Re: Pentium 4 630 Tempatures

In article <Xns9715687FE1028aguy4u2coxnet@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, John
<aguy4u2@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> Thanks to all who replied,
>
> Glad to hear my temps are actually in the norm range for the 630.
>
> Paul, thank you for the info on the Sonata case, I'm sure my neighbor
> will not want to remove the front bezel. However your idea about
> removing the front filter is a good one. We may want to try to remove
> the air filter and see how much that will help. The case is up on a desk
> and not on the floor so it should do OK without the filter.
>
> I did mount the disk drive in the lowest drive bay and did see where an
> additional fan can be attached to the inside of the drive cage. I
> wonder if it would be worth the trouble and cost to get another fan and
> install it there. It is so far away from the front of the case wonder if
> it would actually pull in more cold air or just stir up the air inside
> the case?
>
> Fans are inexpensive, so guess we could add the second fan to the drive
> cage and see what the CPU temps do. If nothing else, the video card
> should benefit from the extra air flow it since it is one of the
> Gigabyte 6600 units with the passive heat pipes and no fan.
>
> John

The bezel is more of a factor than the filter. Removing the bezel
gives you about 6 square inches of extra vent holes, which the
case badly needs. (Another option, would be to "Swiss Cheese" the
bezel - I've done that to external hard drive enclosures, by
drilling a series of holes on the bottom of the units neat the front,
where you cannot see them. Several styles of hard drives enclosures
I've used, have a fine little fan in the back, and virtually no holes
in the rest of the enclosure to allow air to crossflow.)

If you want to try a simple experiment, you can pop out the plastic
covers on two bays in the front of the computer. That will at least
give you a quick demo of how much difference more vent area makes.
Those covers should be easy to put back after you've tried
the experiment, while removing and putting back the bezel would
be more work.

If you consider the build you did for the neighbour, to be
a "pro" build, you might consider changing computer cases.
Find another case that has a bit better venting strategy,
like maybe a side duct with fan, as that could help keep the
processor cool. A bigger case, with more room around the
processor, has also been known to help (some CPU cooling
problems are cause by stale air getting trapped around the
CPU area - if the hot air cannot get away from the HSF, it
cannot cool well).

Normally, my answer to questions about CPU cooling, would be
not to worry about it too much. But, the thing is, with the
Intel processors, they throttle at about 70C, and the latest
processors have THERMTRIP set at 20C higher than that, and
that means the computer will shut down if the processor
hits 90C. To stay out of "throttle country", you've got to
have good enough cooling, so that when Prime95 torture test
is running, the processor is at say < 65C. That should be far
enough from 70C, so that the user never sees a performance
degradation due to throttling.

There are three temperatures that are key to thermal
performance. The processor temperature, the case air
temperature, and the ambient room temperature. If the
room is hot, then the other two will also increase.
The CPU cooler can only do its job, if the air in the
computer case is cool too. If the air in the computer
case is hot, the world's largest HSF assembly won't help.
And that is why, when you have a cooling problem, you have
to look at the case air temperature, and the CPU temperature,
to decide whether it is cheaper to improve the case cooling,
or cheaper to buy another HSF for the CPU. A well cooled case
is allowed to be about 7-10 degrees C hotter than the room,
with the preference being the cooler of those two numbers.
Some cases are 20 C hotter than the room, which means the
poor CPU HSF doesn't have a chance to work. Even an
XP-120 couldn't keep the CPU cool, if the case air temp is
45C.

Paul
.

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