Noise, Noise, Noise with AMD athlon 4000+ ... please help

duke911 · Post by **duke911** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:13 am

Hi everybody...
this is my first post here...

I have been an Intel user since 1996... And after I heard so much about AMD athlon 64 Processor 4000+ I gave it a try
I must say.. Performance is very good

But I have one main problem...

When I start my PC, windows loads very fast, and the PC is quiet... BUT after a few minutes ( 15 - 20 ) the processor's fan starts to work much much more.. And there for, I get more noise .. After one hour of using... the Thing is not bearable at all... I mean my PC's table start to shake after one hour, just as if you have put a blender on it and turned it on

after about 45 min of using the PC with case opened from one side... the sound is basically the same.. but I can't sense any heat inside the case if I enter my hand inside, while when case was closed from both sides, air temp. was about 35-40 degrees.

I checked MB bios:

CPU temp. is 35 °C

Fan Speed ( 4600 - 4800 RPM )

CPU Warning Temp. [disabled]
CPU Fan Fail Warning [disabled]
CPU Smart Fan Control [disabled]

these stuff came after more than about 35 min of gaming ( Doom III ) with max detail..

Both sides of the case were opened... so no hot air inside anymore...

I tried Everest to have more info… I wasn't playing any game, and this is what I got:

Temperatures:
CPU 28 °C (82 °F) ( both sides of the case were opened as well as all windows in my room.. and it's quite cold in here, and I did not use PC for about 30 min. it was only turned on )
GPU 45 °C (113 °F)
GPU Ambient 39 °C (102 °F)
WDC WD2000BB-00GUC0 39 °C (102 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 3375 RPM
Power Supply 1607 RPM

I tried enabling Smart Fan Control from Bios and these were my settings:

I enabled CPU Smart Fan Control and my settings were:

low 30
Mid 40
High 60
Full 70

and the sound greatly improved.... BUT....
When I started the PC today... CPU fan was off, until I started playing with Doom III, the fan started to work , and this in normal - I think - ... but after that.. I got

CPU temp. 35
CPU fan speed 3200 RPM

but when I I use Everest from windows... I get no CPU fan speed at all.. it's just not there!!!
From the BIOS.. I got 3200 RPM... but after a while fan gave me 0 RPM, while the fan was still working and CPU temp. is 33 !!!!

The I adjusted settings a bit.. and now it's:
low 28
Mid 33
High 45
Full 60

would that damage the processor if fan is turned off for lower speed??

and I get from Everest these info : [note: Both sides of the case opend, room temp. is about 18 degrees, and now load ]

Temperatures:

CPU 25 °C (77 °F)

GPU 41 °C (106 °F)

GPU Ambient 36 °C (97 °F)

WDC WD2000BB-00GUC0 35 °C (95 °F)

Cooling Fans:

CPU 2909 RPM

Power Supply 1607 RPM

I tried to do some tests my self for the new setting, I tried to have maximum load of pc, so I played Half-Life2 with max detail in a very intensive fight scene...

CPU temp. was 37-38 ( is this normal?? )
CPU cooling Fan 3200-3300

My spec. are:

CPU Type : AMD Athlon 64, 2400 MHz (12 x 200) 4000+

Motherboard Name : Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)

Motherboard Chipset : nVIDIA nForce4-4X, AMD Hammer

System Memory :1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)

GPU: nVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT, 256MB from Gigabyte

Power Supply: Force ATX 12 v 1.3 ultra quiet

OS: Win XP pro, SP2

No fans were install to the case.

My pc is quite new, I have been using it for about 2 weeks now…

I just wanna now the best way to quiet my pc so I can't get this stupid noise, and I don't want to damage my hardware too..

And do I have to do anything else to enable Cool 'n' Quiet except the setting I adjusted fommy MB bios???

Please Help me out here… I'm counting on you…

Thanks in advance

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:28 am

Did you tighten everything in properly? Are there any cables in the way of the fan? Those two things should account for a lot of pc noise. Also, it seems your fans are running pretty fast, maybe slow them down with speefans.

Also, you might wanna take a look at some of the silent cpu coolers, for socket 939. Something like a zalman cnps 7700, arctic cooling freezer 64, thermalright xp 120+panaflo 120, or a scythe ninja and a papst 120.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:37 pm

A CPU fan running at 3500 rpm,no case fans,some doubt about Cool-N-Quiet,Speedfan....let me guess-probably a little 40mm 5000 rpm fan on the vidcard and one on the NF4 chipset too. Meanwhile you have what was not long ago the top performing CPU sweating to do high demand games at max settings. The EASY answer? Move near the airport so you won't hear the computer. The GOOD answer-read a page or 2 in each subforum for overall info.

