thermal sensors - "where to tape them"?

filete · Post by **filete** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 3:11 pm

Hey,

I have 4 thermal sensors from the Akasa FC-03 fan control.
They are supposed to give temp of:

1. CPU
2. HDD
3. Case
4. PSU

I would like to have your opinion where exactly is the best place
to tape this sensors, especially the CPU and PSU.

Many thanks!

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 5:49 pm

Assuming that you use thin foil type of thermal probe -

CPU: put it as close as possible to CPU die (but not on the die, otherwise your CPU may die

), or underneath the HS.

PSU: put it on heatsink in PSU. .BIG WARNING: if you are not familiar with opening PSU and safety rule in working with PSU - then don't do it. Unless, you have modded your PSU with direct PSU fan control there's no need to put a thermal probe in there. You can use that spare probe somewhere else more useful to you like VGA card. Putting probe on VGA in similar way with CPU or alternatively on the back side of card directly behind GPU chip.

filete · Post by **filete** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:45 pm

CPU: put it as close as possible to CPU die

CPU die?
What do you mean?
Also do you think is it a good thing to put the sensor really between the
HS and the processor?
Is not going to influence the contact?

About the PSU, it was not modded, and I dont really want to open it, so If I tape it on the outside of the PSU,
will that give me any approximated temp?
I dont think so, so I just might use it for other part, like PCI area....

Sorry, for these newbies questions!

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:11 pm

filete,

Sorry for confusion. I guess I was too jolly this morning, should have said CPU Core which would have made it much more clearer.

Anyway, here's a link to the page that'll show an example (scroll to the end of page). If you have a heat spreader on your cpu then put it on the edge of the heat spreader.

Remember, you don't really have to do that. Sticking the probe to the base of HS would give you good enough reading. May be 1-2 degree lower than above method. Just keep the probe outside direct air path. This way you don't even have to uninstall and then reinstall HS.

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:13 pm

-delete double post-

scara · Post by **scara** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:52 am

You could try pushing the PSU sensor into the space where the cables come out. If theres no room there just put it through one of the intake holes.

That should give you a good reading of internal PSU temperature without opening it up.

filete · Post by **filete** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:57 am

Remember, you don't really have to do that. Sticking the probe to the base of HS would give you good enough reading

Now I am confused...
You say, that I dont have to put the probe on the CPU core, instead on the
base of the HS....
You mean inside the HS, under the HS fan?!
Can you be more especific?
I have the Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu

You could try pushing the PSU sensor into the space where the cables come out.
If theres no room there just put it through one of the intake holes.

Scara
Thanks, I think that´s what I will do, just stick the sensor inside of one of the PSU holes!
I supposed I dont have to push it deeper inside, uh?

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:47 am

OK, let's start again on where to put temp probe on CPU with CNPS 7000A-Cu (I happen to use the same HSF). My CPU is P4 2.8C.

My opinion is following:

1. Best place to put thin foil type temp probe - I tape my temp probe next to the edge of CPU heat spreader before i installed CNPS 7000A-Cu. At idle (i.e. no activity on Window) this position give reading of +10°C above room temp.

2. Second best place - before I changed temp probe position to #1, I used to wedge the thin foil temp probe in between the fins of CNPS 7000A-Cu. At idle this position gave a reading of +9°C above room temp.

The only reason I changed temp probe position from #2 to #1 was not because I want a better reading, but simply because I had to take out HSF and reininstalled it anyway(for other purpose) and therefore decided to do #1 as well. I hope it's now clear.

Since the different between#1 and #2 is not substantial, I think you can put it either way - it should not make any different in how you control your fan.

filete · Post by **filete** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:37 pm

And how about the case?

Where is the best spot to tape the case thermal sensor?

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:27 pm

filete,

Let me tackle your question by asking questions

:

1. What is your set up look like e.g. standard mid-tower ATX with Hdd at bottom-front of case? Detailed system spec would help. How many fans do you have in your system? What kind of fans do you have? Where they are? What kind of airflow your case provide?

2. If I'm not mistaken, Akasa can give you a control of up to 4 fans. Question is which fans you would like to control? Based on earlier post, the PSU fan is not to be connected, so what else?

