I started out searching for a low temp after reading some of the posts on here about people have like 32deg processor temps and such. But then I realized that I don’t care, and a little heat is well worth it if you can have a quiet computer. Current setup is: SilverStone LC03B HTPC Case (80mm intake fan, 60mm exhaust fan) Enermax 350 Watt Power Supply with 2 8mm Cooling Fans - Whisper Quiet Thermaltake Silent Boost CPU Fan Aopen AK79D-400Max (nForce 2) Mother Board AMD Athlon 2500+ XP Hynix 512MB PC3200 DDR Samsung 160GB SATA Hard Drive Radeon 9000pro Video Card, with broken fan NEC 2150a DVD-RW TwinHan 1020A DVB Card I made a simple fan controller for the 2 case fans, with a single pole double throw (SPDT) center off switch, wired it up so I can run the fans at 12v, 5v, or 0v CPU fan is set to run at 75% speed in the bios. The result, the computer is quiet. The temps are a little bit higher after switching to this HTPC case, but I can live with it. Idle, 30min Average (MBM5) CPU – 47 Case – 42 Prime95 Torture test, 30min Average (MBM5) CPU – 50 Case – 43 Both tests were done with the case fans set to 5v, this makes them virtually silent. CPU fan is spinning at 2175rpm, power supply fans are running at 1600RPM. Case temp seems high, but even with side off and more fans it was always up around 40, I assume the onboard temp sensor is out of wack. Do you guys use the onboard temp sensors or stick on ones that might have came with a fan controller or something?
My temps are as follows under full load and full fan CPU - 37-39 C Case - 25-28 C Athlon XP 2700+ overclocked to 2.32 gHz My case has two intake fans (60mm), one 80mm exhaust fan, and the normal 250W power supply with single fan. It's LOUD as hell! I'm used to it though so it doesn't bother me.
ps I rely on the onboard temp sensors the most... however my new case has a digital case temp readout.. which is handy
my P4 1.8 is whisper quiet. Standard 350W PS with normal fan, 80MM case fan, Intel processor fan and ati fan on the 9600, also the blue fan on the side of the case However my Athalon 1Ghz is loud as a motherfucker....ps fan, vid card fan, processor fan and the case fan would drive you crazy if it was on the top of the desk!!
I had a 4 fan case setup on my machine for about a year. Then one day I said fuck it and unhooked the two extras. The machine is a lot quieter now and who gives a damn what the temp is unless its getting up to baking territory? Just my opinion. I'd love to have a machine as quiet as my office Dell though. If it weren't for the LED on the front you'd never know it was on. Has a HUGE ass heatsink on the CPU though.
I can't stand a loud system, mine has 1 fan and it runs perfectly cool. It's also not a trashy AMD proc so that could have a lot to do with it..
I didn't read everyone else's posts, but I'm running an Athlon 2500+ with the OEM fan right now @ about 44 degrees at idle and it's pretty quiet. For probably the last 6 months I had my ThermalTake Volcano 11+ in there, and it was keeping the cpu at about 39 degrees... but it was loud as fuck! A lot less noise now, and not a huge change in temperature, well worth it. I just wish I wouldn't have wasted the money on the bigger heatsink/fan. For the first week that I had my computer together I made a little boo-boo and had my heatsink/fan on there incorrectly, and suprisingly it ran perfectly stable for a whole week at about 75 degrees... so a difference of a few degrees between the OEM fan, and a more expensive fan isn't going to hurt it at all.
My last PC I built had 6 case fans (2 front 80mm,1 side 80 mm,2 rear 80mm and a 92mm in the rear) and it wasn't too bad.I also had a video card fan,northbridge fan and a Volcano 9 heatsink and fan. The things that made the most noise were the 92 mm and the Volcano.If the volcano was set below 3500 rpm you could barely here it though. The PC I have now is a POS (wifey's PC) Duron 850 with a stock Celeron 466 heatsink with an 80 mm fan on it and 1 80mm fan in the case.The case fan doesn't help any though because the sides are off the case.For some reason when you put one of the sides on the computer stop booting . Oh well,it has been up and running for months now with no issues,the CPU temp is sitting pretty at 43 (heatsink likely needs to be cleaned though (hasn't been done since I put the computer together).It was running in the low 30's when I first put the 80 mm on the heatsink.
I would much rather the noise as you get used to it, I forget what the temps are on my pc as I haven't checked it in awhile. Also I never trusted the onboard temp sensor "my trashy AMD processor is faster then your pentium which cost you twice as much" worst part is that is so true lol
the noise from mine doesn't bother me really! only when I'm hung over really bad!! Asus K8v-SE delux 64bit AMD athlon 64bit CPU 3000+ With Coolermaster Hyper6 & fan Dual 512 Infeons with Iceberq DDRheat spreaders ATI Radeon 9800pro with Iceberq4 Vantec spectrum fan card Winfast TV2000XP Modded PSU with light fan & clear housing 5 case fans to boot! At idle CPU runs 32 degrees & MoBo 28 degrees