Wednesday, March 26, 2003

CPU Temp (round 2)

Wheee, got my parts in. I took the system apart, wiped the old heatsink compound off with a paper towel and applied a small dab of Arctic Silver III heat compound (less then pea sized, rubbing it into the chip core using the nozzle of the tube). I then put the copper heatsink back on, added a 60mm to 80mm fan adapter, topped with a quiet 80mm fan that pushes 37cfm at 2900rpm while producing only 30dBA of noise (almost twice as quiet as the old 6800rpm delta fan). The old "at rest" tempurature was 40C CPU and 29C motherboard, new "at rest" temperature is 40C CPU and 30C motherboard. I did also add some rounded cables into the mix, and I have not put the cover on the CPU yet.

Granted, that's not a big change (okay, no change) in at-rest temperature - but then really the only change was the heatsink compound (or the re-application of compound). The cfm being moved around is still roughly the same as before. Under load temperature shows a 2-4C improvement (44-46C CPU 32C motherboard). But the big change is in the ambient temperature center that is taped to the motherboard between the north bridge chip, the CPU and the memory slots. That temp has dropped from 44-46C down to 37C - probably due to the installation of rounded cables (it was a rats nest of flat ribbon cables before). That may be enough to stabilize the system.

I've also attached a second temperature sensor to one of the rounded cables that goes over the video card so that I can get ambient temperatures over in that section. That sensor is currently reading 34C.

posted by Wuphon's at 10:05 AM