Is three fans enough?

[MetallichicA]

My friend recently built a computer. He's got an AMD Athlon 2100XP, and the heat sink came with it. He has three fans already in his case.

So here's the problem- apparently the temperature in BIOS (? I didn't know you could read it there- learn something new every day) reads 160 degrees. I guess he's going to put a fourth fan in now to try and fix that.

He's not overclocking or anything like that, he just has a basic computer. He also has a GeForce3 with a fan on it.

What's going on with this? It shouldn't be that hot, right? And how can he fix it?

Thanks :)


p.s. Would anyone recommend liquid cooling? Not necessarily for his computer, but we'll be building one soon, and we're wondering if it's worth having to install 4 fans, or if liquid cooling is enormously expensive, or what. I know absolutely nothing about it, just heard of it.

[Orgone_Man]

Welcome to the world of my hell. I too have heat problems with the athlon 2100+

It overheated and I got back an athlon 1800+ from AMD and now I run a 50+ cfm fan on this processor with an expensive top of the line heat sync (thermaltake slkIII). It is now below the red line but loud as hell. I am trying to sell this machine to someone who does not mind the loudness. This is the last time I ever buy cheap speedy components (amd, ECS mobos, etc...). How do you put a price on peace of mind?

[capitan3]

funny me to has amd anthlon and it overheats. i guess its a mutal problem. but since i use air conditioning here it doesnt affect much. Since i have a couple cpu i uncoverd them and bot a fan in home depot and works great. no noise nothing. they are under the desk closed and i never see them. that is what worked for me. :D :D

[whiteflip]

how about some solid neon intercooling. some huble teloscope style cooling eh? four fans liquid cooling and throw in an AC in their.

[n_ick2000]

Defidently DON'T use the CPU Heatsink & Fan that came with the chip. Those are always crap. Go out and buy a REAL socket a heatsink and fan. It will do wonders. :)

[eleet-2k2]

Originally posted by Sawg
thermal goo*You mean tooth paste?! ;) :D

That's why I stick with Intel. The AMD get quite hot. :(

[zootm]

funny, i have an AMD, and it never, ever overheats. admittedly i have 6 case fans, but 4 of them are turned off (so i can watch DVDs in peace...), but yeah, it only comes anywhere near an everheat when it's clocked, which at present it's not.

so i have the cooling power, but i don't need it. what the hell am i bitching about? *hides*

[whiteflip]

all of my computers have one fan. and one of them is underclocked. :)

[InvisableMan]

i have big processers with big hard drives and lots of cables and a single 2.5 inch fan (besides one on the gfx card and one on the cpu) and it has never overheated.

then again the fan runs at 10,000 rpm (but its quiet all the time... exept the time i am chopping things up with it)

/me puts a chopstick through the fan
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzITT
woo!

[ujay]

The figures shown in the BIOS are often in a raw state and need some sort of correction to show the real values, may not be as bad as you think.

There are many temp monitoring programs that will give a better idea of what the true situation is.

The one I use is 'Motherboard Monitor 5', it's a bit over complicated, but I like that sort of thing :). Take a look for it, and others, in Google.

UJ

[simon snowflake]

Defentally get a other cooler then the standard one.
I have a old T-bird 1000Mhz (thats from the day's Athlon named their prossesors according to their speed and not relative speed compared to Duron prosessors). My prossesor (wich was state of the art at the moment I bought it about 2 years ago) melted the 21 seconds after I turned on my PC. So I got myself a new prosessor (garantie pffffew) and a new cooler, since then no problems with temperature but a lot of noise.

I would wait untill athlon comes with 0.13micron prosessors. Those are relative less warm and use less power.

[Atmo]

I definately agree with what sawg has already mentioned. Neat wiring is probably the most important thing...Cable ties and heatshrink arent expensive.

Fact: Amd processors run hot...really hot. And when the cpu fan is just circulating hot air they run even hotter.

To see if its lack of airflow in the case, take off the side panel and aim one of those big arsed house fans into it. Fire it up and take a look at the temps in the bios, if the temp is significantly lower, then its time to get out the dremel and add more fans. If temp isnt affected much, then its probably due to a poor quality heatsink, or the fan on it isnt spinning fast enough.

