Making a CPU duct to draw outside air onto CPU!

[Alien]

Originally Posted by zintelbarb

But both the 5600 and the 6000 are at a disadvantage to pretty much all the c2d's

Yes, yes, we know, but we prefer to support the little guy.

They have cunning plans lol

[Web-Junkie]

Zing, if you want us to go C2D then donate us the board/cpu and we'll happily do it mate

Get rid of the goo & get yourself some Arctic Silver

Lol, another trip to my mate to cadge his artic silver off of him Would you suggest lapping the CPU block to get it smoother, or just use some brasso/duraglit to get it smooth?

I may have to revisit the case/fan situation again then. The problem is due to no chipset fan or a fan on the GPU so heat is radiated into the case more! The 80mm intake is held in a plastic cage that clips onto the inside of the case at the front, so it's not actually on the outside of the chassis but inside it. It should be between the front removable panel and the front of the chassis where there is more space to draw in cooler air. May have to start cutting some holes in the front chassis and use the 120mm fan thats hung under the HDD bay rather than the 80mm fan. Could also drill some air holes in the front plastic cover to help draw in more air. Something to play about with tomorrow then

I freely give my advice I aint freely giving my hardware

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Zing, if you want us to go C2D then donate us the board/cpu and we'll happily do it mate

Nah, I'm a more staunch AMD fan than that, if he wants me to switch teams he'll have to cough up a pair of Clovertowns.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Lol, another trip to my mate to cadge his artic silver off of him Would you suggest lapping the CPU block to get it smoother, or just use some brasso/duraglit to get it smooth?

If you mean just to get the goo off, acetone will do it, that's what I used. You can probably get some from your local chemist for less than £2. Then give it a wipe over with some Isopropyl Alcohol. You can do the same on your CPU, but take it out of the socket first - Acetone & plastic don't play nicely together, & it's the plastic that usually goes home crying to mummy. [just put a little bit on a bit of soft kitchen roll] Although not the best finish I've ever seen on the bottom of a heatsink, the finish on my stock heatsink was good enough. You can lap it if you really feel the need & are confident that you know what you're doing, but I wouldn't bother

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

I may have to revisit the case/fan situation again then. The problem is due to no chipset fan or a fan on the GPU so heat is radiated into the case more!

I know it's an Asus, but what board is it you've got? I can't remember if you've said or not. [I just want to look it up on Asus' site, so I can see the layout of it] I haven't got a fan on my chipset heatsink at the moment, infact due to the fact that the AM2NF3-VSTA is rather... compact, the corner of the chipset heatsink is practically touching the cooler on my X800. I could probably fiddle with the chipset heatsink a bit to give a little more room, but it'd just be more hassle & I can't see the point at the moment [I bolted it to the board rather than trusting those silly push-pin things].

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

The 80mm intake is held in a plastic cage that clips onto the inside of the case at the front, so it's not actually on the outside of the chassis but inside it.

That's not a problem, you just remove the plastic cage & drill 4 holes in the case for the screws to go through. As for the inside vs. outside thing, I assumed it was inside, as they usually are.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

It should be between the front removable panel and the front of the chassis where there is more space to draw in cooler air. May have to start cutting some holes in the front chassis and use the 120mm fan thats hung under the HDD bay rather than the 80mm fan. Could also drill some air holes in the front plastic cover to help draw in more air. Something to play about with tomorrow then

Nope, you want [ideally] some free space on both sides of the fan. I don't mean in the sense that it's just hanging in free air, like your 120mm is at the moment, I mean nothing actually in the direct path of the air for at least 1/2 an inch either side. As long as there's... 15-25mm between the fan & whatever is the nearest inside object [hardrive cage?] that is plenty.

As for putting holes in the front plastic panel - what I suggest is 1 big hole, & use 1 of those round black plastic ducts that you've seen on a couple of sites linked earlier in this thread. That will cover up any rough edges you left on the hole you cut & make it look more professional, & you can cut the back end of it to length so it goes to within about 1mm of the metal panel of the case where the fan is mounted. Why 1mm gap? because you're unlikely to get an absolutely perfect seal between the back end of the duct & the metal chassis of your case, & an important part of both good airflow & reduction of dust in your case is making sure the air only goes to & from where you want it to. To that end, you invest in a cheapo foam mousemat [cheapo £1 jobbie will do just fine], & cut out an O-ring to go between the chassis of your case & the duct. It dampens vibration & stops air/dust going in/out of the gap between the duct & chassis. You can even go 1 step further & cut out a square piece just a bit bigger than your fan, with the hole in the middle just that little bit smaller than the diameter of the end of the duct. If you make holes in the corners for the fan screws [I've actually used nuts & bolts in the past], then hey-presto instant fan vibration dampener, & air/dust gasket all in 1. Of course, if you're going that route, you'll want another 1 on the inside of the chassis between the metal & the fan, & then a small piece on each corner. It's a lot easier to put the washers [to stop the foam slipping over the nut] & nuts on on the side of the fan that isn't touching the case with bolts that are long enough to go all the way through the fan & chassis than to use shorter bolts & try to do up the nuts against the side of the fan nearest the chassis. Trust me, I learnt that 1 the hard way.

