The Official Cooling Thread!

these s flex fans are quite good, with them on full they sound about the same as my freezer pro at 55%. they have dropped my temps (internal case, both hdd) by 2c but the nc-u6 is real nice to look at, it looks like a baby brother to my freezer pro. mx-1, well im still waiting for it to cure but its cooler than the as5 already (albeit by 1 or 2c) and it will aparently drop by upto another 8c according to the bumff on the package (belive it when i see it) but as it is its about the same.

i suppose a direct comparison isnt really fair as i have switched all my fans and my nb hs as well as my paste but i will let you know if (/when) it drops any more and by how much. i do have to say that it is mad stuff and it seems like rubber but looking at how well it cools almost off the bat i am impressed.

 

I just got some rubbing alcohol. Now that I have replaced this generic thermal pad my system runs about 12C cooler. I didnt expect it to be that much. I just used normal tissue for cleaning it off. I don't really care much about this computer. I have another CPU coming in and I was wondering if the cleaning cloths that come with Rolex watches are lint free. If I use it to clean off thermal paste will washing it clean the cloth?

 

I wouldn't recommend using a tissue period. new or old cpu, good or not so good cpu. way too much residual lint. alcohol prep pads in individul packages (like what nurses use before they give you a shot) work well. if nothing else, use pure or near pure isopropel alcohol with a terri cloth.

 

I'm just an extremely lazy person. That's why I was asking about the Rolex things. I have those around the house.

 

Well, can you pick any furry bits off of it? If so, it ain't lint-free. If it's smooth (things that clean glasses usually are) then you should be safe.

 

I don't really see many furry bits on it. I only have one Rolex but my father has quite a few. I could probably snag a cleaning cloth from one of his Rolex boxes. If after washing it it returns to its normal state, well what he doesnt know wont hurt him. Otherwise he will just get mad at me.

 

Once you've had thermal grease on a cloth I wouldn't want to use it again, the stuff is thick!

 

Damn, oh well I guess i'll just have to go out and buy some cloth.

 

Lol oh teh noez, Cloth's not exactly expensive, your processor is!

 

So true.

 

Does anybody else here use a Thermalright Ultra 120 or the Extreme version heatsink. If so, which fan do you use, and what was it like to install and how well does it cool?

 

the cheapest, best, cooling system for a 939 system?
and im so confused by systems that arent in kits for watercooling. how do you connect different tubes to different blocks, what if they dont fit?

 

Match the tubing sizes up!

 

marsey99,

I missed this post! Let me put it this way. It's what I use to help cool my computer. I run it at 1400 rpm and it's very quiet at that rpm. I also have an FM-83 80mm in the case cover, replacing the CPU duct of my Cooler Master Cavalier, and it runs at the minimum speed of 1300 rpm and even with overclocking my E4300 to 3.2GHz, my memory to 890 and my vidio card to 650/1600 and my chipset temps never exceed 41C and my CPU fan idles at between 800-1000 rpm. It cool and quiet (no pun intended). I would say the specs are reasonably accurate and they both move large quantities of air at very low rpms without a lot of noise!

At 1400 rpm the FM-121 moves about 70-75 cfm. At 1300 rpm the FM-83 moves about25 cfm. Both are exhausing, with a front 80mm stock intake fan that came with the case. It's 76F or about 24C in here right now and I am presently idling at 25-26C with a MB temp of 35C. My overclocked 7600 GT is at 47-48C. Through some fairly intense testing on another Forum just a few days ago, my Everest readings are reasonabl accurate!

The Silverstones are a bit expensive, but they do a great job and as far as I'm concerned, are worth every penny!

clock On,
theone :>}

 

I've compared an 80CFM Antec, 70CFM Thermaltake and 70CFM Scythe to the Silverstones and concluded they push 70CFM at around 1700-1800rpm. At your stated speed of 1400rpm they push around 55CFM. This compares to a 1200rpm Noctua fan I had, although the noise that made was even more annoying than the vibration of the silverstones (Don't worry you won't experience this if you have a steel case).

 

sammorris,

Closer to 75 cfm at 1400 as guaged with a flowmeter (it's graduated in 5s)! It's meant to check airflow for vent stacks in government facilities. Most are Brass and ring like a bell if a certain airflow is exceeded. Can't have noise in a Hospital! LOL!!

Seriously, all Hospitals have these huge Nash, water injected vacuum pumps and have to be vented. They shake the concrete platform they are bolted to almost as bad as a boiler! They stand about 10 feet tall and are loud! The government insists on "Polished Brass" (their Spec) vent pipes! so they limit how much airflow can come out of them. Get to a certain point and the do ring! LOL!!

The flowmeter has a 5 inch rubber coupling that you slip over the end of the stack or between the pump and the vent stack and it has a little ball that moves in a tube response to the airflow. works great on the computer We have the same type of gadget for measuring vacuum as well!

Clock On,
theone :>}

 

Do you still have that Thermaltake fan lying around? If it's a 2000rpm version likemine, that should register around 100 on your scale then, that moved a lot more air than the silverstone does at 1400. I'm only going by the numbers from SPCR, I haven't measured them myself, but I can do a subjective comparison.