3. Once you answer to #1 and #2, you can decide where to put the 4 temp sensors available. The basic idea is that you want to put the temp sensor in the area where there's heat and by adjusting fans speed you can make an effect on that temp.

filete · Post by **filete** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:25 am

1. What is your set up look like e.g. standard mid-tower ATX with Hdd at bottom-front of case?

Its an Antec Sonata with stock PSU TruePower 380W.

Detailed system spec would help.

Asus K8V SE Deluxe
AMD64 3200+ 1MB L2
Kingston 2x512MB
Matrox G550 DVI/VGA AGP card
Digidesign Audiomedia III (PCI audio card)
2 x Maxtor IDE 80GB 7.200rpm
2x Seagate Barracuda V SATA 120GB 7.200rpm

How many fans do you have in your system? What kind of fans do you have? Where they are? What kind of airflow your case provide?

PSU fan
Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu fan
back - Antec stock fan
front - Nexus 120mm

2. If I'm not mistaken, Akasa can give you a control of up to 4 fans.

Yes, it gives you 4 thermal sensores with 4 fans control.

Question is which fans you would like to control? Based on earlier post, the PSU fan is not to be connected, so what else?

Well, I have decided to stick one of the thermal probe inside the PSU,
but Im still confused if I should control PSU fan with Akasa!?

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:14 am

Umm..ok, from the look of it I would say it shouldn't be too difficult to run your system cool and low noise.

The way I see it you do not really have a serious heat source issue but rather a general case airflow kind of thing.

1. 4 Hdds - active cooling from front fan should be ok for cooling those Hdds. Noise-wise, trying to quiet 4 hdds would not be easy(more about this later). To read the temp of these drives - I would suggest you use the SMART function of the Hdds rather than using temp probe (unless you want to use all temp probes for Hdds). DTemp program is available at SPCR's Download page.

2. MB + CPU - CNPS7000A-Cu should be able to handle it at low speed, MB comes with passive Northbridge HS I think, so one less noise source.

3. VGA - Matrox G550 doesn't even require a HS nor a fan - just simple good case airflow. You don't play game, do you

So Akasa should be controling 3 fans. For temp probe, 1 could be at CPU HS. You can try suspend one of the temp probe over CNPS7000A like this. This will give you a good idea of air temperature inside your case. The other 2 probes can be put at places where you'd like to know temp.

There must be hundred of discussion threads on Sonata case in SPCR forums. If you have not yet done it, may I suggest you start searching the forum on Sonata case. Might want to start at a sticky thread called Sonata mods. This should give you a good idea on what to do with the case to improve thing, in particular to handle the 4 Hdds such as suspending Hdds for quieter operation. Sonata PSU air duct is another intersting topic.

General recommendation seems to be to also replace Antec exhaust fan with Nexus.

Good luck.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to your PSU fan control question - if you feel uncomfortable about opening up PSU and work inside it, just forget about connecting PSU fan to Akasa. Inside PSU is not a place to messing about if you do not know what you're doing.

filete · Post by **filete** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:47 am

So Akasa should be controling 3 fans...

So that means there is no problem in control the Zalman with Akasa?!
Is it not dangerous?
I mean how do I know when its time to raise the Zalman fan speed?

And going this way, I suppose I dont need to mount the fanmate
that comes with Zalman...

Forgot to respond to your PSU fan control question - if you feel uncomfortable about opening up PSU and work inside it,
just forget about connecting PSU fan to Akasa. Inside PSU is not a place to messing about if you do not know what you're doing.

You are right! Iam not going to mess with the PSU.
But I am decided to stick one of the temp probe inside an hole of the PSU.
Do you think it is safe?
I am not going to push deeper, just a little to have an idea
of the temperature inside!

Once again, thanks for your great help!!

filete · Post by **filete** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:20 pm

Just a new update about the TruePower 380W PSU:

I´ve check the manual, and I found that this PSU is also equipped with a 3-pin fan signal connector.
You can connect this to the motherboard and monitor the speed thru the
BIOS!
This means I dont have to open the PSU to be able to use it with Akasa,
I just need to use this plug and I will be able to control PSU fan?

