AC Freezer 7 Pro fan mod?

ForeStorm · Post by **ForeStorm** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:36 pm

Hi all,

Since this is my first post and all, a little intro - I've been lurking here in the forums for about half a year now, looking and reading at many of the reviews on the site. Really helpful, and it's what made my choice to purchase and use an Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro.

It cools pretty well, but without it being at 100%, it doesn't cool as well. At said full 100% (via Speefan 4.32), it's rather loud. Actually, it's the loudest thing in the case (a P180B).

I was wondering - is there a way to change the fan? I've got a Yate-Loon lying around (four others, to cool the chambers and stuff) that I'd like to put on it. The P180B has that wind tunnel option if you don't place hard drives in the top compartment which I'm taking advantage of, and there are two fans in the back that get the hot air out of the case.

So, any suggestions on how to rig a fan to the heatsink? (I guess zip ties would work, now that I think about it.

)

Oh, and a side question for P180B owners - should I cover up the holes around the PSU? Maybe some of the PCI slots as well?

Thanks for reading.

laguz1 · Post by **laguz1** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:14 pm

Is your yate loon a 92mm one?

i don't own a freezer 7 pro, but i'm guessing you can dremel notches on both sides through a couple fins, then use fan clips to attach a 92mm to the HSF...

you can probably just rubber band (or zip-tie) the fan to it as well...

i would just do the latter as it doesn't require any adjustments to the actual heatsink

ForeStorm · Post by **ForeStorm** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:56 am

Bwa ha ha...

The Yate Loon's a 120mm, so I ended up just removing the old fan and using two zip ties to keep the YL on the heatsink. It worked pretty well until I ran an Orthos test to see about temps.

Instead of an 53C after an hour with the normal fan on high (loud, though), the temp shot up to 60C after 10 minutes or so. Quieter, and - granted, I'll probably never push the CPU that high - but I'll play around some more with it later, or maybe even get a new heatsink. The fins on the Freezer 7 seem too close together for adequate air to get through to the other side, and the fan doesn't help much, as it doesn't direct the air with the way it's made.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 9:24 am

Have you tried undervolting the CPU?

My E4300 is overclocked to 2.4 GHz, and the board gives it 1.28V on that frequency. I've played around with RMClock, and the CPU even seemed stable at 1.15V (not thoroughly tested - it didn't heat up enough to push the stock cooler to high rpm, and medium rpm sounds worse, I can't stand it).

If you keep the CPU at stock, I wouldn't be surprised if it worked at 1.1V or possibly even less. That should lower the temperatures enough to keep the AC on less than 100% and quiet enough.

BTW, I get core temps of 71-72 on full load with the stock cooler, and I don't worry much about that. Temperatures-schemperatures!

Snowdog · Post by **Snowdog** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:35 pm

ForeStorm wrote: The fins on the Freezer 7 seem too close together for adequate air to get through to the other side, and the fan doesn't help much, as it doesn't direct the air with the way it's made.

I read a review (don't have link right now) and they said exactly this. Fins are too tightly spaced you need a fan on high to drive air through, it is not really a good low fan speed heatsink, performance drops big time as the fan slows down and can no longer force air through.

With you essentially backing the review I guess this is one down.

I am now thinking of either a Sunbeam Whisper, or Thermalright Ultra 90 as a fairly light weight (~1lb) HS for my new build.

VanWaGuy · Post by **VanWaGuy** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:28 pm

I have both a freezer and a Sunbeam, and the fin spacing on the Sunbeam is not much wider than the Freezer.

Snowdog · Post by **Snowdog** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:00 am

VanWaGuy wrote:I have both a freezer and a Sunbeam, and the fin spacing on the Sunbeam is not much wider than the Freezer.

It is a combo of thin spacing and depth. I guess the review I read was here at SPCR:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article285-page5.html

It is great performer at high speed/noise, but it presents too much impedance to airflow for a good quiet performance. I don't know about the Sunbeam Whisper in comparison. Any more insights beyond appearance of fins?

The TR Ultra90 is coming across very good in reviews, A smaller lighter, cheaper version of the Ultra 120 that doesn't lose that much in performance. So many choices...

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:08 am

Snowdog wrote:I don't know about the Sunbeam Whisper in comparison. Any more insights beyond appearance of fins?

I've owned both the A-C Freezer and the Whisper. Both have fin spacing of 2.0mm and fin thickness of .3mm, as does the Verticool III, which I also have. Thermalright uses closer spacing.

