CPU Cooling (thanks for the help guys :) )

[Erez]

someone talk me out of the ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro :)
i cant wait any longer for my lawsuit with TT to be resolved (max in about month and a half..)

reasons i like the Freezer 64 Pro are its damn cheap (less then half the price of the Zalman CNPS9500 LED) and for what i've been reading, it does a pretty fine job!

what do you recommend?

[DeMoN]

CPUs are expensive man, dont get a cheap one and risk it. Since I bought the darn comp from alienware, I've been changing several things, but the thermal compound glued cooler with CPU and I dont want to risk messing up my CPU. At least its a good CPU cooler from COOLERMASTER but I still want watercooling.... I know there are tutorials online as to how to safely remove thermal compound from the cpu, just havnt had the time to look for it.

[dutchmasterflex]

to remove thermal compound just use some alcohol.. it wont hurt the chip.. just be careful not to crush the core... especially when you put the heatsink back on..

and if you smell silicon burning(it just smells plain weird and definitely not normal) when you turn on your pc, you've crushed the core ;)

[Erez]

CPUs are expensive man, dont get a cheap one and risk it...

I didn't want to get because it was cheap.. I was thinking about it because its cheap, and from the reviews i saw.. pretty good.. :bah:

Don't bother with that cooler, AC is crap ;)

But if it's an X2 you're getting, the latest ones are provided with a very good cooler ;) Try that one first.

no no X2.. was thinking of staying cheap for now till the new AM2 thing is out.. :P and prices here drop (here everything new.. no matter whats going on in the REAL world.. cost more.. always..)
i'm not looking for any OCing till i'll fix my whole issue with TT.. and even then we'll see.. :?

maybe you can help me then.. if AC is crap (reviews around didn't say that, that why i'm asking here as well :wink: ..ask people you trust :wink: )
whats a good quiet, cool.. cooler then?
ZALMAN CNPS 7700 Cu? (~47 EURO.. here..)
Scythe SCNJ-1000P (~48 EURO..)
Asetek Vapochill micro Xtreme (~44 EURO)
?

[crazidude]

The Freezer pro is perfectly fine. It's one of the better coolers and its dirt cheap. The only thing you'll probably need to do is lap the bottom so its a bit smoother as the normal base is pretty shitty from what I remember.

The Vapochill is crap from what I remember and the zalman is like ancient. I don't know what the scythe is, but if its the ninja model then that's possibly the best quiet solution avaible. Of course if it isn't, the rest of the scythe line is quite decent and there's no reason to ignore it.

Another solution is to see if you can find an xp-90/92 and put your own fan on it.

And just a question. Why AM2? I'm willing to bet that it'll get man handled by conroe unless AMD pulls a fast one and some how manages to make their mem controller atleast 80% effiecent.

[Erez]

like i said.. eye on the future.. i'll wait and see.. maybe conroe.. still no way of knowing..
the scythe is the ninja.. heard good things about it.. @Freezer pro.. if it needs work done.. i rather get one that all ready :lol: :wink:
the Zalman CNPS9500 cost here 61 EURO.. a bit much i think?
all i could find about xp-90/92 is the Thermalright XP-120 (~46 EURO)? or am I way off? :lol: but the reviews i saw about it wasn't all that great.. dont remember too much..

EDIT- Scythe SCNJ-1000P purchased 51.7 Euro delivered..
thanks for all the help guys! :D

I know there are tutorials online as to how to safely remove thermal compound from the cpu, just havnt had the time to look for it.

there's really nothing to it.. never had any prob.. pretty straight up job..
i took the CPU out, held it carefully, and wiped it.. just dont chip it! :P :lol: j\k.. its not as delicate as you make it sound.. just be a little careful :)

[DeMoN]

The problem is that the thermalcompound sticks really good. I couldnt access the lever to release the CPU because of the Fan size and I tried pulling the fan out, and both fan and CPU popped up. I didnt want to pay 800 or whatever it is for the x2 4400 so I put it back in a rush and it worked lol. But I saw somewhere, pictures of something used to clean the CPU from the thermal compound after removing the cooler.

[crazidude]

heh you and your fance way of taking the hsf off. I just slide mine off. Good ole' not using that stupid bracket that AMD mobos come with.

[DeMoN]

Once I get enough money, Ill OC my X2 4400 and if it boils Ill get the FX60 or whatever.

