[Microsoft Paint]

Let me start by saying I have quite a few questions, but I thought I would wrap them all up in one thread rather than spamming the forum with about 4 different ones.

In short, my cooling sucks. To explain better than that I'll outline my PC spec:

Core 2 Duo E6600
Antec P180(2?) Case
Asus P5N32-E SLi Motherboard (nVidia 680i chipset)
Scythe Infinity Heatsink
BFG GeForce 8800GTS OC

Okay, I built this machine about a 6 months ago, since the beginning it's been running kind of hot, about 40-50 Celsius depending on room temperature. Also the air in the Case is quite hot during operation, and the heatsinks on the MOSFET and chipset are quite hot to the touch. Anyway, I put up with it, it ran okay as long as I kept the heat in the room down and it was fine.

One thing that did concern me was the weight of the heatsink, for those of you that don't know, this heatsink weighs 1kg. And today, after banging my head on my desk my computer suddenly cut out. At first I thought it was heat related, but I tried to reboot the PC only for it to shut off again. Immediently fearing an overheat I took off the side of the case to get some cool air in.

After opening it I saw that the top two pins that held my heatsink on had come out, I lifed up the heatsink again and detached the other pins to remove it. After looking it seemed that it had fallen slightly on my Graphics Card but that seemed undamaged, also their was no visible damage to the motherboard or the CPU.

I assume that my head-banging(I was frustrated at something else) had knocked the heatsink loose and with no heatsink the CPU promptly got very hot and the hardware cut off kicked in, killing the power. This brings my first question, is it likely my CPU is damaged after it's few seconds of freedom?

Anyway, I was thinking that my CPU's cooling was so poor because of the sheer size of the heatsink blocking the way. so I figure that I should replace the thing with something lighter and smaller, that hopefully will provide better cooling. I was thinking of getting one of the Zalman ones on a recommendation of a friend of mine. So, second question, Can anyone reccormend any good CPU coolers that are appropriate for my setup? (Prefrably no LED's)

The case fans in the P180 are Antec's own three-speed fans that plug directly into the cables from the PSU. I'm thinking of replaceing these with fans that connect to the Motherboard. So, another question or two. What good, quiet 120mm fans are available? (Again, no lighting is preffered) Also, are fans that connect to the Motherboard better?

Finaly, I have a question about Hardware Virtualization. I know my CPU supports it, I know my Motherboard supports it and it's enabled in BIOS. But my OS (Kubuntu Linux 7.10) doesn't see it. Anyway, when I was looking over my motherboard today, I noticed that the power connecter from the PSU to the board was only 4-pin, but the connecter on the board had a small plastic cover over the other 4 pins on this 8-Pin connectror. Also, my PSU has a seperate 8-Pin connector. Should I connect this 8-Pin connector? Or am I completely wrong?

How this ties into Virtualization is, if I'm right and I need to connect the 8-Pin power connector, could useing the smaller connector cause the CPU to disable certan features, for example, Virtualization?

I know I've asked a lot of questions, but as I said at the start I thought it better than lots of threads. All I can say now is... help?

[alex]

Originally Posted by Microsoft Paint Let me start by saying I have quite a few questions, but I thought I would wrap them all up in one thread rather than spamming the forum with about 4 different ones. In short, my cooling sucks. To explain better than that I'll outline my PC spec: Core 2 Duo E6600 Antec P180(2?) Case Asus P5N32-E SLi Motherboard (nVidia 680i chipset) Scythe Infinity Heatsink BFG GeForce 8800GTS OC Okay, I built this machine about a 6 months ago, since the beginning it's been running kind of hot, about 40-50 Celsius depending on room temperature. Also the air in the Case is quite hot during operation, and the heatsinks on the MOSFET and chipset are quite hot to the touch. Anyway, I put up with it, it ran okay as long as I kept the heat in the room down and it was fine. One thing that did concern me was the weight of the heatsink, for those of you that don't know, this heatsink weighs 1kg. And today, after banging my head on my desk my computer suddenly cut out. At first I thought it was heat related, but I tried to reboot the PC only for it to shut off again. Immediently fearing an overheat I took off the side of the case to get some cool air in. After opening it I saw that the top two pins that held my heatsink on had come out, I lifed up the heatsink again and detached the other pins to remove it. After looking it seemed that it had fallen slightly on my Graphics Card but that seemed undamaged, also their was no visible damage to the motherboard or the CPU. I assume that my head-banging(I was frustrated at something else) had knocked the heatsink loose and with no heatsink the CPU promptly got very hot and the hardware cut off kicked in, killing the power. This brings my first question, is it likely my CPU is damaged after it's few seconds of freedom? Anyway, I was thinking that my CPU's cooling was so poor because of the sheer size of the heatsink blocking the way. so I figure that I should replace the thing with something lighter and smaller, that hopefully will provide better cooling. I was thinking of getting one of the Zalman ones on a recommendation of a friend of mine. So, second question, Can anyone reccormend any good CPU coolers that are appropriate for my setup? (Prefrably no LED's) The case fans in the P180 are Antec's own three-speed fans that plug directly into the cables from the PSU. I'm thinking of replaceing these with fans that connect to the Motherboard. So, another question or two. What good, quiet 120mm fans are available? (Again, no lighting is preffered) Also, are fans that connect to the Motherboard better? Finaly, I have a question about Hardware Virtualization. I know my CPU supports it, I know my Motherboard supports it and it's enabled in BIOS. But my OS (Kubuntu Linux 7.10) doesn't see it. Anyway, when I was looking over my motherboard today, I noticed that the power connecter from the PSU to the board was only 4-pin, but the connecter on the board had a small plastic cover over the other 4 pins on this 8-Pin connectror. Also, my PSU has a seperate 8-Pin connector. Should I connect this 8-Pin connector? Or am I completely wrong? How this ties into Virtualization is, if I'm right and I need to connect the 8-Pin power connector, could useing the smaller connector cause the CPU to disable certan features, for example, Virtualization? I know I've asked a lot of questions, but as I said at the start I thought it better than lots of threads. All I can say now is... help?

