In message <
[email protected]> kony
heh. First thing I do once I'm happy with the major components of a new
system is start replacing all the fans. My new Gigabyte board
(KA-K8NXP-SLI) has two fans, together they're noisier then the entire
rest of my system combined, and I'm just using the stock fans in an
Antec P180 case, plus a couple Raptor drives.
Me too, but then every now and then I hear of someone's
6600GT or [place random part here] failing right away and
the owner SWEARS they only treated it with kid gloves. IF
that's true, that it was entirely a product fault rather
than a user fault, it would be a bit disconcerting to go to
the time and trouble of moddin' something only to have it
die regardless. So far that hasn't happened to me to any
significant measure BUT even so my mods tend to be the
permanent type, to the extent that the part could not be
returned to a visually-factory-identical stat. Not that it
matters though, I accept that once I do any kind of mod I
have taken warranty and abandoned it.
Yeah, if the mod isn't reversible then the warranty is pretty much
toast, usually. I've seen the odd exception made over the years though,
but I wouldn't count on it.
I don't really warranty much though, usually when something dies it's
because I did something very stupid, or the warranty is so far expired
that it's not relevant.
The southbridge cooler on that looks pretty easy, as there's
a lot of space above and below it so long as you clear that
crystal below the memory slots. Something like a 1U skt 370
'sink with a couple holes tapped into it should suffice, if
you didn't want to epoxy it onto the SB.
The problem is right here:
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0003.JPG
There are a couple other angles at
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0001.JPG
and
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0002.JPG
That's the back end of the video card, so it's not a component I can
just move...
When I had the motherboard upside down it looked like the chip may not
actually be as wide as the fan, although I haven't taken that fan off to
look at it yet. If I'm right, I'll put in giant chipset heat sink and
be done with it.
Above the video card is a hood that can house an 8cm fan, I can get an
ultra quiet fan in there and have it blowing down on the chipset if I
shift the hood a little and put in something to control the airflow.
Where's the second fan? I saw one pic where the VRM board
had it, but on another pic the VRM had a heatpipe instead.
Not on mine
That could be a bit harder since the way the card is set up
a big heatsink will put more stess on the card edge
contacts. It does line up with the two mobo standoff holes
though and the card itself appears to have a hole in each
top corner so it shouldn't be too hard to fab a
reinforcement bracket to support extra weight if Gigabyte
doesn't include such a bracket.
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0004.JPG
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0005.JPG
You can see the tiny bracket that is included - It's not much, it mostly
just latches the daughter board to the motherboard, but the whole thing
is still wobbly.
I'm not a real big fan of the whole DPS (dual power system) so far, the
entire daughter board has a somewhat loose feeling to begin with, plus
it's stupidly close to the CPU / CPU fan. I'm already afraid it will
fall out (although as long as that bracket holds I think I'll be okay).
I was using a 12cm Zalman on my last system and I've been extremely
pleased with it, I'd love to pick up another one, but I'd have to take
out the DPS completely. It's optional, and I'm having trouble finding
any real information as to exactly what it does, but my current theory
is that if it didn't have some point, it wouldn't be in the box *sigh*
I'm debating whether or not I should replace the stock AMD cooler, it's
pretty quiet compared to the rest of the system (When the case is closed
I can't tell the difference when I stop the fan), but once I get the two
motherboard fans out of here, the CPU fan will be next on my noise list.
If I could find something that could force air directly over the DPS
module as well as the CPU, I might be able to just remove it's fan and
go with a passive solution for the DPS.
The case is an Antec P180 with the power supply at the bottom in a
separate chamber, so other then the CPU and motherboard there is no heat
source anywhere in the top of the case, all the drives are in the bottom
chamber. I don't game, so my video card is a pretty basic card, passive
cooling.
At the moment the RAM is the hottest thing going...
The heatsink on the DPS is cool to the touch, and even with it's fan off
it's not exactly getting toasty. I need to look around at what parts I
can get locally, but I might be able to get something that I can either
bracket to the 12cm fan above, or to the CPU fan.
At the top and rear of the case there are two 12cm exhaust fans, so
there is a fair amount of airflow up there to begin with.
In an ideal world I'd get somebody to build a heatpipe system from the
chipset and the DPS module and exhaust the heat through the top fan, but
unfortunately I don't have the skills to do it myself.
I don't mind investing a little, I plan on keeping this system for a
while, although I'll go up to a dualcore as soon as they come down in
price, or as soon as I'm ready to use this CPU in another system and
need to replace it anyway.