By "2mm fin spacing", I mean fin top to fin top - since they're .3mm thick, it's 1.7mm aluminum-to-aluminum.

When used with conventional fans (via a mod), the Freezer works well with low airflow. It's the stock fan that, for two reasons, does not work well when undervolted. No surrounding casing and a integrated circuit fan controller in the fan hub that does not undervolt gracefully.

If you mod the Freezer, let me point out the cooling fins are 104mm wide, and work well with the Scythe 100mm fans if you're gonna mod.

Snowdog · Post by **Snowdog** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:31 pm

Felger Carbon wrote:uminum.

When used with conventional fans (via a mod), the Freezer works well with low airflow. It's the stock fan that, for two reasons, does not work well when undervolted. No surrounding casing and a integrated circuit fan controller in the fan hub that does not undervolt gracefully.

If you mod the Freezer, let me point out the cooling fins are 104mm wide, and work well with the Scythe 100mm fans if you're gonna mod.

Thanks, I just read your posts with dual fans and ducting on AC Freezer. Good to know that it is just the fan.

ForeStorm · Post by **ForeStorm** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:25 pm

Matija wrote:Have you tried undervolting the CPU?

...

BTW, I get core temps of 71-72 on full load with the stock cooler, and I don't worry much about that. Temperatures-schemperatures!

I haven't thought of that, actually. At the moment, I run it at 300 MHz on the FSB with the multiplier at six or seven, depending on how hot it is that day. Usually six, because I normally don't need the extra processing power. It's at 300 MHz so my RAM can go 1:1 with it at 3-3-3-9 clocks.

RMClock? I'll have to look that up. I'm not so much worried about the temperatuer (45C max with my gaming and Speedfan 4.32), but since this is the first computer I've actually put together myself, I'm a little hesitant to go overboard on things. That, and if something breaks, I don't have money anymore, haha.

Snowdog wrote:The TR Ultra90 is coming across very good in reviews, A smaller lighter, cheaper version of the Ultra 120 that doesn't lose that much in performance. So many choices...

I'm keeping my eye on this one as well. The Ultra-120's a bit to expensive for me, and I don't plan on overclocking that high, but we'll see when it comes out.

Felger Carbon wrote:If you mod the Freezer, let me point out the cooling fins are 104mm wide, and work well with the Scythe 100mm fans if you're gonna mod.

Oooh, I'll keep that in mind too. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Edit: Ah, weird. RMClock reports the temperature my BIOS use to report before I upgraded the DS3 to the F11 bios. *shrugs*

ForeStorm · Post by **ForeStorm** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:47 pm

OK. I've been undervolting for part of most of today. (Does that even make sense?)

I started off with a 300x7 @ 1.225v that ran pretty much all day. No stress testing or anything, which is fine - I guess? I played some games (single core-centric) and the temp didn't reach above 45C for the most part. Temps measured using Speedfan 4.32 and ... Yeah. That's it.

About an hour ago, I wanted to see how far I could take it. 300x9 @ 1.21875v was in order, which failed Orthos after 37s.

I bumped down the multiplier to x8 (who needs the extra 300MHz? I don't

) so it was 300x8 @ 1.21875v. It was stable for about 15m before I went back into the BIOS and set the voltage down another notch on the DS3.

300*8 @ 1.21250v. Load temps (Orthos) at about 49-51C. Good for another 15m.

300*8 @ 1.20625v, currently 13m in. RMClock can't find the right VID (it shows it at a perpetual 1.212v or so. I've seen the temp dropped to 48C, but it's around 50C right now. ACtually, make that 52C. Er, 51C. Anyway... I'm going to go look for a thread on undervolting the E4300. Thanks for the suggestions! (49C, 50C.)

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:36 pm

Felger Carbon wrote: If you mod the Freezer, let me point out the cooling fins are 104mm wide, and work well with the Scythe 100mm fans if you're gonna mod.

Okay this shows how far out of the SPCR loop I have been...

What's the scoop on the Scythe 100mm fan? Good for undervolting? Competitive with the Nexus?

iamajai · Post by **iamajai** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:46 pm

The Scythe 100mm fan fits well...I did the mod after reading this thread.
It's much quieter than the original AC fan even at full speed. The drawback is that it is a 3-pin fan and therefore can't be speed controlled by my MB (P5N-E SLI). I bought a Zalman Fan Mate 2 to slow it down a tad. Basically left it at the full speed of the Fan Mate. Cools a few degrees better than stock now...and quieter to boot.