Copper heatsinks are becoming more common, and while most are good quality, there are some real shit heatsinks getting around (even plain old aluminium heatsinks that have been anodised to look like copper). Anything made by cooler master, globalwin etc. should be good quality. Its worth paying extra, replacing fried processors isnt cheap.

If its lack of airflow in the case, there arent any really easy solutions if all the standard mounting points are already used.

If the case has those punched out grills, then cutting them out and replacing them with wire grills should help a bit, and looks much nicer too. If it has a front fan that sits behind the front plastic bezel, then its not going to be doing much more than making noise. Either cut a big arsed hole in the front and place a duct to the fan, or cut a section out of the bottom of the plastic (the part that isnt seen). That would require that the case is lifted at least 10-20mm off the ground though.

The best way to get hot air out of a case though, is with a blowhole out the top of the case. I have a pair of 80mm fans that spin at 3200 rpm there, and they really move some air.

For aditional intakes, the bigger is better philosify works here, i use a single 3000rpm 120mm fan in the side of the case, which pumps over 110 cfm. It's placed towards the front of the case, in front of the cards, and keeps a nice flow of cool air into the case. I also use a 80mm fan in the front at the bottom in one of the standard positions, and an 80mm fan in the bottom two 5 1/4 drive bays. That fan has a direct line of flow over the cpu heatsink, and there are a pair of 80mm fans in the rear exhause positions, fairly close to the cpu.

All up it makes a fair ammount of noise (the 120mm fan is rated at 54db!), but it works. My cpu temp has dropped from 60 degrees at idle (standard case with no fans, non rounded cables) to 34 degrees idle (with all fans running, extremely neat wiring, rounded ide cables). The fans can be switched off individually, and i only use the front 80mm fan, and rear 80mm fans most of the time. Like that its not much noisier than a regular pc. But i am planning on buying some 20 watt rheostats to control the fan speeds, so i can have them all spinning at around 1000rpm during normal use, and around 2500rpm during long gaming sessions.

Ducting is another option, and if done properly it works a treat. A few metres of 120mm air conditioning duct, with a 120mm fan at each end, with one end leading to a window during winter, or to an air conditioner during summer, ported directly into the case, and aimed at the cpu will probably be a better cooler than 2 or 3 additional case fans, but its messy...Not the sort of thing you'd want to be taking to a lan...

Water cooling looks to be the way of the future. I've been reading quite a bit about water cooling kits recently, and the results are impressive. The prices for refrigerated coolers are dropping, but theyre still way too hardcore for the average user...

[jheriko]

is it just me or is 160 degrees pretty acceptable for a processor, i mean 80 is the lowest i've ever seen mine at. you shouldn't have to worry untill you quite a bit over 200.

[Atmo]

Im not sure about the celsius to farenheit conversion rates, but a maximum temp of 50 celsius degrees under load is generally considered acceptable for air cooled athlon processors.

60 is still ok (just), 65 is where stability may become an issue, 70 is going to be flaky, at 80 its slowly frying, 90 its dead...Or if your mobo has a sensor, it can be set to switch off when it reaches a certain temp....but the system must get past post for that to work...

[InvisableMan]

you worry when a amd goes over 46 :p

[Curi0us_George]

Originally posted by Sawg
2) Rounded IDE cables. Some people say they hinder performance, but I never noticed it. You will pay a little more, but a round cable blocks air a lot less then a big fat wall of a cable.
If you go hacking at your cables with a hobby knife, you'll likely damage them, but rounded cables from the factory should be just as good (and far better, in terms of air flow) than standard IDE cables.

[Atmo]

Originally posted by Curi0us_George

If you go hacking at your cables with a hobby knife, you'll likely damage them

Not neccesarily. I made my own, and its actually pretty easy, just takes a lot of patience. The 40 wire ide cables are easy as, its the 80 wire cables that are a pain in the ass. The 80 wire cables need to have the cables in pairs, to stop crosstalk. If theres a single, or triple its time to start again.

Still, it can take quite a few hours to do it, and to look good they then need to be wrapped in convoluted tubing or something similar...With all the messing around involved, it probably is better to buy them....

[jheriko]

heres a radical idea... refigerated case. i swear you can get them for big disk server boxes and junk, or whack your pc in a fridge :P

[Atmo]

Ummm...there are refrigerated cases available.