In a nutshell....you DO want at least a 120mm 1000 rpm case fan for a high power gaming machine. You want a high-end CPU heatsink,probably with 120mm fan at under 1000 rpm. You want PASSIVE cooling for the vid card + NF4 chipset. You want to be aware of the airflow in the case-where it gets in,where it exits,and what it cools or does not cool in between.

Cool + quiet lets a 4000 run as a 1000 (more or less) if the demand is low,such as web browsing or light tasks. Power use,demand full power get full power. As a "1000" heat output is much lower. If fans are RPM controlled according to the heat-they slow or stop when the heat is below certain thresholds.

Temps below 45 C are fine for an A64,and even when pushed you are not running that hot, less rpm even from this unnamed cooler would be fine. I assume it is a stock AMD? The better Quiet heatsinks-Scythe,Zalman,Thermalright,Thermaltake,Artic,are generally bigger,more heatpipes,a big slow fan,and able to cool that chip very quietly.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 6:25 pm

This tread well illustrates a common issue seen on various threads here. Someone visits Overclocker Zone or some such max power,gaming oriented site and puts togather a machine that is a nice power performer in games etc...but with zero consideration to noise. Others buy a full system,whatever,and then find that they don't know a lot about the various components inside,or some of those components are a real problem in terms of noise,performance or upgradability. A variant is the guy who put the hottest P4 in the tiniest case with a spaceheater vidcard,and thinks he can overclock it AND make it quiet.

Any moving part is a noise source. For each,there are products that are the quietest,or among the quietest. For a machine with fans spinning at high RPM,even with the case open,the chatter of even a noisy HDD won't be very audible,but it does add to the total.

For Duke 911,a good HSF,a quiet case fan,passive heatsinks on GPU + chipset,will make a huge difference.beyond that there are many things that can further quiet the beast.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 6:51 pm

Hello & welcome to SPCR,

You are going to have to replace the stock HSF on the CPU, and probably all the case fans will have to be replaced with models that spin in the 800-1500RPM range -- you have very little chance to get it quiet otherwise.

I built an Athlon 64 4000+ (Newcastle) with 4GB of RAM (only 3.25GB recognized by WinXP Pro -- we'll get 64bit when it is stable), 4 Seagate HD's (2 RAID 1 arrays), in a n Evercase 4252, and I used a Thermalright XP120 and a coupla' Nexus 120mm (running at ~750-800RPM) and a 92mm Nexus on the intake. It had a Zalman VF-700 Al/Cu at 5v on a 6600GT dual DVI card. The whole machine is pretty darn quiet!

And it ran very cool -- I was able to undervolt the CPU down from 1.5v to 1.35, IIRC. Load temps were in the mid-40's C.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 7:34 pm

Neil is right. Any fan at 2000+ rpms will be loud. All the comments seem right on. Your temps seem ok, but your components are just loud. The delay of fans ramping up could be the power supply heating up over time, or heat buildup within the case due to bad airlfow. What case are you using and what fans are in it?

Ryan listed a few good heatsink/fan combinations for the CPU so I won't delve into that. Replacing the heatsink/fan on the graphics card with a Zalman VF700Cu could help, or you could check out Zalman's website for some passive solutions. Your power supply isn't from a brand I've heard of, not here or anywhere else. I would recommend getting a Seasonic S12 380W PSU. That's just about the best out there right now, and the wattage should be adequate for your system.

To turn on cool'n'quiet you need to enable it in the BIOS and set the power options in WinXP's control panel to 'Minimal Power Management'.

The biggest problem I see in your setup is your motherboard. I'm not sure whether you have a passive one or an actively cooled one. There seems to be two versions of that motherboard:
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr ... K8NF-9.htm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128268
One with a fan, and one without. Am I missing something here?

If you have the version with a fan, it will be very difficult to replace the small fan that's on the chipset without interfering with your graphics card.

duke911 · Post by **duke911** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:28 am

Thank you very much for your helpful replay

As for the power supply... well, I cost me about 100$US, it's 500W, I got it from Dubai-UAE -as well as all my PC parts -....It's well made (I guess ) and it runs very quiet AFAIK.

I have AMD stock HSF on the CPU, and the same for the graphic card...

I'll try to open up the case again and check my MB model.

I believe I'll replace my original stock with one of these brands you've mentioned above...

Thanks again for helping me out here...

cheers