athlonXP 1900+ temp too high..

[scr0p]

My idle temp is around 62C, at around 68C my PC locks up and I need to reboot. right now I am on because I have an external fan sucking air out of my open case. I am using a pure copper heatsink and dELTA fan, the problem is I want a quieter solution, my comp is in the living rooM and its too loud, I need something really quiet but that will allow me to have my PC on full load 24/7 (or at least for hours). Can you recommend any watercooling kits within the 150$ mark at most. and easy to set up but that doesn't really matter.

 

[Teq]

There are aircoolers that will be quite quiet for you.

But I'm more concerned about those temperatures... 65C is way too hot, even under full load.

Are you sure the heatsink is seated correctly?
Did you apply thermal paste (or, at least some thermal conductor in there)?
Are you overclocking or running the chip overvoltage?

You most likely don't need to go to the expense of water cooling to get a quiet PC going on... Besides, water cooling isn't always quieter.

The first thing you need is a better cooling solution... For AMDs I generally recommend a good hybrid heatsink (copper bottom, aluminum fins) with a thermal resistence of less than .6 (lower is better). I also recommend a non-conductive shim to keep the cooler/cpu assembley mechanically stable and, of course, the use of a good quality thermal grease. Within that recommendation, since noise is an issue, you should look for lower numbers of DB (decibels) for the fan's noise rating.

This is one example of a decent hybrid heatsink, there are lots more:
<A HREF="http://www.spirecooler.com/asp/fcc.asp?ProdID=95" target="_new">http://www.spirecooler.com/asp/fcc.asp?ProdID=95</A>

Here is the shim I was talking about:
<A HREF="http://www.casecooler.com/unnonmicshim.html" target="_new">http://www.casecooler.com/unnonmicshim.html</A>


And there are some simple tricks you can use to quiet things down...

Lining your hard drive bays with fabric helps reduce drive noise... Just press double sided carpet tape (the thin stuff, not the one with foam in it) onto a piece of soft cloth (the heavy cotton used for T-shirts works well) then cut the resulting fabric covered tape to the height of your drive and the length of the bays. Slip in the drive and mark the bays where the tape has to go, peel the other side of the tape and line the insides of the drive bay so the drive is actually sitting in the fabric. Open the mounting holes with an X-Acto knife and mount the drive on plastic screws.

Slowing the fans slightly can help a lot too... You can use temperature controlled fans or if you are looking for a "cheap and dirty" way you can just put a 10 ohm 5 watt resistor in series with each fan's red wire, soldered and taped, of course. This will quiet them down a fair bit, but it won't hurt the airflow much.

Managing airflow in your case so you can use fewer fans is also a big help. If the front intakes match the rear exhausts in area you probably can get by without pressure fans on the front of the case. With proper airflow you might also be able to use fewer exhaust fans, which will also reduce noise. Closing off unused exhaust openings in the back will ensure good airflow through the whole case, and they will block one more path for noise to exit the computer.


Of course, you may have already considered one or more of these solutions... but I thought I'd offer them just in case.




--->It ain't better if it don't work<---