Proper Cooling?

[Dalboz]

Hello everyone,
I have question regarding proper cooling. I just constructed a new
system with the following specs for those you didn't see the previous
posts when I was trying to get it to work:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 800MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM (I'm pretty sure it PC3200, but I'll check
on that)
Foxcon CPU heatsink and fan.
Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950 video card
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
120 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
20 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
Generic IDE DVD-ROM
Yamaha 3200EZ CD-RW IDE
Sony Floppy Drive
400 Watt PSU

This is what is in the box, not including outside peripherals, of
which the only thing out of the ordinary would be my Aiptek Hyperpen
12000U Drawing Tablet.

In any case, I noticed the room getting warmer (and the CDs I put in
drive came out pretty hot). I jumped into the BIOS to check the
internal temp, and the CPU is running at around 60 C, while the mother
board is running at about 45 C. How bad is this? I know it's not
great, but it doesn't quite seem to be in the danger zone.

Another thought on proper cooling: In the past, I've usually tried to
create an airflow going through the computer. Have the fans on the
back blowing out the hot air, but seal up all vents except the ones
over the fans so that the hot air doesn't get drawn back in, but
instead cooler air is taken in through the front. Since the rear
chasis fan seems to be specifically designed to pull air in, I've
considered removing it and putting it on backwards so that it too push
air out rather than draws it in. Aside from dust, is this a good
method to follow to control heat in the system?

 

[Patrick]

Hello everyone,
I have question regarding proper cooling. I just constructed a new
system with the following specs for those you didn't see the previous
posts when I was trying to get it to work:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 800MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM (I'm pretty sure it PC3200, but I'll check
on that)
Foxcon CPU heatsink and fan.
Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950 video card
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
120 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
20 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
Generic IDE DVD-ROM
Yamaha 3200EZ CD-RW IDE
Sony Floppy Drive
400 Watt PSU

This is what is in the box, not including outside peripherals, of
which the only thing out of the ordinary would be my Aiptek Hyperpen
12000U Drawing Tablet.

In any case, I noticed the room getting warmer (and the CDs I put in
drive came out pretty hot). I jumped into the BIOS to check the
internal temp, and the CPU is running at around 60 C, while the mother
board is running at about 45 C. How bad is this? I know it's not
great, but it doesn't quite seem to be in the danger zone.

Another thought on proper cooling: In the past, I've usually tried to
create an airflow going through the computer. Have the fans on the
back blowing out the hot air, but seal up all vents except the ones
over the fans so that the hot air doesn't get drawn back in, but
instead cooler air is taken in through the front. Since the rear
chasis fan seems to be specifically designed to pull air in, I've
considered removing it and putting it on backwards so that it too push
air out rather than draws it in. Aside from dust, is this a good
method to follow to control heat in the system?

Yes. Draw air IN the front panel, OUT the rear panel!

If the rear fan is drawing IN air, the PSU is STILL pushing OUT air, and
that means your case has STAGNATION which could be the cause of higher heat.

 

[Toshi1873]

Hello everyone,
I have question regarding proper cooling. I just constructed a new
system with the following specs for those you didn't see the previous
posts when I was trying to get it to work:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 800MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM (I'm pretty sure it PC3200, but I'll check
on that)
Foxcon CPU heatsink and fan.
Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950 video card
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
120 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
20 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
Generic IDE DVD-ROM
Yamaha 3200EZ CD-RW IDE
Sony Floppy Drive
400 Watt PSU

This is what is in the box, not including outside peripherals, of
which the only thing out of the ordinary would be my Aiptek Hyperpen
12000U Drawing Tablet.

In any case, I noticed the room getting warmer (and the CDs I put in
drive came out pretty hot). I jumped into the BIOS to check the
internal temp, and the CPU is running at around 60 C, while the mother
board is running at about 45 C. How bad is this? I know it's not
great, but it doesn't quite seem to be in the danger zone.

Assuming that your room's ambient air temp is 25C...

60C for the CPU is definitely close to terminal. Most
CPUs should operate more at 45-50C. (Or less, have seen
some folks here report temps of 35-40C for the CPU.)
However, make sure you have latest BIOS and latest
drivers as onboard motherboard temp sensors are
sometimes inaccurate. (My BIOS reports a diff temp then
when I fire up the monitor software supplied by the MB
manuf.)

