 imo.

sundevil_1997 · Post by **sundevil_1997** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 2:05 pm

Boomerang Rapido wrote: So my question is, how loud it the stock cooler? In either case I can always switch to a more quiet solution later.

I posted here a few weeks ago that I found the stock cooler to be really pretty good, and quiet in my opinion. My PSU fan is now the loudest thing in it.

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:27 pm

Mental note to myself: Learn to use the search function before you post

Thanks guys, this is great. I'll go with the stock cooler for starters. If it starts getting on my nerves I only lost 3$

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:43 pm

With the boxed cooler you also have longer CPU warranty, I think the bulk version only has 3 months, versus 3 years for the boxed.

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:57 am

Wow, thanks for the heads-up. I just checked the dealer website and you are correct. I should mention though that according to danish law I have a 2 year warranty period, but you ARE right... with the stock cooler AMD offers an additional year of warranty.

Unfortunately the 3200+ is sold out right now so guess I'm stuck with the 3500+

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:16 pm

OEM bulk cpu's dont have manufacturer warrenty's. just the warrenty that comes from the store you bought it from, which in most cases is only 30 days. not sure about danish laws, but thats the way it is in the states.

retail cpu's come with 3year warrenties from the manufacturer. IE: intel or amd.

i always buy the retail versions just for the warrenties that come with them.

fyak1 · Post by **fyak1** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:30 pm

Built my first system 3 weeks ago with the aim of having a pretty quiet set-up. The fan on the stock AMD heatsink is by far the noisiest component. It's not too bad but when I unplugged the power from it as a test the overall noise level dropped dramatically.

It may be that I have it running full throttle. I'm quite new to this pc stuff so if someone could tell me where to go change the cpu fan speed setting i'd be much obliged. Do I need to be looking in the BIOS settings?

Will be replacing my mobo with the Asus A8R32 MVP shortly and have a Scythe Ninja waiting to replace the AMD heatsink when I re-install. I hope this gives me the quietness I was aiming for...

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:12 pm

fyak1 wrote:It may be that I have it running full throttle. I'm quite new to this pc stuff so if someone could tell me where to go change the cpu fan speed setting i'd be much obliged. Do I need to be looking in the BIOS settings?

most people change fan speeds by either hard wiring it to 7volts or 5volts, or using some sort of fan controller like the zalman fanmate or other such device.

their are 2 class's of fan controllers. analog and digital. digital controllers often call their method of control as "PWM" or "Pulse Width Modulation". with an analog controller the voltage is actually reduced causing the fan to spin slower. with a digital controller the voltage remains the same (12volts) but the length of time the voltage is on is reduced. its sort of like flicking a switch to a fan on and off, momentum keeps the fan moving when the switch is off, and you switch it back on before it slows down too much. except in PWM it does it very very fast, like hundreds of times per second or more. im not exactly how fast the square waves are, i'm sure someone here will know though. one problem with PWM, some fans react poorly to this method of control and will exhibit increased noise frequencies and artifacts. because of this alot of people prefer to stick with analog controllers. almost all "on board" controllers built into motherboards, video cards etc use PWM as their method of fan control.

fyak1 · Post by **fyak1** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:46 pm

Thanks for the reply, Aris.

Have solved the fan noise problem by enabling the Qfan utitilty contained in the Asus PC Probe software. Fan speed now linked to cpu temperature monitor on mobo. Very quiet now it's running at about 1300-1500 rpm.

As always once you get rid of one noise you notice another. In this case it seems to be the fan on the X1900XTX. Can this be controlled in a similar way? I have had a look but can't find a utility similar to Qfan.

How loud is the Athlon64 In-a-box cooler?

How loud is the Athlon64 In-a-box cooler?

Re: How loud is the Athlon64 In-a-box cooler?