Hello, guys and girls

Is it possible and would it be wise to run E8400 CPU without a fan, using only heatsink? There isn't much i do - very occasional gaming and HD viewing are the most resource intensive things.

I'm looking to get the noise down so.. can i do that and won't it burn?



Thanks!

You can get a passive cpu block, but i dont put much stock into them, if you want quiet then go with water cooled, or a quiter fan.

There seems to be a few ppl, who run the E8400 @ stock on good/large HSFs with out a fan, but instead uses the case fans only.

I would think if you get a large heatsink you could run it passivly at stock speeds...

A thermalright ultra 120 would do the trick, i bet.

My suggestion would be to get the lowest RPM 120mm fan you can find for your HSF.

A passive TRUE, as Grieve said, might do, especially if you keep the cpu at stock clock.

Louder hows that? 2 fans and one pump dont make that much noise if you have a good watercooled system. Course i just stick my air cooled system under my desk, pretty quiet that way.

I suggest you head over to FrostyTech.com and take a look at their quiet HSF reviews. There are plenty of HSF's available that would be silent even with a fan.

Also, check out the products at these sites to quiet the rest of your system down, or to check out more HSF reviews:

www.silentpcreview.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.endpcnoise.com

If you want it quieter you could spray the fan with a liberal amount of wd40. Be sure to leave the CPU and Heatsink assembly attached to the motherboard when you do this.

p.s. I'm just kidding.

HAHA Kwyx

At OP:
If you keep the cpu at stock speeds, and have good case air flow, and use a good cpu cooler (Thermalright 120 extreme), then yes your cpu will run perfectly fine passively cooled.

Keep in mind that the larger case fans can give a much higher flow at a lower noise level. I've had good luck with variable speed case fans. Play with the fan speed until you find adequate cooling at the lowest tolerable noise level.

It is very possible... especially if you never put EXTREME pressure on your CPU with something like prime 95... Actually I broke the fan off my Zalman CNPS9500 last week and have been running it without a fan until yesterday when I got a replacement fan, I monitored my temps with realtemp and I havn't seen much of a difference with everyday computing... I even played some recent games on it and it never reached dangerous temps.

This was with an e8400 btw.

The fan with my heatsink will keep max temps down by about 5 degrees celcius from my experience.

thank you very much for all the suggestions. as i understood, it is possible to do that but it's better to leave the fan. i will read through the given sites.

thanks again, you were really helpful!

p.s. i probably didn't name it correctly. what i was looking for was not the ordinary fan+heatsink but these thingies that are especially made to cool things down without a fan.. radiators

Why u say kidding? I clean my system every month with air compressor blow all the dust out and oil all my fans. Precision blast of WD40 right inside the motor and heavier oil under the sticker (if you remove most fans have special plug to cover little hole grease it up) I have fans that been running in this manner for five years and run super quiet.

Also you make some peace and quet i use fan controllers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] er&x=0&y=0

i monitor temperature via software and lower all fan's speeds, and only when it's hot in room or summer i raise it.

duxducis,

I was making fun of this thread.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] rt-circuit