45C for inside the case is also a cooker. Inside case
temps should be more like 30-35C. Hard drives start
cooking at around 40C (some HDs can survive higher
temps, some die quickly, others just have shorter life
spans).

Stick a real therm inside the case, or get a therm with
remote sensing leads (or a case like the Antec p160
which has a pair of therms built in).

Another thought on proper cooling: In the past, I've usually tried to
create an airflow going through the computer. Have the fans on the
back blowing out the hot air, but seal up all vents except the ones
over the fans so that the hot air doesn't get drawn back in, but
instead cooler air is taken in through the front. Since the rear
chasis fan seems to be specifically designed to pull air in, I've
considered removing it and putting it on backwards so that it too push
air out rather than draws it in. Aside from dust, is this a good
method to follow to control heat in the system?

You don't mention what case you're using. Sounds like a
regular desktop case which is now over-packed with
equipment. My old desktop case with an 80mm exhaust at
the back, 80mm intake at the front, plus the regular
power-supply exhaust would run at 40-44C (inside case
temp, measured near the video card and near the RAM).

Moving everything to the Antec p160 case (mid-sized
tower, 120mm intake/exhaust fans, more room inside)
dropped the temps down to 35C for the same components.

 

[Isaac Kuo]

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 800MHz FSB

In any case, I noticed the room getting warmer (and the CDs I put in
drive came out pretty hot). I jumped into the BIOS to check the
internal temp, and the CPU is running at around 60 C, while the mother
board is running at about 45 C. How bad is this? I know it's not
great, but it doesn't quite seem to be in the danger zone.

The P4 Prescott runs hotter than any other processor out
there, and will literally boil water before shutting down
from overheating at 101+ degrees Celcius. See:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/p4-throttling/index.html

The Prescott they tested started throttling at 80 degrees
Celcius. Below 80 degrees, it ran at full speed.

Another thought on proper cooling: In the past, I've usually tried to
create an airflow going through the computer. Have the fans on the
back blowing out the hot air, but seal up all vents except the ones
over the fans so that the hot air doesn't get drawn back in, but
instead cooler air is taken in through the front. Since the rear
chasis fan seems to be specifically designed to pull air in, I've
considered removing it and putting it on backwards so that it too push
air out rather than draws it in. Aside from dust, is this a good
method to follow to control heat in the system?

Your rear case fan should be pulling air out the back.
This should improve case temperatures by pulling out air
heated by that hot Prescott as quickly as possible before
it can heat up everything else. This may raise CPU
temperatures because it's no longer getting an immediate
fresh supply of cool air, but the Prescott can take it.

Isaac Kuo

 

[Dalboz]

You don't mention what case you're using. Sounds like a
regular desktop case which is now over-packed with
equipment. My old desktop case with an 80mm exhaust at
the back, 80mm intake at the front, plus the regular
power-supply exhaust would run at 40-44C (inside case
temp, measured near the video card and near the RAM).

Moving everything to the Antec p160 case (mid-sized
tower, 120mm intake/exhaust fans, more room inside)
dropped the temps down to 35C for the same components.

My case is an Apex SuperCase TU-150 Black Mid Tower 400W Case w/ Door,
which you can see here
http://www.pcclub.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A1313315

An interesting feature with this case is that it has a funnel on the
inside that sits right over the CPU fan so that it blows directly out
of the case at the side. Funny thing is that the air coming out of
that particular vent feel rather cool.

I have been noticing that the system seems to be running slower than I
expected. I'm not sure if this is a result of the heat issue, or if
this could be a result of hyperthreading. I'm running Folding@home,
and I remember it calculating faster on my old computer.

 

[Phisherman]

Having a room temperature of 72, with good air movement is important.
You can help cooling with a ceiling fan or a table fan, just enough to
keep the air circulating. A few inches of space all around the case
will also help. Hard to believe some systems are built with 6-8 fans,
instead of one quiet large slow-moving fan. Some 30 years ago I
recall pipelines of anti-freeze running though mainframes in very cold
air-conditioned rooms to keep them cool.