If I haven't done a good enough job of explaining it &/or you're having trouble picturing what I mean, let me know & I'll try to knock out a pic in trueSpace.

[keithwalton]

Cinebench is abit more of a universally supported benchmark, and its somthing my old core 2 duo, thrashed amd's finest barcelona at not surprising though that 2x 3.6GHz beat 4x 1.6GHz

I have forgotten the point of this thread, was the cooler just abit loud or was the system unstable ?

[Alien]

Originally Posted by keithwalton

Cinebench is abit more of a universally supported benchmark

Perhaps, but I didn't do that testing for this thread, I did it for the thread I linked to on the Caligari forum [I just haven't gotten round to posting it there yet], & also to satisfy my own curiosity. As I don't use Cinema4D, testing with Cinebench would be pointless.

Originally Posted by keithwalton

and its somthing my old core 2 duo, thrashed amd's finest barcelona at not surprising though that 2x 3.6GHz beat 4x 1.6GHz

I'm fairly sure they're in the 2-3Ghz range now. In fact I know they've had Barcelona up to 3Ghz, but I don't know if that's the 2 or 4 core version. Also, the reason I posted that info was in response to his comment about memory performance on the 5600 vs. the 6000, for which the data was adequate to illustrate my point. How a C2D would or wouldn't perform is completely irrelevent for comparing 2 AMD chips from the same family to each other.

Originally Posted by keithwalton

I have forgotten the point of this thread, was the cooler just abit loud

No, it was asus loud - badum-tush!

Originally Posted by keithwalton

or was the system unstable ?

Seriously though, I don't think he's had a problem with stability [except when using CPU-Z ], I believe it was temperatures & noise that he wanted to reduce.

[Web-Junkie]

@Alien: Mobo is an ASUS Crosshair Went for that as the 590 chipset supports SLI at 16x for both cards, the 570 chipset only does 8x for both cards if using SLI! I'll just clean off the gunk from cooler/cpu and remount the HSF! Gonna try mounting the 120mm fan in the front of the case, drill some mounting holes for it and some extra air holes in the chassis front too!

You're explanations are fine BTW, unless you just WANT to do those pics in TrueSpace

@keith: Was just an excersise in ducting to see if CPU temp would drop as the fan was noisy, I think it worked as the CPU fan doesn't spin so loudly now, it uses PWM to adjust speed on the CPU fan, with a duct it seems to allow more cooler air to get sucked in and blown onto the heatsink! Then after that it turned into an airflow discussion and fans, fan orientation and fan mounting! I'm turning int a real 'fanboy' now, lol!!!

[keithwalton]

Alien : I did see that pic this morning on l'inq, and well its very questionable since its a digital camera pic of an unkown amd cpu thats running at 3GHz, im pretty sure it would be quad core to get a score of 5.9+ (core 2 duo needs 3.6GHz+ to reach that) however we have no way of linking the machine in the pic to that score.
They could of used extreme cooling to get it to hit 3GHz, or they could of used a lower speed quad to get windows to record the score, and then put in a dual core chip to get that screen grab.

A crucial thing missing from that pic is the little bit saying "This system is : rated (or unrated) then giving the score.
If you change hardware it will change this to unrated, but will show the previous score until you rerun it.

I'd be very pleased if amd has got there quad core to 3GHz on air cooling as this would give intel the hurry up (they're currently backing off development) However there 'blizzard' of name drops suggested that they would launch at 2GHz for the bulk of machines (some 77%) with 6% being 2.3GHz and above, and 17% being 'energy efficent'
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3050

I do wonder if amd have been building some barca's @90nm as they really seem to be having trouble with 65nm to the point of they are already talking about 45nm being next year and yet they have yet to ship mass volumes of 65nm chips, only really the energy efficent chips so far and some of the low- mid end desktop chips

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

@Alien: Mobo is an ASUS Crosshair

Lucky git! No wonder you can't afford a more expensive heatsink! That's what I hope to get eventually. [Okay, so if I had the money I'd actually have an L1N64... [img]Download Failed (1)[/img]]

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

I'll just clean off the gunk from cooler/cpu and remount the HSF!