If it doesnt break, Ill unglue it and OC. Need to read more about OClocking though.

thamar, you seem to be wise in that aspect. Any tips or links for reading?

[exhausted mules]

the scythe you mentioned is one of the best on the market today (if it is indeed the ninja)

i have a p4 cooled with a scythe mine (new coolers, better with high cfm fans)

you can't go wrong with scythe, though i would stay away from the Arctic cooling, cooler master and such.

the zalman is real good too and keep in mind that whatever heat sink yo ubuy you can allways change the fan to suit your liking.


if you like quiet the ninja is designed for fanless operation. but you could allways add a fan if you wish afterwards.

[crazidude]

if you like quiet the ninja is designed for fanless operation.

Heh dispite what it might claim, it doesn't actually work very well with no fan, unless of course you got great airflow near the cpu area. And there's really no reason to run it without a fan. A nexus is dead quiet and will help considerably with cooling.


Once I get enough money, Ill OC my X2 4400 and if it boils Ill get the FX60 or whatever.

If it doesnt break, Ill unglue it and OC. Need to read more about OClocking though.

If your 4400+ dies, get an opteron. Odds are that the FX60 costs atleast what your computer is actually worth, and it doesn't overclock much better than the opteron.

All you can pretty much do is increase the fsb or w/e they call it on the a64, htt or some shit I think. You can lower your multiplier if it gets a lot hot. You'll also need to increase the voltage, and depending on what type of cooling you have I won't recommend you go above 1.6v. Also, if you have crappy ram you'll need to change the mem divider ratio to something lower like 5:6.

[Erez]

BTW- one thing no once said about the Scythe Ninja.. the installation guide is one of the worse out there.. :lol: i ended up doing what i think it should be.. and the fan mounthing! OMG! that sure sucked as well :lol: but other then that.. works great 8)
thanks again for all the help guys :good:

[crazidude]

BTW- one thing no once said about the Scythe Ninja.. the installation guide is one of the worse out there.. :lol: i ended up doing what i think it should be.. and the fan mounthing! OMG! that sure sucked as well :lol: but other then that.. works great 8)
thanks again for all the help guys :good:

How did it suck? Typos or missing steps? I remember I had that arctic silencer thing on my 9800p and the installition guide was riddled with spelling mistakes that it was a harder to decipher the damn instructions than installing the freaking thing. Also, how hard is it to install? I've read reviews that mentioned the sycthe was difficult to install for some reason.

[Erez]

the steps just didn't make any sense.. at all.. maybe i'll see if i could scan them and upload later..
to mount it was scary as hell! (i've just put a hole, i dont know how.. in my old 3.0.. so maybe its just me :lol: ) and the fan was just impossible! once i understood how it should go even, it was just physically hard, seems impossible.. that was a very hard and fiddely installation.. but i'm more then happy with the results.. so i'm happy.. :)
whoever is in charge of the installetion guide should be fired asap.. even i could do a much better job.. honest.. :lol:

edit- one more thing.. (PSU arrived) the ninja is HUGE and now i see the down side :lol: working around it (no way i'm taking it out and putting it back in.. :lol: ) is HARD!

[DeMoN]

If your 4400+ dies, get an opteron. Odds are that the FX60 costs atleast what your computer is actually worth, and it doesn't overclock much better than the opteron.

All you can pretty much do is increase the fsb or w/e they call it on the a64, htt or some shit I think. You can lower your multiplier if it gets a lot hot. You'll also need to increase the voltage, and depending on what type of cooling you have I won't recommend you go above 1.6v. Also, if you have crappy ram you'll need to change the mem divider ratio to something lower like 5:6.

I dont know shiet bout overclocking, but this is what I currently have on my computer:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Lite SP2
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling 510 Express 650 Watt peak power
Chassis: Alienware Full-Tower Case
Chassis Upgrades: AlienIce 2.0 Video Cooling System
Motherboard: A8N-SLI Deluxe Nforce4
Graphics Processor: Dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-E 256MB (512MB total) DDR3 with SLI
Memory: CORSAIR XMS 2GB(2x1GB) 184-Pin DDR 400 (PC 3200) TWINX2048-3200C2PRO
System Drive: Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150
System Drive2: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA
System Drive3: 120GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
Primary CD/DVD ROM: 16x DVD-ROM Drive with Software DVD Decoder
Secondary CD/DVD ROM: BenQ DVD Burner Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model DW1640
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Speakers: Logitech Z-5500 505 Watts 5.1
Floppy Drive: 3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet
Monitor: Dell 2405FPW 24" (1920x1200)
Keyboard: Logitech S510 2-Tone USB RF Wireless Slim Desktop with Media Remote Mouse Included
Mouse: Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse
Cable Management: Alienware Cable Management System

Ram is good and all, I just want to overclock my 4400. I'd like to know how. Also, I want to OClock both my 6800ultras or maybe I'll sell em and get a pair of the 7 series ones.

