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With Gary Fritz's permission, I'm redirecting my reply back to the list. To
summarize: Mr. Fritz notes poor reviews of the Zalman "flower" HSF's, but it
seems to work fine in my set up:
Epox 8K9A+ motherboard (builtin NIC, sound, USB, RAID)
XP 2400+ cpu, with 1 stick of 512Mb DDR 333Mhz (PC2700) memory
two Barracuda IV 60 mb drives in a RAID-1 (mirrored) configuration
Lian Li aluminum case with two front intake 80mm fans on a speed control,
set
to low. The fans were replaced with quieter (Vantc) models, saving about 6db
apiece. Rear exhaust fan currently disconnected -- I'm relying on the PSU
exhaust fan.
Zalman CNPS6000-Cu with Arctic Silver 3 thermal compound. (I took care to
clean the cpu and heat sink eith 99% isopropyl alcohol, and appied the
thermal compound thinly per the manufacturer's instructions)
Enermax 465V-FC (temp controlled) PSU which has a bottom 90mm intake fan,
and an 80mm exhaust fan. I went with a bigger PSU to reduce load on the PSU,
so it can run more quietly.
A Radeon 9000 Pro (128mb DDR, 4x AGP) card. This card runs hot enough that
it has its own HSF fan as well.
A Yamaha CD-RW drive, and a Pansonic DDR drive.
At the moment ambient temperature is probably 20C. The system temp is 31C
and the cpu temp is 43C. The system is probably running 5% busy (ie, TS4
isn't sitting around burning cycles). As long as it stays around 45C, I'm
okay with that, and am willing to let it red line to 60C. This may be a
little rough on the CPU, but I'm trying to optimize the system for
reasonably quiet operation.
I could make it quieter by removing the Northbridge HSF. Generally, if not
overclocking the Northbridge HSF isn't needed, and the Zalman blows enough
air down on this area to help out. I could also replace the HSF on the video
card with a passive (piped) cooler - Zalman has one, there are others. Right
now though, it is acceptably quiet, so I'm leaving it as is.
I could also enable "standby mode" in the OS, which would lower the overall
duty cycle when the system isn't doing anything. This would extend the life
of the components and save energy. Unfortunately, I think I have some USB
peripherals that don't play well in standby mode, so I've deferred that
experiment.
>
> > The only thing I can think of is that the new Athlons (the Palamino
> > core) run cooler than their predecessors. That's what I heard.
>
> But the 1800+ I'm running (after I fried my 1700+ due to a
> botched installation of the Swiftech :-( ) is also a Palomino, as
> were the XP's that I read about in the reviews.
>
> > Also, I'm measuring cpu temp with the on chip sensor via a mobo
> > monitor program supplied by the vendor (Epox).
>
> Does the Athlon have an actual in-the-chip temp sensor? I wasn't
> sure. Too bad my Asus doesn't use that.
>
I think it does. Here's a rather thourogh article,
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/pentium4athlonxpthermalmanagement/
> > I have a relatively vacant large aluminum case with, a 128MB 4x AGP
> > card (Radeon 9000 pro) which also has a HSF, and two 80mm intake fans
> > at the bottom front of the case, running on low speed.
>
> Low speed is a big deal noise-wise. Big slow fans like that are
> the best thing you can use.
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