Hi MS, firstly, welcome to the forum.

You wont 'see' the virtualization because you don't have dual os's installed. It creates an environment within the hardware to support a second o.s.

You've said the machine ran at 40-50c from the beginning. This makes me want to check how you've built the machine (among other things, but I'll come to those). Have you tidied the cables allowing for an uninterrupted flow of air from the intake?

I'd expect a 6600 with a Scythe to run around the 30c mark, maybe 35-40c at peak over a prolonged period in a decently air-cooled setup. This with ambients around the 20c mark. Having it running at upto 50c though is not going to cause it any harm as it's still well within design limits.

If your room temp (ambients) is higher than this you will see an increase in temps in the build.

The Scythe whilst being an ok hsf does, as you state, exceed a motherboards design specs for a hsf. People tend to think this is bollocks but as they can now see they're there for a purpose. Having 2 of the 4 mounting pins (did you have then connected properly? Pushed through and then 1/4 turn) come loose is not a good thing.

Your cpu is more than likely ok as it has an automatic shutdown should it exceed it's max working temp.

For a HSF, i'd recommend the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro. Quite simply the best hsf on the market; very light (well within stress limits for a mobo), cheap, and only exceeded in cooling performance by the Tuniq Tower which is twice as much and twice as heavy.

The Zalmans you quote (9700) whilst looking pretty are really not very good hsf's for a cpu, they're also heavy and expensive. And I also doubt if it will fit in your case due to it's width.

If I remember correctly your motherboard has 3 or 4 3-pin headers for fans that allow the fan speeds to be dynamically adjusted depending on load (always the best idea connecting case fans to either a fan-controller or the motherboard).

For these I would recommend the Zalman ZM-F3. Superb fan, quite cheap as well. It comes with a resistor to run it from 12v to 7.5v reducing volumes when running but even at this voltage it shifts a decent amount of air, and in my humble opinion gives the best balance between noise and air-volume. It connects via a 3-pin header.

Lastly, don't be banging your head again; for your own health and, obviously, for your pc's health.

[Microsoft Paint]

Thanks for the welcome.

Okay then, after reading a few reviews it seems that the Arctic heatsink does seem pretty good, very cheap too! I'll put an order in for those parts then.

And can anyone offer any advice with regards to that 4-Pin come 8-Pin power connector on my motherboard?
Oh and I'm not so worried about my health, I have a pretty thick skull.

[alex]

Originally Posted by Microsoft Paint Thanks for the welcome. Okay then, after reading a few reviews it seems that the Arctic heatsink does seem pretty good, very cheap too! I'll put an order in for those parts then. And can anyone offer any advice with regards to that 4-Pin come 8-Pin power connector on my motherboard? Oh and I'm not so worried about my health, I have a pretty thick skull.

Oops, sorry, forgot to mention the 8pin socket.

It's there purely for extra power should you overclock. Asus do this on the majority of their mid-high end boards. The extra 12v rail allows you to put more voltage through (depending on the bios) the vdimm, vcore, pci-e socket, cpu etc etc. More voltage when overclocking helps to make an overclock stable.

[Microsoft Paint]

So while I'm fiddling about inside my case I might as well plug in the 8-Pin connector, I was planning to attempt an overclock but I was reluctant with my CPU's already high temps.

And I'm sure I have enough 3-pin fan headers on my motherboard, when I counted I have about 5 of them, not counting the CPU fan one. And as for my building skills, Well all my devices are SATA II, avoiding those big E-IDE cables. Also I used wire ties to hold them out of the way. By no means do I think myself a master PC builder (This was only my 2nd build) but I think I got most of the stuff out of the airflow path.

About those SATA drives, I have more questions... I have 6 SATA connectors on my motherboard, I'm currently using them all. I should explain that I dual-boot Vista and Linux. I have one DVD-RW, a 150GB Raptor for Vista and Linux's system files, and 4 250GB drives in software RAID-5 for storage.

Because I'm using the ext3 file system on the RAID, and linux software to manage it, I can't mount it on Windows. And I'm running out of space on the Raptor for windows(I play a few games, I'm getting Crysis for X-Mass and that's a whopping 12GB) and so I was wondering how I would go about getting another Sata port to connect a 5th Hard drive, And yes I have space for it in my case.