Passive cooling for Pentium D 9xx?

clubhouse · Post by **clubhouse** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:32 am

I've been an avid reader of these forums for a very long time, and now that I finally have the budget and bought a brand new PC, I need advice please...

To make it short: I got a P180 case in which I put an Asus P5WD2 Premium with a Pentium D 930. The graphics card is a simple fanless ATI X300 as I am not a gamer.

I am planning on getting an Antec Phantom 500 PSU next week in order to silent the PSU part, but my most important confusion lies in how to cool the CPU in the most quiet way apart from an expensive water cooling system such as Zalman's Reserator.

The built-in Intel CPU fan is extremely noisy right now, and the Pentium D 930 idles at around 50 degrees Celsius. It goes up to about 58 when overloaded, but the fan also runs faster and thus makes more noise. The maximum the CPU can handle is 63 degrees, according to Intel's website.

I have been reading here a lot about how the Scythe Ninja fits perfectly with the P180... But the big questions are:
- Can the Scythe Ninja passively cool the Pentium D 930???
- What about if a fan is added to it?
- And most importantly: can actually a Pentium D 9xx be passively cooled???
- Should I settle with a large 12cm-fan Zalman CPU cooler? Would it be better and as silent as the Ninja?
- Any other solution?

I've searched here in the forums and haven't found any discussion about passive cooling of a Pentium D 9xx... Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Fred

PS: the new Pentium D 9xx run much cooler than the 8xx... notably the 930 which is the coolest, and that's one reason why I got it.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:16 am

Here is a thread which is relevant (tangentially) to your request, it is about someone quietly cooling a Pentium D 805:

Thread

Can the Scythe Ninja passively cool the Pentium D 930???

It depends what you mean by 'passive'. A Ninja assisted by a Nexus 120mm case fan at full speed might be enough case aiflow to cool it 'passively'; however, if you mean 'with no fans in the case at all' then no, the Ninja cannot cool it passively. Come on, this is a 95W TDP CPU; the only way you are going to passively cool that is with a heatsink the size of your house (or flat or whatever).

kentc · Post by **kentc** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:03 am

i'd get the ninja, or a thermalright xp-120/si-120 and in any case run a slowspinning 120mm fan. as you can see in the tests above they are some very very effective coolers even with rather low cfm.

an alternative would maybe be to get the ninja or the thermalright hr-01 (i believe it's called?) and duct that to your 120mm chassis exhaust fan. my guess is that would have to be spinning a little faster then, but on the other hand you dont get conflicting airflows with subsequent turbulence with just the one fan.

regards, kent.

clubhouse · Post by **clubhouse** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:40 am

@ Jaganath: "passively cooling" means for me anything other than this horrible Intel fan!

Seriously, I do agree with you regarding the technical impossibility of cooling this CPU with a simple heatsink... So when I think of the Ninja I actually think of it with a fan. And I remember seeing in the gallery someobe who duct the Ninja to the rear exhaust fan of the P180... I'm definitely thinking I'll have to do some ducting experiments!

@ Kent: That Thermalright xp-120/si-120 doesn't seem to be compatible with my socket? Anyway, honestly, maybe it has some good performance, but it doesn't "look" that impressive... I think I'm gonna end up going with the Ninja and some ducting.

I was in Hong Kong a week ago and I finally put my hand on a beautiful Phantom 500. I posted PICS in the Gallery... I'll update them once I have the full "quiet" rig

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:56 am

clubhouse wrote:@ Jaganath: "passively cooling" means for me anything other than this horrible Intel fan!

I think I'm gonna end up going with the Ninja and some ducting.

I was in Hong Kong a week ago and I finally put my hand on a beautiful Phantom 500.