Good idea, remember, the AS needs to be as thin & smooth/evenly spread out as you can get it.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Gonna try mounting the 120mm fan in the front of the case, drill some mounting holes for it and some extra air holes in the chassis front too!

Cool, that should hopeully improve your airflow significantly.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

You're explanations are fine BTW, unless you just WANT to do those pics in TrueSpace

Well, I do need the practice. Maybe after I've had a play with the new version...

Originally Posted by keithwalton

Alien : I did see that pic this morning on l'inq, and well its very questionable since its a digital camera pic of an unkown amd cpu thats running at 3GHz, im pretty sure it would be quad core to get a score of 5.9+ (core 2 duo needs 3.6GHz+ to reach that) however we have no way of linking the machine in the pic to that score.
They could of used extreme cooling to get it to hit 3GHz, or they could of used a lower speed quad to get windows to record the score, and then put in a dual core chip to get that screen grab.

Cynical, much? It's just a shame they only mentioned the codenames Barcelona [the core] & Phenom which is a partial model name, there'll be Phenom X2 [Kuma] & Phenom X4 [Agena]. Of course, there'll also be the Agena FX, but that's socket F [quad FX platform].

Originally Posted by keithwalton

I'd be very pleased if amd has got there quad core to 3GHz on air cooling as this would give intel the hurry up (they're currently backing off development) However there 'blizzard' of name drops suggested that they would launch at 2GHz for the bulk of machines (some 77%) with 6% being 2.3GHz and above, and 17% being 'energy efficent'
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3050

Did you notice this bit from page 10:

In a demonstration designed to prove that Phenom isn't broken, AMD featured a quad-core Phenom X4 processor, with standard cooling, running at 3.0GHz. While Phenom won't be anywhere near that clock speed when it launches at the end of this year, AMD expects to be at 3GHz within the first half of 2008.

So apparantly it was a quad core.

Originally Posted by keithwalton

I do wonder if amd have been building some barca's @90nm as they really seem to be having trouble with 65nm to the point of they are already talking about 45nm being next year and yet they have yet to ship mass volumes of 65nm chips, only really the energy efficent chips so far and some of the low- mid end desktop chips

I somehow doubt it, the 2.4 Ghz Agena's supposed to use 89W, & my X2 [Windsor, 90nm] is rated as 125w, so I'd think they'd have to be using a smaller process.

[Web-Junkie]

Well today was, to put it mildly, a f***ing nightmare!!!

Started off with removing the heatsink, except it wouldn't come off for some reason. Both clips were unhooked but the effing thing world not come away from the CPU. Pulled and pulled and eventually 'pop' the heatsink came off, phew!! except there was no CPU in the socket when I looked down!! After a mild heart attack I sneaked a look at the heatsink and to my relief/surprise the CPU was firmly stuck to the bottom of it by the pre-applied goo Prised the CPU off and checked the pins, by sheer luck they were all straight and none missing, first time I've pulled a CPU out of its socket when it's clamped in

Nipped round to my mates with the CPU and heatsink as he's got some funky cleaning fluid called PROPANONE (Fancy name for acetone I think), a few dabs on a kitchen towel and a rub on the heatsink drew the goo off in no time, kitchen towel was as a black as night first rub, then after a few more rubs with a new piece of kitchen towel it was clean so no more goo left to clean off. Same for the CPU! Came home and assaulted the case!

Drilled out the case front by chain dilling lots of small holes so I had about a 11cm square hole, filed the back/front edges to get rid of burrs then drilled mounting holes for the fan and found the plastic speaker/fan cage was 5mm too wide on one side as the 120mm fan could not sit square to the case, so a hacksaw job on the plastic cage later, the fan and plastic cage were in place!

Then I knocked the phone base station off the wall and broke 2 small brackets that held the base station onto the mounting bracket, now the bloody phone tilts forward and I can't put the phone on it to charge it at night

Also got cramp in my feet from kneeling in a cramped bedroom and also in my right forefinger by gripping the hand drill so hard while trying to drill the case because the drill I used was about as sharp as butter! First time I've hand cramp in my finger too, seemed funny bending your finger straight only to see it slowly curl up and cramp again Eventually it stayed straight enough for me to continue putting all my bits back in the case.

