Heat Issues

[meadish_sweetball]

Excellent info from everyone - much obliged!

Having read about the heating problems with the Prescotts, I really wish I had known this earlier, as I will now need to modify my case to fit a side duct. The Prescott link recommends getting a more efficient cooler as the standard one only barely covers ones needs.

My new VGA card likely generates a lot more heat than the old one (even though the old ATI one generated constant blue screens of death due to driver incompatibilities), so it looks like the front and rear fans may not be enough. I guess at least I have the power supply I need - the Enermax Liberty has a 120 mm fan on it.

From Tywais' link:

If you want to assemble a PC using the Pentium 4 Prescott, buy the best power supply and best case you can. It is also recommended to change the original cooler for a better one. If you buy a PC already assembled, check if the PC was assembled using Intel's guidelines. This way you will avoid future headaches.

[kayo]

I have nothing useful to add. I just wanted to post a pretty picture like the rest of you.

kayo

[Firefoxx]

It's a P4 2.66, fairly modern, and 775 socket, so it's most certainly a Prescott. Nearly the last of the era, before Intel switched to the mobile platform and the Core series (the Pentium D doesn't really count, since it's just 2 Prescotts), which run MUCH cooler. My last computer was a Prescott (technically, a Smithfield, the Pentium D), and the stock fan would SCREAM whenever the computer was under load (Q-fan adjusts the speed automatically according to temps). I replaced it with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (which was nice in that it installed the same way as the stock cooler) which was much quieter, cost only around 1,200 baht, and was a lot cooler. Wasn't the best, but it fit the bill at the time (cheap, quiet, easy). It was also a "tower" heatpipe cooler like the ultra 120, just much smaller.

[Tywais]

Having read about the heating problems with the Prescotts, I really wish I had known this earlier.

Sorry about that, didn't realize it was a Prescott until just now. So I'm back peddling regarding the cooler and would appear to be a good idea to replace the original after all. I still think the case is a good one since you have 2 120mm fans plus whatever the power supply fan size is for heat exchange. You might check it after the cooler is put on before you decide to modify the side cover. Those tests were based on stock cooler and smaller fans.

[Brew]

I changed to use a water cooler with my Prescott 3.0, as my computer room is not airconditioned. CPU temp is now between 38 and 45 degrees.

Have a look here: http://www.thanni.com/index.php?main_page=...roducts_id=1920

[meadish_sweetball]

Well, I am getting the Thermalright 120 ultra or the Tuniq tower tomorrow - one of the shops in CM Panthip will receive a shipment with them tomorrow afternoon.

I'd like to ask Firefoxx how you attached the fan on the side of your CPU heatsink? I understand the Thermalright ultra 120 does not come with its own fan, but does it have brackets ready for attachment of a fan?

If so, would a standard 120 mm fan do for the time being (I dont believe industrial ball bearing fans will be easy to come by in Chiang Mai as I could only find one single shop that had ever heard of the Thermalright ultra 120 and the Tuniq tower - the others who carried CPU coolers wanted to sell me ASUS coolers and had never even heard of the Thermalright brand).

[Firefoxx]

No, the Ultra 120 doesn't come with a fan, but it comes with little wire brackets that will attach on to a 120mm fan of any width. The catch is that the screw holes in the middle must be "open". In other words there must be no screw post that runs along the width of the fan. You might be better off with the Tuniq Tower, since it's got a fan already, and has similar performance to the Ultra. The reason I didn't buy it was because the heatsink fins looked nasty sharp.

I bought my ball bearing fan from Chinatown. They take used fans out of industrial machines and sell them. Since the fans are so well built (made in Japan, designed for machines that are used 24/7), they will actually long outlast the "made in China" fans that you typically see sold brand new. Also quite cheap.

[meadish_sweetball]

Thank you Ff.

[meadish_sweetball]

The saga continues.

Yesterday I went to Panthip in Chiang Mai to purchase the Sunbeamtech Tuniq Tower 120. The goods had arrived as promised, and would set me back 1990 baht. I asked them to install it for me as the service was free, and I did not feel confident enough to do it myself.

As it turns out, that probably was a bad idea.

Mainly because they used up 80% of the provided thermal compound, which I believe has reduced the performance of the heatsink.

The method used was trial and error. It was completely obvious he had never installed this type of heatsink before, and that I probably would have done as well as he did, and likely better because I would have been a lot more careful.

When he had attached the bracket at the back of the motherboard, the tech was going to apply the new thermal compound without even cleaning up the old residue. I had to tell him.