[crazidude]

Just hit delete when your comp boots up to enter the bios. From there just look for manual over clock settings and change the htt to something above 200. After a certain point you'll need to lax the timmings for your ram and up the voltage for your processor. Someone with an asus mobo will be able to give you more detail as to how to do it exactly.

o/cing your vid card is easy. Just download coolbits reg hack and you can change the clock speeds in the nvidia profile manager. Or download riva tuner and use that.

[DeMoN]

^ I got rivatuner and did the autooc. I read that after doing the auto OC, you are to increase and test, I just used the AUTO and games hang! WTF?

[crazidude]

They hang? That's odd. Was there any distortions before that happened? Like things flashing around the screen when that shouldn't happen?

I would just overclock it myself. I believe there's a bar thing that you drag left or right in rivatuner. Just increase the clock speed for the core 5mhz at a time and test for artifacts by running a game or something.

[DeMoN]

Yeah things started to look weird. Like branches of trees became light green, flashings and all that. Auto setup increased very little anyway... so increasing more would hang for sure, and less would be a waste of time...

[crazidude]

Your cards are overheating. You'll need better cooling or apply some as5 onto the gpu.

[DeMoN]

^ then I need help on that as I have not fiddled with Oclocking other than using ASUS own OClocking software. As for increasing voltage and stuff, that I have no idea. Perhaps you could help me OC my CPU?

[crazidude]

^ then I need help on that as I have not fiddled with Oclocking other than using ASUS own OClocking software. As for increasing voltage and stuff, that I have no idea. Perhaps you could help me OC my CPU?
Generally speaking, using software to oc your cpu is a death wish, especially that ntune garbage.

Why not take a pic of the bios screen so we have some idea of where the settings are.

[DeMoN]

I'll do that, though "Print Screen" button isnt working LOL! (its a joke I know u cant use it on bios).

[irrational_i]

Personally I wouldn't oc. The gains are not that high usually, even though they could be as high as say, 20%, but then you need some serious cooling usually.

Mostly a gain of about 5% and its unikely that you'll really notice that increase in operation.
your clockspeed wil show most clearly when you are encoding multimedia or maybe playing quake - where 500fps is silly as 120 is as much as you see.
Oc the gfx will have an impact, but you need a good card. Bad cards oc about 2% and overheat. If gfx is nvidia I'd consider oc for a basic 6XX/7XX card, but leave the GT/GTX as is.

Of course if you are just fiddling for the sake of it, go right ahead.

If you want watercooling for less noise, remember that the PSU is also a noisy component and watercool is not necessarily quiet. Good fans are very effective.
Go for somethiing with a large volume of airflow. Big blades/slow speed tend to be more quiet and effective.
I prefer Zalman as my Coolermasters always seema little louder than advertised.

A last note on cpu - I still run an AMD athlon 2600+ and thats plenty fast enough for coding and gaming alike. Although an upgrade to AMD64/pci-e is needed for games like Oblivion. Although dual-core is not yet the best solution. Give a year or so before apps start using the multi-processor capabilities.
For now an AMD FX-60 should be awesome for 90+% of your needs.
Gfx and RAM are the keys to increased performance.
So O/C is in my opinion not needed.

[DeMoN]

My cards are not GT they are 6800 Ultras so tha'd mean they could be OClocked right?

Bout water cooling, I've thought bout it, but havent bought anything. I have the AMD X2 4400+ and thamar has 3800+ wich beats my cpu so Im confident that you can do good stuff provided you can cool the CPU (right thamar?). Its not that I need to have this comp go faster as its fast enough for what I use (never encode anything just normal internet and ocational gaming). But, its more for curiosity and learning factor rather than speed satisfaction.

[irrational_i]

So playing then. Go ahead and play. just be careful with the mobo voltages.

The Ultra cards are really GTs with zero defects. Like O/C'd GT cards already.
(Just like authentic Porsche parts are just hand-picked Bosch/ATE and other basic branded producs. For my old Porsche anyway. So guaranteed to be the best quality.)