 

[Dalboz]

Hello everyone,
I have question regarding proper cooling. I just constructed a new
system with the following specs for those you didn't see the previous
posts when I was trying to get it to work:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott) 800MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM (I'm pretty sure it PC3200, but I'll check
on that)
Foxcon CPU heatsink and fan.
Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950 video card
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
120 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
20 GB Western Digital Caviar IDE HDD
Generic IDE DVD-ROM
Yamaha 3200EZ CD-RW IDE
Sony Floppy Drive
400 Watt PSU

This is what is in the box, not including outside peripherals, of
which the only thing out of the ordinary would be my Aiptek Hyperpen
12000U Drawing Tablet.

In any case, I noticed the room getting warmer (and the CDs I put in
drive came out pretty hot). I jumped into the BIOS to check the
internal temp, and the CPU is running at around 60 C, while the mother
board is running at about 45 C. How bad is this? I know it's not
great, but it doesn't quite seem to be in the danger zone.

Another thought on proper cooling: In the past, I've usually tried to
create an airflow going through the computer. Have the fans on the
back blowing out the hot air, but seal up all vents except the ones
over the fans so that the hot air doesn't get drawn back in, but
instead cooler air is taken in through the front. Since the rear
chasis fan seems to be specifically designed to pull air in, I've
considered removing it and putting it on backwards so that it too push
air out rather than draws it in. Aside from dust, is this a good
method to follow to control heat in the system?

A quick update:
I've replaced the FoxConn CPU fan with a Vantec Aeroflow 2. I wiped
the CPU off, and liberally applied the new thermal paste. I also
turned the rear chasis fan around since that seemed to be blowing air
in from the back rather than out. For the moment, the CPU seems to be
running at approximately 50 C, which is approximately the temp that my
old computer ran at, and about 10 C cooler than what it was running
at. The motherboard temp is current at 37 C, almost 10 C cooler. The
comp has been on for about 15 to 20 minutes. I would still like to get
it cooler than this, but since this is about the temp of the old comp,
I'm willing to settle, unless someone has suggestions. I also noticed
that the PSU exhaust fan seems to be a bit weak. It actually has two
exhaust fans, one blowing out of the case and one that I think blow in
from the bottom of the PSU. Could this be a problem?

 

[Toshi1873]

A quick update:
I've replaced the FoxConn CPU fan with a Vantec Aeroflow 2. I wiped
the CPU off, and liberally applied the new thermal paste.

The rule for thermal paste is "a little dab will do ya".
You don't need more then a thin (very thin, as in scrape
off the excess with the edge of a credit card) coating.
Just enough to fill the tiny air holes due to
imperfections in the surface of the chip/heatsink.

I also
turned the rear chasis fan around since that seemed to be blowing air
in from the back rather than out. For the moment, the CPU seems to be
running at approximately 50 C, which is approximately the temp that my
old computer ran at, and about 10 C cooler than what it was running
at. The motherboard temp is current at 37 C, almost 10 C cooler. The
comp has been on for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Both sound good to me. Make sure you fire up the hard
drives and video card (e.g. use a benchmarking program).

 

[Last Boy Scout]

You might try reating the CPU on the cooler.

Either that or buying a nes case.

I have an Antec SLK3700AMB and it cools real nice. It has a 350w HD
and a 12cm fan.

 

[Dalboz]

The rule for thermal paste is "a little dab will do ya".
You don't need more then a thin (very thin, as in scrape
off the excess with the edge of a credit card) coating.
Just enough to fill the tiny air holes due to
imperfections in the surface of the chip/heatsink.

Well, I put a fair bit on, but then again, the fan came with alot of
paste. I barely used any of what came with the fan, and the CPU was
quite thoroughly covered. It doesn't seem to have caused any problems
yet.

Both sound good to me. Make sure you fire up the hard
drives and video card (e.g. use a benchmarking program).

I ran Battlefield: Vietnam, a reasonably resource intensive app. The
CPU temp increased to 53C, while the motherboard jumped to 47C. But
I'm thinking that the jump in the motherboard may be due to the GPU
(GeForce FX 5950) bringing up the ambient temperature in the case.
That was a bit hotter than I like, but at least it still seemed
usable.