I just wonder if I gain anything more, instead of connecting to motherboard...

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:28 pm

filete wrote:So that means there is no problem in control the Zalman with Akasa?!
Is it not dangerous? ...../....
And going this way, I suppose I dont need to mount the fanmate
that comes with Zalman...

You should have no problem controling CPU fan with Akasa. Some MB may have issue(beeping, fail to start) if CPU fan is not plugged into MB fan header. I don't know about Asus K8V SE Deluxe board, but my Asus MB does not have any problem. Anyway, you'll soon find out

. And if MB give any beeping signal you should be able to turn it off in bios.

No, you don't need a Fanmate, just use control at Akasa. Unless of course if you feel that Akasa alone does not go low enough in term of fan speed, you can connect Fanmate in between Akasa and fan to reduce fan voltage further.

This you'll have to find out as I've never used Akasa.

filete wrote:I mean how do I know when its time to raise the Zalman fan speed?

When you see the temp of CPU going too high for your liking. Read the Akasa manual, it should give you some idea. Btw, it always help if you match the identity number of temp sensor with the number of fan channel e.g. sensor#1 is on CPU HS, Fan#1 is for CPU fan, etc.

filete wrote:..I´ve check the manual, and I found that this PSU is also equipped with a 3-pin fan signal connector.
You can connect this to the motherboard and monitor the speed thru the
BIOS!
This means I dont have to open the PSU to be able to use it with Akasa,
I just need to use this plug and I will be able to control PSU fan?

I think that 3 pin fan signal will only give you the possibility to read PSU fan speed through MB, but you'll not be able to control PSU fan speed. That fan signal connetor probably have only 1 or 2 wires connected (rpm signal and ground wires).

filete · Post by **filete** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:06 pm

When you see the temp of CPU going too high for your liking. Read the Akasa manual, it should give you some idea.

Ultraboy,
I have read the Akasa manual, and it says that the default alarm temperature for each sensor are:

CPU = 65º
HDD = 55º
CASE = 45º
POWER = 99º

That means that if one of these temperature exceeds these values,
the alarm will sound with the LCD blinking.
Of course I can increase/decrease the alarm temperature for each one individual, and that is great!

What do you think of the default setting?

I think that 3 pin fan signal will only give you the possibility to read PSU fan speed through MB, but you'll not be able to control PSU fan speed. That fan signal connetor probably have only 1 or 2 wires connected (rpm signal and ground wires).

That´s too bad!
I supposed that 1 of the Akasa fan control are going to be sad!

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:59 am

filete wrote: CPU = 65º
HDD = 55º
CASE = 45º
POWER = 99º

Those are for safety limit. What should be appropriate in your situation depends on many factors e.g. the 'normal' room temperature that you are working with your computer, application you're running, airflow in your case, etc. You'll have to play with it until you find your level of comfort. Having an alarm trickered so often can also be very annoying, on the other hand burning your components is not a fun thing neither.

As a starter, seeing that you're not a gamer, try this setting over and above your normal room temperature:

CPU +30°C
Case +15°C

HDD - depend on where you put that probe. You have 4 Hdds so Akasa reading doesn't really mean much. Personally, I always try to keep my Hdd temp below 40°C. You may need to check your Hdd datasheet on what's the maximum safe limit (generally between 50-60°C).

PSU - you mentioned you put the probe in the PSU air intake slot without touching anything. I felt that the temperature reading that you get will not lead to anything meaningful anyway since you can not react to it. So you may just leave the alarm setting at similar level as case.

filete · Post by **filete** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:46 pm

As a starter, seeing that you're not a gamer, try this setting over and above your normal room temperature:

CPU +30°C
Case +15°C

Are you saying to add more 30º C to the default temp of the CPU?!
So the alarm will only sound on 95ºC!
Isn´t that too much?

Also, maybe you can help me with this.
As I told you before I have a Nexus 120mm to mount on the HDD frame.
The fan comes with 2 arrows that points the direction of air movement.
What side should I mount the fan?
By the arrows, the air goes out from the side where the cable leads are.
Just can´t figure if its best to bring air to HDD´s or taking hot air from the frame.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:09 pm

He meant 30 degrees over the room temperature, so for your CPU that would be 50°C for a 20°C room. For heatsink temperature, 50°C is a good warning limit, depending on your CPU.