An o/c'd GT card will have Ultra performance for instance and are much cheaper to buy.
There should be margins for O/C still. I think the Gainward or Asus cards handle o/c nicely, but its unlikely the Ultra will o/c with a huge margin.

If you don't move your PC around much wtercool is an option. I go LANning with friends often, so my PC moves a lot. Watercooling would be a pain.

[DeMoN]

nah I never move my comp other than to clean the dust it gets and the ocational upgrade. I dont want to test and burn though, I rather be told what to try by someone who knows already so I'll post a picture of current bios OClock status.

[crazidude]

My cards are not GT they are 6800 Ultras so tha'd mean they could be OClocked right?

Bout water cooling, I've thought bout it, but havent bought anything.
Ultras generally speaking, with stock cooling, don't go very far. They're pretty bloody hot to begin with and the cores are already pushed quite far in terms of clock speed. The only way I can see you O/Cing those would be with new cooling, and I don't see how such a small gain in performance would justify wasting money on that.

Water cooling would end up to be quite a hassle, if you want to use it for just better cooling purposes. Setting up isn't much of a problem, just need to plan ahead on where to put all the parts and the tubing, but if your place is dusty, then you have to clean the damn radiator at least once every two weeks. And since I'm freaking lazy it annoys me. The advantage of course is that your comp is quieter and cooler.

And your 4400+ comes with an hsf with heat pipes, so it should clock quite well. Possibly 2.5/2.6 without getting too hot or the fan spinning up to max.

[DeMoN]

^ yeah, I did water cooling for the computer I put up for my friend. I'd do it on my comp, but dont feel like it yet. I will someday eventaully. Its gonna be more quiet too. Ill post up the pix soon, thanx guys.

[DeMoN]

So I used ASUS overclocking software a long time ago to overclock a little (which changes things on BIOS aswell). This is how I have it now...

http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(1).JPG

which increased CPU speed as seen here:

http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(2).JPG

With no overclocking, it would look like this:

http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(3).JPG


here are other pictures that might be handy to instruct in Oclocking...


http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(4).JPG

http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(5).JPG

[crazidude]

LMAO!! NOS option.. I totally forgot that existed.

For the hyper transport frequency tab, I'm not sure if Asus works with auto mode well, but select a number 1-5, that when multiplied by the cpu frequency and by 2, the product is less than 2000.
So for example, 210x5x2 = 2100. You generally want it less than 2000, but it may work if its just slightly above that. Of course you want to get as close to 2000 as possible.

Your ram config thing needs to be changed alot, probably. Its running at pretty lax timmings. Change tcl to 2, tras to 6 and 1t/2t timing to 1t. You can possible make it tighter with higher voltages, but that isn't necessary unless you want them to run at high speeds, and I doubt it can.

All you basically got to do is increase the cpu frequency. If it gets unstable, increase the voltage and loosen the ram timmings to something like 2.5-8-3-4. Don't change the 1t/2t thing back to 2t unless its absolutely necessary. Also, if you're lazy, you can change the memclock index value in your ram config tab to something like 333 or whatever option is lower. That just forces your ram to run a different speed than your processor, but there isn't a huge impact on performance.

I can't remember what NOS did, but read up on it, it may or may not be useful, though I'm leaning more on the latter.

[DeMoN]

Imma give it a try now... hope my computer doesnt fry.

[DeMoN]

BTW, just got Nvidia nTune 5.0 which has 2 auto tuneups and a manual one. Should I try using the Fine tune (supposedly takes 3 hours to fine tune)? If so, should I do it before or after manual oclocking?

[crazidude]

Stay the hell away from ntune. Its causes tons of problems for people apparently, such as corrupting windows or not overclocking correctly or something.

[DeMoN]

^ shoulud have read before. My computer acted dumb after "Fine Tuning." It froze and upon restarting nothing came out on screen and windows did not load. I had to leave it off for a while and then it worked.

As for the RAM thingies, I cannot edit them. Im not allowed to mess with the ram timings.

[crazidude]

Set the timming mode to manual and you should be able to change it.

[DeMoN]

which of the pictures I posted show the timings being able to be set to manual?

[crazidude]

which of the pictures I posted show the timings being able to be set to manual?
The last one.
http://demonwares.net/temp/OC%20(5).JPG