Installation and temperature problems...

[petasis]

Dear forum members,

I have just bought a zipang cooler, to use it in my HTPC. The pc board is a gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H, with a phenomII 920, installed inside an HTPC case from thermaltake, DH 101.
The case can accommodate the cooler (although a little tight), but I faced problems installing the cooler on the motherboard. There was no way to make the am2 clip anchor on both ends of the socket, as it seems to be longer that is supposed to be. The only way to attach the cooler is by moving the clips in the 2nd (middle) notch, where the cooler was attached with ease. I don't know the effect of this in the cooling performance though.
Regarding the thermal grease, I have applied it onto the whole surface of the processor, before I attach the cooler.
(I think that the AM2 clips must be somehow improved, I like very much the suriken ones!!!)

Now, about the case: I replaced the front 12" fan with a scythe s-flex 800 rpm. And I didn't connect the two (6") rear funs. So, there is only one fan (12", 800 rpm) in front, and the PSU one. The whole case is put in a self, having 4 cm of free space around, and about 20 cm on the left side.
The problem is of course temperature. Noise is not a problem (I cannot hear anything but the hard disk, a WD green one). However, my system idles at 50 easily after a while. So my question relates to the cooler fan:

Is there a scythe fan I can use, to increase airflow and keep the system quiet? Ideally I want a 14" PWM fan for the cooler, that can go as low as the zipang fan (<800 rpm), but get more than 1000 rpm when the cpu is under load. The same will be nice for the 12" scythe fan I have as intake fan: the board has two PWM connectors, and I would like to put them to good use. Any ideas?

[hiroshige]

Hello petasis,

could you please re-measure the temperatures with CoreTemp if you are using an other program? This is just to make sure that we can talk about temps which are verified and not wrong because of measurement errors.

Kind regards,
Stefan - Scythe EU Hamburg

[petasis]

Dear Stefan,

All temperatures are with CoreTemp
I have read the forum, and I saw that this program is proposed.
I had my first blue screen today, after temp rose to 70 celcius

[petasis]

Here is a photo before installation:
http://www.ellogon.org/~petasis/Images/HEPC/IMG_1987.JPG

And after:

http://www.ellogon.org/~petasis/Images/HEPC/IMG_1988.JPG
http://www.ellogon.org/~petasis/Images/HEPC/IMG_1989.JPG

[hiroshige]

Hello petasis,

don't kill me for that question but: Did you remove the plastic protection film of the coolers baseplate?

Cheers,
Stefan - Scythe EU Hamburg

[petasis]

Dear Stefan,

Yes I did :-)

[petasis]

I have connected the two 6" fans of the case: I now have a very noisy system, with slightly more temps:

http://www.ellogon.org/~petasis/Images/HEPC/ZipangTemps.png

When I open up my system it starts from 32 and within a minute it goes around 42. I did a small stress and I stopped it when the temperature got to 61 as reported by CoreTemp. This was in about two minutes, and in about 3 the temperature was back to 42-43.
I think that I need a more powerful fan, as the one the cooler has cannot turn quickly enough to cool my cpu under load. Any ideas?
I need something like the suriken has, which has a good rpm range.

[hiroshige]

Hello petasis,

actually I think that the contact pressure is not high enough.
Could you please use the anchor in the position you got it? If I understand you right you changed the position for mounting purposes.
An other idea would be to use the CPU Cooler Stabiizer AM2.

Cheers,
Stefan - Scythe EU Hamburg

[petasis]

No, I cannot. There is no way the cooler will attach to the socket if I use the 3rd notch (the one the cooler originally had). The clip is longer than it should be, so it cannot attach the socket anchor point. No matter how I tried, the cooler cannot be installed :-(

[hiroshige]

Hello petasis,

did you try to do so with the mainboard outside of your pc or just inside of your PC?
If the contact pressure is not enough, you will never get the temperatures you should get using your cooler.

Cheers,
Stefan - Scythe EU Hamburg