For regular fans like the Nexus you're talking about, the intake side of the fan is the side without the spokes attached to the central hub and the out-blowing side is the side with spokes and wires (the side on which the fan hub and blades are connected to the frame).

Since your case is a Sonata, the fan should pull air in through the front and over the harddisks and blow on the motherboard/cpu/videocard. You can always stick the thermal sensor for the "power"-channel on your video card heatsink (useless info: that'd be the reverse of my CoolerMaster Aerogate: I have the VGA sensor on my PSU).

I agree with ultraboy that pushing the sensor into the PSU will not get you useful info: in order to get that, you should tape/glue the sensor to an actual heatsink inside the PSU... which, judging from your posts, I would recommend against.

filete · Post by **filete** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:33 pm

Hi teejay!

Since your case is a Sonata, the fan should pull air in through the front and over the harddisks and blow on the motherboard/cpu/videocard...

Do you mean, pull air from the HDD to the motherboard side?
So the Nexus side with spokes and wires should be facing the motherboard...
Is this correct?

I agree with ultraboy that pushing the sensor into the PSU will not get you useful info: in order to get that,
you should tape/glue the sensor to an actual heatsink inside the PSU... which, judging from your posts, I would recommend against.

I supposed I will take your advice and stick the thermal sensor for the PSU on my Matrox videocard!
This system is for my recording studio (I am also using a Apple G5), so the videocards I use never go too hot!! (like a gamer user),
but I guess will be interest to know how temp goes there!

Thanks for your help!

filete · Post by **filete** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:06 am

Also, another question:

When ultraboy mention:

I think that 3 pin fan signal will only give you the possibility to read PSU fan speed through MB, but you'll not be able to control PSU fan speed. That fan signal connetor probably have only 1 or 2 wires connected (rpm signal and ground wires).

So, I supposed I can connect and test it with Akasa, and even if I can´t control the fan speed, I can monitor the speed itself?
And this way, does PSU fan will still reduce the speed when need it?

Other issue, is about the Sonata 120 mm stock fan:
I notice that it has only 4 pin molex male/female and no 3 pin plug!
I went to a computer shop today, and the guy told me that
if does not have the 3 pin plug, that means I can´t connect to a control panel because its not a thermal fan!?!

I was looking for a 4 to 3 pin adapter cable to be able to connect to Akasa, guy said again
no way, the Antec fan is not a thermal fan, so I can´t monitor the RPM or control the fan speed!

Is this true, or once more this people that work on stores dont
understand nothing about computers?

All the help on this issues will be much appreciate!
Thanks

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:05 pm

Partially true, a 4-pin fan is supposed to get power directly from the PSU and so you cannot monitor RPM, unless there also is a separate wire with 3-pin connector (apparently this is how your PSU fan works). But, of course you can use a 4-pin to 3-pin adapter to hook up your fan to the fan controller to adjust the speed, that doesn't require a thermal fan as the guy in the store claimed.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:52 pm

computer shop guy wrote:if does not have the 3 pin plug, that means you can´t connect to a control panel because its not a thermal fan
...
no way, the Antec fan is not a thermal fan, so you can´t monitor the RPM or control the fan speed

At first, this made me laugh out loud, but it makes me a little angry as well. These statements are completely wrong yet they come from someone the general public will turn to for expertise on computer hardware. As Tephras said, you can simply get a 4pin-to-3pin adapter for that Antec fan. You won't be able to monitor rpm but it will run fine.

[off-topic]
Reminds me of a store clerk a few weeks ago, who insisted on selling an elderly couple a Prescott 3.4 GHz with a 6800Ultra with surround speakers and everything, even though they clearly stated they were on a budget and just wanted it for e-mail. I voiced my opinion, which resulted in them keeping their hard-earned money and an angry store dude, but I can live with that - very well, actually. Sadly, these things happen all the time.
[/off-topic]

filete wrote:Do you mean, pull air from the HDD to the motherboard side? So the Nexus side with spokes and wires should be facing the motherboard... Is this correct?