 

sammorrir,

Yes I do and it's the same model you bought. It's in the D-940 right now and it's airflow is reasonably equal to the silverstone running at 1400 rpm. It should be as it was rated at 73 cfm! No offense but the heck with SPCR. By their own admission, they don't even have a decent method to check airflow! In fact when I went to their site a while back they mentioned they were trying to come up with a better way to measure the airflow. My flowmeter is certified by the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare and is inspected and re-certified annually as is all my electronic x-ray test equipment! I just never thought to use it to check airflow on a computer! It works pretty much like a tool for syncronizing multiple carbs on cars and motorcycles and can read both airflow and vacuum depending on the direction of the airflow! It works on the same principle as a flow meter like they use in Gas machines for Anesthesia, with 2 glass tubes in a clear plastic housing, with little balls that rise and fall with the amount of airflow or vacuum. It has rubber couplings on it to put it directly into the vacuum or vent line! The couplings are rubber adapters that can be changed to fit various size pipes up to 6 inches and the 6" fits nicely over the outlet on the back of the computer. I just pull the side cover to insure nothing is interfering with the airflow, and hold it against the outlet. Since the coupling is rubber it fits pretty snug and the rubber gives enough to seat good against the case. I could get away with the 4" coupling if I wanted to check the 80mm on the side cover because while there's a raised portion, the 4" would cover it all!

H.E.W. originally wanted an all electronic tester but the cost proved to be too high. Even a mechanical device like this one is expensive, but no where near the projected $2500 cost for an all electronic one! The majority of the expense is in the housing itself as it requires very precise machining. Still there's only 2 moving parts, the balls in the glass tubes, so there's nothing short of a leak that could cause problems. Mine has never failed certification in all the years I've had it. You can't even buy them anymore as they have been out of production since the early 80s. Any amount of money says that someone in our Government made a lot of money off all this HEW crap! LOL!! What else is new!

Clock On,
theone :>)

 

I agree on the substandard method of testing airflow at SPCR, sounds like they need one of those! However, In my personal experience (this goes for the Thermaltake and the Slverstone), the airflow of most fans at equal rpms is similar. The Noctua was slightly above the norm, but the irritating whine it made irrespective of the speed saw it's early retirement. This is probably unusual, but I like to think I have a good ear for frequencies. Just by hearing a sound of a fan and knowing how many blades it has, I can work out what speed is doing. I don't know if you have the same 'talent', but found the dominant frequency of the Thermaltake at full speed (2000rpm) is about 230Hz. Figures, because 2000rpm means 33.3rps, and with 7 blades, 7x33.3=233.3. Musically, that's a B Flat / A Sharp.
To get the silverstones at 1400rpm, the frequency I'm looking for is 210Hz, 1400rpm=23.3rps, 23.3x9=210. Musically, that's an A Flat / G Sharp. This is how I work the speed out. This is correct and absolute, and while fan rpm monitors usually work, sometimes they do give odd readings, so if you're able to check this way, go ahead.
This is the main reason why I dislike fans with lots of blades. They do have higher pressure so they're more suited for heatsinks, behind dust filters and in radiators, but the noise is higher pitched for the same airflow. That can get annoying.

 

sammorris,

Actually they are not! There's so much more to it than that. I have to deal with that problem all the time when doing my turbine design work. There are 2 factors to consider and an additional one that those 2 combined make. You have a "Base" frequency which is determined by the rpm as any motor, fan etc. makes. That's why a mechanical tachometer works on any motor. Then you have the frequency that's determined by how the aggressive the blade is in cutting through the air. Then you have the harmonic frequency that is created by the differences between the first 2. It's the third part that determines whether the actual noise you hear is pleasant or annoying.

You've noticed at all fans start to make more noise by a wider factor at about 1600 rpm and get more annoying as the rpms increase. This is caused by cavitation, as you have reached the point where the blade can no longer cut smoothly through the air and starts chopping the air and smacking it with the blades as it's going through the fan, which is what causes the harmonic to begin with. That's why a helicopter makes that whop whop sound! It's the blade hitting the trailing air of the other blade or blades. That's another reason double ball fans, while mechanically make more noise than sleeve bearings are usually quieter overall, because their rpms stay closer to the rated speed so there's a smaller variance caused by less friction, in the rpms. Oilite bearings (sleeve) depend on the friction created by the shaft to release their lubricant, but in doing so create "stiction". Stiction causes a wider spread in rpms which causes the annoying surge you get with some fans. It's the design engineers job to minimize all these factors to come up with the quietest combination. He can't change the noise created by the base frequency rpm as that's fixed by the rpm frequency of the motor, but he can tune the design of the blade to be more efficient within a certain rpm range. He also knows that the cavitation of the air starts to be a factor at about 1600 rpm and will get worse as the rpms increase, and can't be gotten rid of, so he tries to make the blade cut through the air as cleanly as possible while still maintaining good airflow.

In other words, the 9 blade design will move more air, but will make more noise at a higher frequency than a 7 blade design as you get above 1600 rpm. Since none of the high performance fan manufacturers expect you to run their fans at max rpms because of the noise, they design the highest percentage of the maximum airflow below 1600-1800 rpm. Typically about 70-75% They only run faster than the more normal 2400-2500 rpm fans because of the power needed to turn the more aggressively designed blades. You can't give the motor more torque without increasing it's size, so the trade-off is a higher speed motor! If you were to take a typical 120mm fan rated at 37 cfm and double it's speed you wouldn't get any where near double the airflow, but you sure would get more than twice the noise! LOL!!

Imagine the fun I have refining designs in the 450,000 to 500,000 rpm range where they have to be most efficient at the highest rpms! These have to be within a 65-70 Dba range! ROFL!

Clock On,
theone