Re: A8N-SLI Premium -- Cooling
- From: john.dsl@xxxxxxxxxxx (John Lewis)
- Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 17:46:56 GMT
On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 11:23:51 +0100, Peter Finney
<nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>While Googling I came across an old thread on this topic, and realised
>that my experiences with this board might be interesting to other Asus
>devotees.
>
>I have recently upgraded my system with:
>
>Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard.
>1GBgyte Ram (two Samsung 512MByte sticks).
>Asus (Nvidia) 6600 Silencer (Fanless) graphics Card.
>AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (dual core) - Retail package with AMD heatsink
>and Fan.
>
>Before proceeding to discuss cooling let me say that performance is
>scintillating!
>
>Cooling:
>
>The system is in a medium-sized tower case fitted with a 3-fan
>temperature controlled 525W power supply (Hiper) . There are 2 IDE
>hard discs, and 2 IDE optical drives. The case is fitted with two
>80mm 2.4w additional fans - one exhaust at the top - one inlet at the
>bottom.
>
>Even before I bought this Motherboard I realised that there was a
>cooling issue that needed to be addressed. This is because the
>chassis heatsink which is next to the Processor socket, and which
>cools the voltage regulators, also cools the chipset (southbridge) via
>a heatpipe. This eliminates the need for a chipset fan. However the
>shared heatsink relies on warm exhaust air from the processor cooling
>fan for its own cooling.
>
>This means that:
>
>a. The shared heatsink (and hence the southbridge) could run hotter
>than the CPU.
>
>b. If the CPU fan speed is controlled based on the CPU temperature,
>the southbridge (and possibly the voltage regulators) could overheat.
>
>My initial investgations led me to beleive that the built-in CPU fan
>speed control did not properly take account of this feature -
>and to that extent the motherboard could be said to have a design
>flaw.
>
>I have fitted an mcubed T-balancer fan control system which has
>allowed to me investigate and manage this issue. There are 8
>temperature sensors fitted as follows:
>
>CPU heatsink (2 sensors - for rendundancy).
>Shared regulator/soutbridge heatsink (2 sensors).
>Graphics Card (stuck on the circuit card on the upper side above the
>heatsink, since the heatsink is underneath the card when mounted in
>the case).
>Hard drive 0
>Hard drive 1
>Southbridge (mounted directly on the heat pipe fitting)
>
>In addition I have Mother Board Monitor to monitor the motherboard and
>harddrive temperature sensors:
>CPU
>Motherboard
>Auxuliary (case?)
>HD1 (HD0 does not have an internal temp sensor)
>
>So I am monitoring 11 temperatures.
>
>The fans are controlled as follows:
>CPU fan speed- based on CPU and shared heatsink temperature.
>Case fan speed - based on shared heatsink/VGA card/hard drive
>temperatures. The two case fans have different speed/temperature
>profiles - designed to run the upper exhaust fan harder initially.
>
>As expected from the start -
>a. The CPU runs cooler than the shared heatsink.
>b. It is essential to run the CPU fan fast enough to cool the
>shared heatsink effectively.
>
>I tested the system by running (Freestone) Video Card Stability Test.
>This runs the graphics processor flat out, and shows CPU1 at 55% and
>CPU2 at 54%. (Running other apps to get the CPUs up to 100% does not
>make any visible difference).
>
>After 15 minutes - Temperatures have stabilised at:
>
>Room temperature: 23C
>
>MotherBoard Monitor:
>CPU: 39C
>'Case': 32C
>Motherboard 32C
>HD1: 37C
>
>Mcubed T-balancer:
>CPU: 38.5C/38.5C
>Shared Heatsink: 43.0C/44.0C
>HD0: 34.5C
>HD1: 37.5C
>VGA: 42.0C
>Southbridge (Chipset): 39.5C
>
>Fan Speed (percent max)
>CPU 64%
>Upper exhaust 46%
>Lower inlet 22%
>
>Conclusions:
>
>1. mcubed T-balancer rocks - the system is very quiet!
>
>2. The only advantage of the 'Premium' version of the A8N is the
>elimination of the chipset heatsink and fan. This is supposed to
>reduce noise. However - you have to run the CPU fan faster to cool
>the combined heatsink - thus probably negating the noise advantage.
>Also this combined heatsink, which depends on exhaust air from the CPU
>cooler, makes temperature (and noise) control more difficult. If you
>are going to run the CPU fan at 100% rpm all the time - that does not
>matter, but if you are going to do that you certainly would not be
>hearing the noise from a chipset cooler fan! The mcubed T-balancer
>has a 4th fan control which could control a chipset fan.
>
>3. Asus got this a bit wrong - in retrospect I would probably
>have bought the A8N Deluxe.
>
>However it is a super MB.
>
>Note: I am not an overclocker - what I need is a fast, stable, quiet
>system - which I now have.
>Peter Finney
>Liphook
>Hampshire
>England
You have forgotten something that Asus didn't. The large-area
switch-regulator silicon can withstand a LOT more heat than the tiny,
tiny transistors and nanometer 'wires' inside the integrated silicon.
Quite happy at temperatures up to 70 degrees C heat-sink-tip temps
(80-85 silicon-temps) -finger-fry time. The rear case fan and to a
slightly lesser extent the adjacent power-supply fan will more than
adequately cool this regulator (shared) heat sink. However, you
MUSTalways have adequate air-flow over the regulator CAPACITORS.
Regardless of temperature-rating, electrolytic capacitors gradually
dry out and eventually long-term fail with continuous excess heat. The
stock CPU coolers always have a dead-air area around the CPU socket
just where the capacitors are installed...adjacent to the base of the
heat-sink on very hot piece of silcon (the CPU) The rear case fan may
ventilate enough, but the best solution to cool the capacitors is to
install a Zalman CNPS7000 (or 7700, if you have the room) flower
CPU-cooler. And don't forget to ensure that there is adequate
POSITIVEair-flow INTO your computer-case -- the exhaust fans will work
far more efficiently. For example, installing one of the quiet dual
or triple-fan HD coolers in an EMPTY slot (with no HD) will help
positively ventilate the memory (and CPU) area.
Anyway, your 'cooling-solution' is a little overkill for the
trivial-wattage system you are running. Not a wise use of your
financial resources. Your whole system is probably not taking more
than 250 watts from the power-supply. You have some nice low
temperatures --- they sure do not need any specialized monitoring
whatsoever. For example, since you are not overclocking the
processor, then it will run as happily as a clam with at least
60degrees C core-temp as monitored by the motherboard, with
zero effect on long-term reliability.
BTW, the Zalman CNPS CPU-coolers are a LOTquieter and more efficient
than any stock CPU cooler. You should have bought one of those
(~ $30-$40) instead of wasting your money on the temperature
monitoring hardware.
John Lewis
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