Managed to put the PC back together and boot it, CPU was still alive! The 120mm fan is now blowing straight into the bottom of the case with nothing in its way. Mounted 2 x 80mm exhaust fans at the rear, 2 x 80mm Silent fans on the side blowing in, used some tissue paper as a dust filter So thats 3 fans bringing air in and 2 drawing it out, as opposed to 3 drawing air out and only 1 blowing in. The 120mm fan under the HDD doesn't count as it was just blowing in the air the 80mm intake was drawing in.

So we'll see if this has done anything significant to the temps in the case. Too knackered to do any testing now, it's late and I'm b*ll*cksed!!!

Next time someone suggest a 'simple case hack' don't be surprised if I tell you to F*** *FF

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Well today was, to put it mildly, a f***ing nightmare!!!

Started off with removing the heatsink, except it wouldn't come off for some reason. Both clips were unhooked but the effing thing world not come away from the CPU. Pulled and pulled and eventually 'pop' the heatsink came off, phew!! except there was no CPU in the socket when I looked down!! After a mild heart attack I sneaked a look at the heatsink and to my relief/surprise the CPU was firmly stuck to the bottom of it by the pre-applied goo

That's 1 of the reasons why the 1st thing I do with a heatsink that comes with pre-applied goo is it to clean it off. Having said that, I have read somewhere that the pre-applied goo on the Freezer 64 Pro is supposed to be better than Arctic Silver. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've not had any probs with AS, & I'm still rather dubious about using pre-aplied goo.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Prised the CPU off and checked the pins, by sheer luck they were all straight and none missing, first time I've pulled a CPU out of its socket when it's clamped in

I can beat that story, & I have a pic. I built a PC for someone, & sent it by Special Delivery. When they received it, things weren't exactly as they should be...

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Nipped round to my mates with the CPU and heatsink as he's got some funky cleaning fluid called PROPANONE (Fancy name for acetone I think),

Yup, that's the stuff.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

a few dabs on a kitchen towel and a rub on the heatsink drew the goo off in no time, kitchen towel was as a black as night first rub, then after a few more rubs with a new piece of kitchen towel it was clean so no more goo left to clean off. Same for the CPU!

Cool.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Came home and assaulted the case!

Be careful it doesn't take out a restraining order.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Drilled out the case front by chain dilling lots of small holes so I had about a 11cm square hole, filed the back/front edges to get rid of burrs then drilled mounting holes for the fan and found the plastic speaker/fan cage was 5mm too wide on one side as the 120mm fan could not sit square to the case, so a hacksaw job on the plastic cage later, the fan and plastic cage were in place!

Well that stage sounded like it didn't go too badly.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Then I knocked the phone base station off the wall and broke 2 small brackets that held the base station onto the mounting bracket, now the bloody phone tilts forward and I can't put the phone on it to charge it at night

Ask your mate if he's got any Chemical Metal [works on more than just metal]. Put some of that in the holes, then you can re-drill & put new wall plugs in. I've also heard that No More Nails stuff is meant to be good, but I've not tried it. Or if it doesn't need to be in exactly the same place, you could drill new holes near to the old ones & hope that the base station will hide the old holes.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Also got cramp in my feet from kneeling in a cramped bedroom and also in my right forefinger by gripping the hand drill so hard while trying to drill the case because the drill I used was about as sharp as butter! First time I've hand cramp in my finger too, seemed funny bending your finger straight only to see it slowly curl up and cramp again

Yeah, sounds unpleasant. To save you the bother of finding out the hard way, might I also suggest you don't ever try drilling into concrete with a hand drill & a masonry bit. [BTDT ]

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Eventually it stayed straight enough for me to continue putting all my bits back in the case.

No permanent damage then?

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Managed to put the PC back together and boot it, CPU was still alive! The 120mm fan is now blowing straight into the bottom of the case with nothing in its way. Mounted 2 x 80mm exhaust fans at the rear, 2 x 80mm Silent fans on the side blowing in, used some tissue paper as a dust filter So thats 3 fans bringing air in and 2 drawing it out, as opposed to 3 drawing air out and only 1 blowing in.

If you happen to have a female friend or relative who wears tights or stockings, & has an old pair they might like to donate, I've heard that stuff does ok as a dust filter, & would probably strike a better balance between keeping dust out & letting air through than the tissue paper. Another alternative would be net curtain material.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

The 120mm fan under the HDD doesn't count as it was just blowing in the air the 80mm intake was drawing in.

Isn't that 120mm fan the 1 you've now got mounted in the front?

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

So we'll see if this has done anything significant to the temps in the case. Too knackered to do any testing now, it's late and I'm b*ll*cksed!!!

