Aopen's SilentTek: BUGGY! BUGGY! BUGGY!

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

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Gekkani
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Aopen's SilentTek: BUGGY! BUGGY! BUGGY!

Post by Gekkani » Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:55 pm


Well, after spend some time with the latest version of silentTek with very poor and strange results I have made a test with SilentTek and SilentBios with two different fans:

The noisy one: Titan TFD-8025H12C

· 80mm
· 3400 RPM
· 1.92W
· 0.16A

The quiet one: Papst 8412NGL

· 80mm
· 1500rpm
· 0.6W
· 45mA


System:

Intel P4 2.53 / 533 Stepping C1
Motherboard: Aopen AX4PE-MAX
OS: Windows 2000 + SP3
PSU: Mapower 300w
SilentTek ver.3.12.04 Date:19/2/2003
SilentBios ver: 1.05


NOTE: First RPM Column: SilentTek Monitor
Second RPM Column: Aida32 ver.3.30 Enterprise


Image Image

Well as Mike said in his SPCR SilentTek Review there are lot of steps with no voltage difference, now from 50% to 15%... HOWEVER SilentTek RPM monitor gives wrong rpm reads (note too the big bump from 55% to 50%.. 1000rpm!). AIDA32 seems that give us the right rpm. From 10% to 5% we can see pretty much the same.

The lowest voltage that gives SilentTek is 7.54v ... TOO HIGH! :x

But what about Papst Test?

The same steps with no voltage difference (50%-15% and 10%-5%). But the voltage? The voltage is different with the Papst! The max Volt. is 11.61 and the lowest is 10.76! Thats less than 200 rpm reduction! :evil:

Anyone know why happens this??


Now SilentBios Test: (Fixed Fan Mode only for Boot)

Image Image

In SilentBios we can do steps in 1% increment from 100% to 0%, however thats not true because not all steps change the voltage... From 100% to 98%.. same voltage, from 97% to 93%.. same voltage, from 87% to 83%.. same voltage, and so on. Voltage dont change in that range of steps BUT rpm monitoring changes (not reflected in the test) for example from 87% to 82% gives same voltage but RPM monitor say:

87% - 2958 rpm
86% - 2910 rpm
85% - 2882 rpm
84% - 2853 rpm
83% - 2811 rpm

Wrong monitoring again :(

Voltages are very diffent from SilentTek:

- Using SilenTek with Titan fan gaves us: 11.55v MAX & 7.54v MIN
and using SilentBios gave us: 11.51v MAX & 3.78v MIN

- Using SilenTek with Papst fan gaves us: 11.66v MAX & 10.76v MIN
and using SilentBios gave us: 11.61v MAX & 6.14v MIN

HUGE difference uh?

Anyways 6.14v is too high, and Fixed Fan Mode setting only applies for post mode. And why voltage changes with different fans???

I'm deeply disappointed with Aopen and SilentTek. :cry:

Gekkani.

Gekkani
Posts: 116
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
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Post by Gekkani » Mon Mar 03, 2003 10:26 pm


Ommmhh.... :(

Noone reply?

Its my test wrong or something?

No silentek users here?

Mike?

Anyone?

:roll:


MikeC
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Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Post by MikeC » Tue Mar 04, 2003 1:44 am

Yeah, your post deserves a reply.

I wonder if the issue is with the different kinds o RPM monitoring output provided by different fans. Maybe for the SilentTek/BIOS to work well, AOpen needs to specify fans.

The thing is that despite these anomalies, the various types of fan/thermal control modes in ST worked well for me when I had that system running. It kept the CPU cool enough & the fans quiet enough. I used all the different modes and had good results with them all -- except the manual (fixed). I found it not as useful when the other options generally had the fans not running at all most of the time.

There was a more serious criticism in another review of the board I reviewed that ST caused glitches/instability(?) in general Windows computing, which I have to admit I did not notice.

Tore
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Post by Tore » Tue Mar 04, 2003 2:26 am

I have a silentTek board as well, but I'm still building the system and haven't had much time to play with it. The minimum voltage seems to be to high though (using Papst fans). I will try to put a Zalman fanregulator between the CPU fan and the motherboard, since I got one of those regulators with my Zalman CPU cooler. I like the idea of silentTek, and think I will be able to make it work for me. But since I haven't done much on that computer yet, I don't know if it will be stable.

deebass
Patron of SPCR
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Location: Spain - Madrid

Post by deebass » Thu Mar 06, 2003 3:44 pm

Gekkani, I hope that Aopen Support has given you an appropiate explanation for this, as I have read in Aopen forums that they have e-mailed you.

If that's the case, I expect your answer.

[a little off-topic] BTW, I was diving in Aopen Motherboard Forums searching to find out if FSB 200 (400 DDR) worked in AK77-8XN, as I was considering that board for an upgrade, mostly because of Silentek (good review, Mike) and because it's a quite good board (but not better than Abit, Epox, etc).
There I found your post (and the link to this explanation) complaining about Silentek. So I came here.

Then I found that that board has even difficulties running 166FSB (with a native 266 FSB CPU, but this shouldn't matter, I think), so I have discarded it (I'll stay with my current board).

And finally I registered here because, although I know some people over here thanks to Silent PC ML, there's no other good place to read and discuss about Silent computing, so now I think this might be a reason why I don't see your posts in Hardlimit forums anymore.

Greetings from Spain.

Gekkani
Posts: 116
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
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Post by Gekkani » Thu Apr 10, 2003 10:12 pm

Ouch! I didnt see ur reply deebass.

Well aopen's answer said something like - thanks for help us to improve our products ... we are working hard and we need specify fans in order to work well .... - (as mike said)

More or less that was the reply .. dont remember well :roll:

Anyways this mobo seems rock stable (at least for me) and works as well as others brands that i tried (Intel, Abit and Gigabyte)

gekkani

PD: a mi no me tienes que dar 'greetings from spain' so cachondo xD Que vivo aqui :wink:

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