Hi,
I want to make my old computer as silent as possible. I've already
replaced cheap fan on chipset with Zalman radiator. Now it's time to
replace standard cooler on processor with something less noisy (standard
fan on processor runs at 5500RPM and makes me sick).
Can anyone tell me how can I cool Athlon Thunderbird 1Ghz? I'd like it
to be as silent as possible. I thought about Thermaltake Sonictower, but
I don't know if it will be enough (without additional 12cm fan attached
to it). Not to mention that it's quite big and I don't know if it'll fit
on my Asus A7V133 motherboard
. Or perhaps Sonictower would be an
overkill? I don't really know how much heat comes out from this
processor. What kind of cooling does it need? It has to be able to run
24h/day, be silent and not to expensive
. I'd also prefer not to use
any watercooling.
It's going to need more cooling than a P3 would, but the
Sonictower (as most Thermaltake products) is somewhat low
quality and yet still overkill.
You need a basic heatsink only-
Copper baseplate if not all copper
Accepts 80mm (x 25mm tall) fan
If it doesn't come with a sufficiently low RPM fan, you'll
have to buy your own (very commonly necessary). Assuming
your case has reasonable cooling, a ~ 2000 RPM fan should be
plenty, might even be possible to undervolt for even more
noise reduction. Having a large and thick fan is key for
noise reduction, to allow enough airflow without high RPM.
Here is an example,
http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835150039
though it's included fan is slightly faster than optimal for
your CPU, you could use a method of fan speed reduction or
just replace the fan.
Mainly the example was to show a basic low-cost aluminum
heatsink that has a plain old 80x25 fan on top. Some are
better in that they have a copper slab on the bottom instead
of the tiny circular insert that one does, but try to avoid
heatsinks that look similar but are all-aluminum on the
bottom as copper is very good for removing heat from the
open (no heatspreader) cored Athlons.
Water cooling is not quieter in most cases. With a passive
radiator, the pump must be noisier for higher flow rate or
with when there's a fan on the radiator, it is typically on
the wall of the case or external where the noise can be
heard. A fan on a heatsink doesn't have to be AS loud as
the noise from a water-cooled PC. Many people suggest
otherwise because they never had an optimally set up system,
moved directly from poor heatsinks with high RPM fans to
water cooling without knowing there was another alternative.
Plus, water cooling doesn't eliminate having a fan about
where the CPU fan would've been, as the northbridge and
power regulation circuit on the motherboard need some
airflow too, typically more than a low-RPM PSU exhaust fan
will provide for any Athlon era or newer system.
Another thing I wanted to ask you is cooling the HDD. Is it necessary?
Yes in the strictest sense, a hard drive needs airflow to
cool it. In some cases with lots of drives, a fan in front
of the HDD cage can be necessary, but in most cases with
reasonably good rear exhaust and a large unobstructed
passive front in take area, it is enough so long as a large
% of the incoming air flows across the drives, and of course
the drives are not stacked directly atop each other which
prevents much if any flow between them. In a passive setup,
ambient air temp matters more too, but in a typical room (~
25C) environment it can work fine for typical modern 7K2 RPm
drive.
My computer works around the clock and has 2 HDDs: 30GB IBM and 160GB
WD. I've never had any problems with them but perhaps I was just lucky (?).
All drives fail eventually. Playing odds, you should get
at least 3 or 4 years out of both of them, it would be
unexpected to have them fail providing they stay cool enough
and have decent power, not subject to power surges or rough
treatment (like shipping or installation damage). Mainly
when targeting lowest noise systems, the importance becomes
controlling where the airflow is, that if you only have 30
cfm moving through a case, it should mostly flow through the
HDD rack, not in the side and rear holes and all the little
gaps everywhere too. Ideal airflow is in the bottom front
and out the top and mid-area rear. If you can't get fan RPM
sufficiently low enough for low noise while still keeping
system parts cool, it is often quieter to add another low
RPM fan rather than significant RPM increase of existing
fans.
.