Now quieter!

FINALLY got round to replacing my case fan with one from quietpc.com - I didn't think it would make much difference but I'm amazed! I can actually hear that my HD is really noisy now! :)

Two questions:

1 - I didn't realise when I ordered that my old case fan connected with that big 4-pin connector that goes into the back of a drive (with a thru-socket so the drive can get power), and I ordered one with the tiny 3-pin connector. Maybe unwisely, I plugged it into a 3-pin connection (was empty) on the motherboard marked "PSFAN1". Seems to work okay but anyone see a problem with that?

2 - Now I want to replace my CPU fan. Firstly, should I replace the heatsink too? And secondly, I put (a lot of) thermal grease on last time I replaced the heatsink. How do I get that off the CPU cleanly to get a clean application of new thermal grease for the new heatsink?

re: No1. I did the same, it's fine. No2: Don't know sorry.

www.quietpc.com are a great company. I've ordered lots of stuff from them. Converted my hoover of a PC to much calmer machine. Now I can watch the Telly via the onboard card without wanting to throw a brick at the PC.

RE: 2 ..

I got a CPU/Heastsink combo last time and cleaned the old thermal grease off with Propan (alchohol based cleaning fluid which I can get from my workplace).

I have a spare HD silencer knocking around somewhere.
One of these:

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/harddrive.php#zm2hc2

My old HD was both noisy and hot. Since my new HD is very quiet I no longer need the heat pipe cooler.
If you're interested I'll see if I can find it and post it your way at a cheap price (something to cover postage costs mainly).

Removing thermal grease can apparently be done with vodka, as a good friend of mine recently discovered. He didn't note the brand though, sorry ;)

The rule when applying lots of thermal grease is: dont. You should apply the absolute minimum to coat the required surface and you should then run a straight piece of card (or something) over it to remove all but the tiniest amount.

You might think "but that doesn't look like it will do anything" but trust me, it does. Less really is more when you're using Arctic Silver (which you are, of course).

Get yourself a Zalman HS+F, you will not be sorry at all that you paid a few quid extra.

I found this, would this do it?

http://www.shinyhardware.co.uk/products/product.asp/pid=51

Also from the same company, this:

http://www.shinyhardware.co.uk/products/product.asp/pid=40

Akasa TIM clean is good for removing Thermal Infterface Material.

You really need to use a snall amount of acetone afterwards, to remove the TIM clean!

Don't get acetone on your skin, it'll do for you liver if you do it too much

Throw away latex/vinyl gloves solves that.

Use cotton buds too as it stops the stuff going all over the place.

What VinylPusher said. Get a Zalman Heatsink, and use a plastic or cardboard card to scrape off excess paste.

Just a 'me too' posting: use as little paste you can to still cover the area. HAving a big glob on there will work significantly worse than using just a little.

the only thing the heat sink paste is supposed to do, is fill the miscroscopic gaps and irregularities between the surface of your CPU and the bottom of the heatsink. It is a lot better than not using heatsink (=air pockets), but it still conducts much worse than the solid copper of your heatsink. So putting a lot of paste will decrease the ability of you CPU to pass on heat to the heatsink vs. putting on just a little.

1. Your fan will be speed controlled by the motherboard depending on how cool the motherboard decides it is. Usually, it will just go at full speed regardless. So no biggie =]

Cool, thanks. Of course, yes I am going for a Zalman!

You know it makes sense! ;O)

Have fun, they are the answer providing you can fit one in. Well worth the effort.

Oh and given the next question: Nexus make very nice quiet PSUs without needing a large loan to install one.

A 120mm fan moving slowly is quiet, as is the mesh cut out they use. They got a 350W which is quiet, 400W which is oddly quieter, and 500W I thnk is the new one but that's more power than I need, so not got one of them (yet?!) ;O)

Don't get a zalman. Get something that will throttle. Zalmans don't throttle, you need to do it manually via some spastic little dial you wire through and stick onto your case with an adhesive pad.

In the end I had ENOUGH of the damn thing. Sick of babysitting it. So it's out for now. The zalman also had insufficient cooling. It was quiet though... but that is not enough.

Shop around, zalman ARENT the best at all. But quietpc.com are a good company. I actually replaced my graphics card fan as well, and I honestly can't recommend that to anyone.

Me too. I went with this fanless solution ..

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/vgamb.php#zm80dhp

It was quite scary running a game and expecting the GPU to burn out but in all fairness the thing seems to hold up.
I've had one major reset after playing HL2 for a few hours.
That happened with the default fan fitted as well.

You guys might want to install Speed Fan which is a free CPU/HD temperature monitor.

The speed is regulated by a rotary you twist till you are happy with it's setting then forget.

With a little effort and imagination it can be tidily mounted to a PCI card back plane blank, which just needs drilling and tapping out for an M3 screw which is hardly rocket science.

Once done you end up with it mounted outside the case where it will not even add to the heat inside the case.

I a little more fettling see the cable enter cleanly at the same site on the case.

Just need to think, plan, and do somehting about it all really. Worked fine here everytime.

As for efficiency, I've no complaint what so ever, but then I went for a cool CPU to start out with (Northwood not Prescott).

It's worth repeating; a little thought & a little planning, sees it all work out just fine.

Same as the one I got. It's awesome.

Or just leave it at max speed. I went for the prescott, and the CPU is about 40C (roughly 20 below the stock heatsink temp) and the HD is still the most noisey PC element.

I'm not a great big overclocker, so I don't need huge cooling (I'm guessing).

mrtricks: A Zalman will provide more than adequate cooling for non-overclocked CPU's. I've still got a stock HS+F and I can overclock reasonably well. I don't actually do that though, I've no need of the extra speed just yet.

Yes, now we're getting to the meat of the matter, I went with cooler CPUs, not overclocked and thereby was able to leave the zalman at minimum, which is about as quiet as you get.

It's not particularly cheap and it's perhaps slight overkill granted, but it's cool & quiet enough for sure. The CPUs are a 1.8a and a 2.8a, and Northwoods in both cases. I elected to use them for their cooler running, while still having enough grunt in general. I chose this for how little heat there would be getting shoved out in the room, since I go to actually work in that resulting heat ultimately.

Best of all, I have quite a bit of cooling headroom left to easily turn up in hotter weather and still keep it quiet.

All in all, it's a very comfortable setup to live with.

The 2.8 is in an original Cooler Master 201 which, for all that aluminium does not make things a whole lot cooler despite what most seem to think but it is a very nicely made case. It's a little bit noisier than I'd like, but that's ally cases for you. It's sat there doing a little work most of the time and showing 42c. Worst I've ever seen from it was 53c and that was really doing some work in summer time.

The 1.8 is in a Silverstone Lascala LC10B with the LED front panel and remote etc. So I got an HTTP with enough grunt for most things, half a terabyte of storage and no serious cooling issues (37c as I type on it, it's also got a few things going on in the background most of the time), I find it's quiet enough for me. Worst that has shown is about 46c I think. It's so low I never really have cause to notice what it maxes at! ;O)