Yes, you got it.

filete · Post by **filete** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 4:50 am

Thanks for both advice!

And what about this:

I think that 3 pin fan signal will only give you the possibility to read PSU fan speed through MB, but you'll not be able to control PSU fan speed. That fan signal connetor probably have only 1 or 2 wires connected (rpm signal and ground wires).

So, I supposed I can connect and test it with Akasa, and even if I can´t control the fan speed, I can monitor the speed itself?
And this way, does PSU fan will still reduce the speed when need it?

Can you tell me if this is ok to do?

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:44 am

I think that 3 pin fan signal will only give you the possibility to read PSU fan speed through MB, but you'll not be able to control PSU fan speed. That fan signal connetor probably have only 1 or 2 wires connected (rpm signal and ground wires).

True. In all but a few purpose-modded PSUs, this wire is for monitoring only.

So, I supposed I can connect and test it with Akasa, and even if I can´t control the fan speed, I can monitor the speed itself?

Unknown. In principle I think it should work, but it depends on your fan controller. You can try this when you put everything together without risking anything.

And this way, does PSU fan will still reduce the speed when need it?

Yes.

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:50 am

filete,

Not sure whether I understand your question, assuming that you still want to connect the 3 pin fan signal that come with your True Power 380 with Akasa:

1. Akasa should be able to read rpm signal of your PSU fan.

2. You will not be able to adjust your PSU fan speed with Akasa as that 3 pin fan signal doesn't have 12v line with it. If you look at that PSU 3 pin header you will find that there're only 2 wires attached to the header. The one missing in the middle is a 12v wire (look at Nexus fan header for comparison).

3. Your PSU has a circuit to control its fan speed by itself. Everytime it adjusts the fan speed, you'll see it as mentioned in #1.

filete · Post by **filete** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:05 am

****NEW UPDATE****

Ok, I finally started to mount the new system 2 hours ago.
Here what I did so far:

1. Mount CPU + Zalman HS on motherboard
2. Put motherboard inside Sonata case.
3.Change the Antec stock case fan for a Nexus 120mm (I have already order another for the HDD frame.
4.Connect the Akasa fan control (outside the case, just to make some tests).

As you can see, I didn´t put any RAM, HDD or Graphic Card.
Also I have connect the Nexus fan, Zalman fan, and the PSU fan monitor plug to the Akasa control and used one thermal probe
in between the fins of CNPS 7000A-Cu to test the temp of CPU on Akasa.

Ok, I´ve turn on and this is what happen:

1. Get 3 bips like (1---1-1), dont know if its because of no RAM or HDD (any idea?)
2. The Zalman fan makes some noise, if it is around 2800RPM, but if I turn the Akasa control around 1780 and lower he gets pretty silence! (what speed should I have?)
3. The temperature I get from the thermal probe on Zalman is 29ºC?? Is it possible that the CPU is so cold? Or I have to put the sensor in a better place?
4. Nexus fan works perfect, with no noise.
5. PSU is pretty silence too, but as you guys told me before, I can monitor the fan speed (now is at 840RPM ), but I can´t control it....
I guess PSU control its fan speed by itself.
Wonder if 840RPM is the maximum speed??

And this is it so far.
I would like to see you guys opinion about these results!

Thanks again.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:33 pm

For an Award BIOS, that beep signal indicates a video card problem. Did you plug it in? For most other BIOSes, 3 beeps signal memory errors... you did plug in at least some RAM, right? If not, there's your cause.
I'd start out with the RPMs of the Zalman pretty high. As soon as you get your OS loaded and have a temp monitoring tool up and running, you can gradually reduce fan speed and see its effect on temperature. The 7000 can run at minimal speeds for an A64 but for a P4 I don't know. Find out for yourself by monitoring and adjusting
Remember the CPU is idling as long as the mobo does not allow it to boot due to the error under (1). Ultraboy already answered this question in detail, 8th post in this thread. Summary: he got 10C over ambient idle so it's probably fine.
Told ya so
If only you were so lucky. That startup fan speed sounds about right, but as soon as you close your case and components start to heat up those RPMs will go up... the stock PSU in the Sonata is one hot bugger. Expect at least 1300rpm when it's under load.