Next time someone suggest a 'simple case hack' don't be surprised if I tell you to F*** *FF

Simple in concept, perhaps, more laborious in application though, as you've discovered.

Originally Posted by Web-Junkie

Well today was, to put it mildly, a f***ing nightmare!!!

Started off with removing the heatsink, except it wouldn't come off for some reason. Both clips were unhooked but the effing thing world not come away from the CPU. Pulled and pulled and eventually 'pop' the heatsink came off, phew!! except there was no CPU in the socket when I looked down!! After a mild heart attack I sneaked a look at the heatsink and to my relief/surprise the CPU was firmly stuck to the bottom of it by the pre-applied goo Prised the CPU off and checked the pins, by sheer luck they were all straight and none missing, first time I've pulled a CPU out of its socket when it's clamped in

Nipped round to my mates with the CPU and heatsink as he's got some funky cleaning fluid called PROPANONE (Fancy name for acetone I think), a few dabs on a kitchen towel and a rub on the heatsink drew the goo off in no time, kitchen towel was as a black as night first rub, then after a few more rubs with a new piece of kitchen towel it was clean so no more goo left to clean off. Same for the CPU! Came home and assaulted the case!

Drilled out the case front by chain dilling lots of small holes so I had about a 11cm square hole, filed the back/front edges to get rid of burrs then drilled mounting holes for the fan and found the plastic speaker/fan cage was 5mm too wide on one side as the 120mm fan could not sit square to the case, so a hacksaw job on the plastic cage later, the fan and plastic cage were in place!

Then I knocked the phone base station off the wall and broke 2 small brackets that held the base station onto the mounting bracket, now the bloody phone tilts forward and I can't put the phone on it to charge it at night

Also got cramp in my feet from kneeling in a cramped bedroom and also in my right forefinger by gripping the hand drill so hard while trying to drill the case because the drill I used was about as sharp as butter! First time I've hand cramp in my finger too, seemed funny bending your finger straight only to see it slowly curl up and cramp again Eventually it stayed straight enough for me to continue putting all my bits back in the case.

Managed to put the PC back together and boot it, CPU was still alive! The 120mm fan is now blowing straight into the bottom of the case with nothing in its way. Mounted 2 x 80mm exhaust fans at the rear, 2 x 80mm Silent fans on the side blowing in, used some tissue paper as a dust filter So thats 3 fans bringing air in and 2 drawing it out, as opposed to 3 drawing air out and only 1 blowing in. The 120mm fan under the HDD doesn't count as it was just blowing in the air the 80mm intake was drawing in.

So we'll see if this has done anything significant to the temps in the case. Too knackered to do any testing now, it's late and I'm b*ll*cksed!!!

Next time someone suggest a 'simple case hack' don't be surprised if I tell you to F*** *FF

Why did you feel the need for the 2 extra fans on the side blowing in? imho these will impede correct air flow. The air should be pulled in front bottom then allowed to be pulled out over the motherboard and out of the back nearer the top .I think you have to much air coming in now and not enough exhaust

[Web-Junkie]

@Alien: Glad you didn't take offence at the last bit of my post

I gather that pic is the CPU AND SOCKET glued to the heatsink Hope I don't get a parcel of you anytime soon Was it Parcel Force that delivered it? Puts the FORCE part into perspective then if it was!!

The 120mm fan indeed is the one that was hung under the HDD, it's now bolted to the chassis where I made the big hole I also drilled holes in the case front, it already had an ideal pattern of indents in it which made drillng so much easier, I now have an 11 x 11 grid of holes in a 12cm square. Stuck some tissue paper inside to stop dust again.

The phone, I just taped the base station to the bracket using PTFE (Put The F***er Everywhere) tape, it'll do for now

Hmm.. A pair of tights! I can use a spare pair I have, err... they're for when I go fishing gov, honest!

The fan noise is not as bad as before too, so somethings happened! Either too much turbulence before or the side ones aren't spinning, can't see for the tissue paper

@Zing: They are only low RPM Silent ones in the side, didn't think they'd do much to upset the flow seeing as the rear fans are spinning much faster, that's if they are spinning as I mentioned above I can easily unplug them if they're not needed, or can flip them round to blow out, or have 1 blow in 1 blow out etc!! Maybe use one of those smoke bombs my local plunber uses for testing the air draw of chimneys, stick in the front of the case and if I don't get much smoke coming out the rear of the case somethings up

yes do that and if the air is disturbed by the side fans or is not being drawn out correctly alter your cooling

imo pic is ideal airflow