He then got a tissue and mopped it up, barely, after which he squeezed out about 3 grains of rice worth, and put his index finger on top of it before I had the chance to close my gaping mouth and tell him to stop. I told him I had read about the problem that can be caused by skin residue in the thermal goo. His friend who stood next to us said 'right, you cannot do it like that' and gave him a small plastic bag to put on his finger for the application.

'Better than nothing', I thought.

He was not quite satisfied with the 3 grains he had already squeezed out, so he squeezed out some more in the end. Quite obviously far too much for it to be efficient, and I should have protested but I was still coming to terms with how a store selling these things could be so lacking in knowledge that takes 5 minutes to find and read about - even in Thai there are excellent online guides covering these things.

Anyway, I didn't protest any more.

The next thing they discovered was that they had oriented the tower in the wrong direction, and had to unscrew it and turn it the right way.

Well, they did manage to screw it on in the end, and I just thought 'Whatever, I'll unscrew it at home, clean up the crap and reattach it myself. Either way I had read about the copper plate at the bottom of the heatsink needing some polishing/buffing first for optimal performance.

They told me several capacitors on the mainboard were about to bust. At that stage I had completely lost confidence in their abilities, so I just nodded and thought I'd verify this later myself.

But I think they were right about this. The capacitors have not split, but several of them bulge slightly and/or lean over to one side.

And I have now tested the system over night.

I get the following SpeedFan readings now at 25 C aircon room temp:

Sys fan 1974 RPM ; SYSTEM Temp 41 C

CPU0 FAN 1365 RPM ; CPU Temp 49 C

Aux0 Fan 974 RPM ; AUX -128 C [sic!]

CPU1 Fan 0 RPM ; HD0 28 C

Aux1 Fan 0 RPM ; HD1 32 C

So, temps look better than before, but still not optimal (SpeedFan starts to complain when the CPU temp exceeds 50 C), and the system is quite loud, too.

So, gurus of case construction and cooling, what are your reflections upon reading this? Should I attempt to claim a new motherboard on warranty? Any further testing I can do to check if the motherboard is faulty?

I think the warranty for the motherboard is 3 years and so should still be valid (unless removing the CPU heatsink has made it void). Do you think they would agree to change it, or maybe handing it in to be repaired could be an idea - I understand it is not very difficult for experienced solderers to replace capacitors, and labour costs here are usually marginal.

All input is appreciated.

[Firefoxx]

How is it that the capacitors are leaning to one side? Did the shop somehow bend them? You could probably go and have it replaced, but it night not be worth the effort if there isn't really anything wrong with it. Removing the CPU does not void the warranty, but putting in a heatsink and bending capacitors will (along with any kind of physical abuse). As for the CPU temp, it's fine. Keep in mind that 1. You're using an old cpu that could fry eggs and 2. The case/ambient temp in Thailand is already high. Mine is 48 (mainboard) and 51 (CPU) and I'm quite happy. As long as it doesn't exceed 60-70 under load, it's quite all right.

When I recommended that the shop do it, I was referring to shops like Jedicool, which specialize in this type of thing (since other shops just don't sell these heatsinks, period). Just any plain old shop would not do, as plain old computer shops are bad at pretty much everything. A friend with a faulty VGA card went to a shop to find out what was wrong (the only problem was he couldn't install the VGA drivers). In the end, the shop trashed the whole system (mainboard, VGA, CPU, ram, EVERYTHING) with their UTTER stupidity, and it cost my friend nearly 10k to replace everything. That's how bad these shops can be. BE VERY AFRAID.

[meadish_sweetball]

No, the shop did not bend the capacitors - I watched the entire installation of the heatsink from start to finish.

They did however handle the motherboard as if it was a piece of rough wood instead of a circuit board - working without any static precautions with the motherboard in their lap, grabbing it unrestrictedly with bare hands, touching the circuits. It wasn't pretty. But the capacitors they did not harm - and I don't know why they lean to one side. The motherboard's been around for a while though, and experienced a few power outages etc.

I will take your advice on not using the shops for anything crucial anymore though.

I believe this shop ordered the heatsink from Jedicool by the way.

[Firefoxx]

Perhaps they were bent from the beginning, since they don't bend just from heat or malfunction.

Thailand is really not dry enough to have static electricity problems. You need to be in a very controlled environment, like a climate/humidity controlled building, to even start to see the effects. I've only had static electricity build up on a few rare occasions here (while in the US and Europe it was ZAP ZAP all day long). Any other place in Thailand and the heat and especially the humidity kill any chances of it, so locals tend to pay it no heed.