Good luck on your (continuing) build. Have you done the Sonata bezel mods as described in the sticky post in the cases forum?

filete · Post by **filete** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:35 am

****MORE UPDATE****

For an Award BIOS, that beep signal indicates a video card problem. Did you plug it in? For most other BIOSes, 3 beeps signal memory errors... you did plug in at least some RAM, right? If not, there's your cause.

Yes, that beep was because there was no RAM insert...
Today I test the mobo with 256MB DDR400 from my Mac G5,
and that make it stop the beep.

I'd start out with the RPMs of the Zalman pretty high. As soon as you get your OS loaded and have a temp monitoring tool up and running, you can gradually reduce fan speed and see its effect on temperature.

I have also plug the Matrox video card, and a IDE hard-disk with Windows XP Pro pre-installed from my other system.
Made a boot, and voilá:

Boot went fine, but I got "CPU Fan Error".
I supposed that warning is because I am connecting the Zalman fan to
Akasa fan control and not to mobo!
So I´ve enter into BIOS to check the settings on "Hardware", and making
the "CPU Fan" disable, have correct that warning.

On BIOS I have check all the settings and on CPU temp it gives me
34.5ºC when I turn down all the way the Zalman fan (around 1700 RPM).
I am not very happy with this HS noise, as I said before, if I keep the fan at this speed, its almost silent, but there is always little noise.
And if I start turning the speed up, well the noise raise too much!
Its not just the air moving, but it seems there´s always a hum mechanical noise.

After I read so many posts and info about Zalman HS, I was almost sure
that this fan was complete silence, I guess I was wrong.

The hard-disk its the component that makes more noise, not only when
accessing data, but there is always a buzz there!
Of course this disk is for test, I guess the Seagate Barracuda are the
better. What do you think?

Well, I´ve boot again, enter XP and everything seems ok,
so at this time, I have these questions:

1. Is it the CPU temp fine (34.5ºC) ?
With the Akasa thermal probe I get less 5ºC , around 29ºC.
It will be fine, if I remember always this diference, but I have notice that when I turn Zalman fan to his maximum speed,
it lowers only 2 or 3º C on Akasa or BIOS CPU temp.
Is that normal?
I know that I haven´t been with the computer on much time and with the case cover, so I guess the CPU temp will raise much more...
2. The K8V mobo have 3 sockets for 184-pin DDR Ram, and I already got 2x 512MB DDR400, I have check the mobo manual, and there says that
to use the 3 DIMM, the max speed for all 3 sockets is DDR200!
This means that I can get another DDR400 module and will only work at DDR200 speed, or to use the 3 sockets, I need to get DDR200 instead?
3. Is there any software for WindowsXP to see the CPU temp?
Also I can´t seem to find where to check for L2 cache info on WinXP...?

Have you done the Sonata bezel mods as described in the sticky post in the cases forum?

No, not at this time...

Thanks again for all the help!

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:08 pm

#1. When trying to make judgement on temp of any component (that uses air-cool system) whether it's ok or not, you must always take into account your room temperature. For instance your CPU temp (at idle?) is 34.5 C - this is ok if your room temp is around 23-25 C, however, if your room temp at that time is say 15-16 C then 34.5 C for CPU at idle may be slightly high - which you might want to further investigate on what cause that. In either case 34.5 C is a safe temp.

I hope I'm not confusing you on the above statement as I'm talking about 2 different things a) relative temperature of component compared to room temp, and b) safety temp of such component.

#2. I'm not a K8V user so you may have to wait for other users to comment.

#3. There're many softwares that will let you see CPU temp (through on board sensor). Look in download section on SPCR homepage. Google for CPUZ for freeware to check info on CPU.

You mentioned CNPS 7000 fan at lowest setting of Akasa to report 1700 rpm, that's a surprise. As Fanmate that comes with CNPS 7000 could normally reduce speed to around 1400 rpm at its minimum setting.

If that's the case, you may want to put Fanmate between CNPS 7000 and Akasa while setting Akasa at minimum, then adjust Fanmate to the point of your liking. In the future when you want to increase cooling for you CPU just move the control on Akasa.