You won't go wrong with this. I run an 830 D (which runs hotter than a 930) with a Ninja and a Phantom 500 in a P180 case. The PS fan never turns on, and the Ninja stays cool with a 120mm AcoustiFan @ 5V (similar to a Nexus @ 7V) strapped to its side. This fan will be way quieter than any of the Antec case fans (which you might consider replacing).

clubhouse · Post by **clubhouse** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:23 pm

cmthomson wrote:You won't go wrong with this. I run an 830 D (which runs hotter than a 930) with a Ninja and a Phantom 500 in a P180 case. The PS fan never turns on, and the Ninja stays cool with a 120mm AcoustiFan @ 5V (similar to a Nexus @ 7V) strapped to its side. This fan will be way quieter than any of the Antec case fans (which you might consider replacing).

Thanks for confirming that this setup would effectively keep the Pentium D cool enough

The only thing I a worried about is my high ambient temperatures as I live in a hot weather country... But I think I'll still manage to overcome it by doing some duct experiment and fan control with the Ninja, its mounted fan and the P180 fans (that, indeed, I'm thinking of replacing at some point > they are quite noisy as soon as you switch them to Medium). Now I just need to do some research here at SPCR regarding fans

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:02 am

clubhouse wrote: The only thing I am worried about is my high ambient temperatures as I live in a hot weather country... But I think I'll still manage to overcome it by doing some duct experiment and fan control with the Ninja, its mounted fan and the P180 fans (that, indeed, I'm thinking of replacing at some point > they are quite noisy as soon as you switch them to Medium). Now I just need to do some research here at SPCR regarding fans

You're running the Antec fans at medium? I found them too loud at low! You're just beginning the quiet journey.

Singapore is typically about 35C and high humidity, right? The humidity helps (more air mass), but the high ambient temperature will be a bit of a challenge.

Surprising as it may seem, I predict it will be the motherboard components (MCH and ICH) that overheat, not the CPU; the Ninja (with Arctic Silver) provides superb heat transfer. This is certainly true of my system; even the lowest fan speeds around the Ninja kept my 830D well below its ratings, but I needed to pay close attention to heat buildup on the motherboard. If you're going to do ducting, I'd advise starting with the MCH heat sink.

clubhouse · Post by **clubhouse** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:28 pm

cmthomson wrote:Singapore is typically about 35C and high humidity, right?

Indeed. During the day I have the AC on and room temp is around 25 C. But at night when the AC is off, I believe the room temp is 30 at least. Ouch.

But so far I've been very impressed by the Antec Phantom 500 and its fan has never kicked in, the PSU itself doesn't feel that hot when I touch it. So I am thinking that this is a very good thing and it means that high ambient temperature is not that a problem after all. Hopefully it won't be!

cmthomson wrote:Surprising as it may seem, I predict it will be the motherboard components (MCH and ICH) that overheat, not the CPU; the Ninja (with Arctic Silver) provides superb heat transfer. This is certainly true of my system; even the lowest fan speeds around the Ninja kept my 830D well below its ratings, but I needed to pay close attention to heat buildup on the motherboard. If you're going to do ducting, I'd advise starting with the MCH heat sink.

Thanks for the input! I was indeed thinking of ducting the Ninja to the upper fan of the P180, and using the rear fan to create important airflow for the motherboad and its components, as well as the graphics card (even if it's a simple fanless X300, it's still somehow hot!)

I will be updating this thread and the Gallery with more info and pictures as soon as I do it. I'll also probably be getting the Coolermaster Aerogate III in order to be able to control temperatures and get a better idea of what's going on inside that P180!

walla walla · Post by **walla walla** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:16 pm

That Thermalright xp-120/si-120 doesn't seem to be compatible with my socket? Anyway, honestly, maybe it has some good performance, but it doesn't "look" that impressive... I think I'm gonna end up going with the Ninja and some ducting

They are compatible with the LGA 775 socket, but you need to buy the $5 bracket thing. I have a pentium D 830 and I am probably going to get either the xp-120 or the si-120, but I am still making sure I don't want the ninja. I like the thermalrights beceause they provide cooling for the hot motherboard components.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:16 pm

you could probably passivly cool a Pentium D 930 with a ninja and no fan in an open air environment, but definatly not in an enclosure. that heat has to get outside the box somehow.