The Cooling Project

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I am contributing this thread in the hopes that it may perhaps:
(1)inspire others to consider taking positive measures in lowering the operating temperatures of their systems and
(2) maybe spend a bunch of money they really don't have...just like I did..."misery loves company" as they say.
(3) for me to practice not being as verbose as I have been in past threads (OK, OK,...but two out of three ain't
bad...).
(Thanks Steve R Jones for allowing me to post this lengthy piece....I commend your bravery, Sir....)

Early last week I was measuring my system's temperatures and was not entirely pleased at the results. They were not necessarily bad...just not ideal. Even though this Antec 900 case has five...count 'em...FIVE fans (not including the CPU heatsink fan), the case, GPU (graphics cards) and the CPU temps just were a little high in my opinion. So, with great bravado, I invested in some cooling solutions. Expensive? Perhaps. My credit card has since moved away from home and is now staying in a rest home under sedation...but I figured the investment was less expensive than moving to the Antarctic to get those lower temperatures.

Here's what I had in the Antec 900 PC case BEFORE (other details are in my sig):

CPU: Zalman 9700 HSF (cooling the Intel Q6600 chip overclocked 24/7 from 2.4 ghz to 3.2ghz). A good cooler in its own right, but I knew I could do better. The article says "silent"...well, it's quiet until it kicks into overdrive...then its a bit noisy.

GPU: Two BFG 8800 GT OC 512mb in SLI. They had a stock cooler that did a moderate job of cooling, but when turned up to 100% it sounded like a runaway freight train racing through an artillery barrage. Having TWO of them on 100% rpm was just ridiculous. I had to use a bullhorn to answer the phone at my desk and when I did, it was the local weather channel wanting to know if they should issue a tornado warning.
I'll be here all night...be sure to tip your waitress....

ANTEC 900 Gaming Case: Three Antec 120mm blue LED fans (two on the front, one exhaust), one side fan (very quiet Scythe 120mm fan that I added earlier) and a top 200mm exhaust fan (set on low setting...surprisingly very quiet).
Here's a pic of the inside of the case BEFORE the modifications (pardon the poor quality of these photos, but this is a rinky-dink camera):




So the project goal was simply this: lower the temps of the CPU, GPU(s) and the ambient case temps with a secondary goal of lowering the noise level as much as possible. The game is afoot...

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1. Starting with the CPU: I began by lapping the CPU's heat shield. To lap a CPU you have to first get a real thirsty St. Bernard dog, then hold a wet CPU in front of his face and ....
Actually, lapping a CPU involves slowly and methodically sanding down the chip's heat spreader very gently until you get rid of the nickel plating; exposing the more desirable copper underneath. You use sandpapers of increasing fineness (320>600>800 and then finally 1000 grit) until the copper is as flat as possible...almost a mirror finish. WARNING: Don't do this unless you have the means to replace the chip and do not attempt it without proper instructions and the right materials! I won't go into great detail here on lapping...Google is your friend.
That said....the whole intent here is to get the heat spreader as flat as possible to increase the positive contact between the CPU and heatsink. Though it is hard to tell, the Intel CPUs are actually slightly concave. Takes a little sanding to get it flat. Took me about an hour and a half to get it flat and reflective. I could almost see myself in it...and that's pretty scary thought in and of itself.

CPU Before lapping:


CPU after lapping:



2. The CPU cooling solution I chose after much thought (read: "agonizing") was the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme....one of the best. When ordering from CrazyPC.com, I opted for the heatsink to be lapped. They did a great job and it was worth the extra cost because it saved me a couple of hours of sanding. I decided to equip the cooler with one of the most efficient and quiet fans in the business, the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F
120mm. Runs at 1600rpm and moves 63.7 cfm of air, yet is quiet as church mouse (and I have never heard a noisy church mouse). Running at 100% you still have to put your ear fairly close to it to hear anything.
Note:The Thermalright Ultra 120 HSF had one drawback...in the Antec 900 case, it's position on the mobo ran smack into the top corner of the side panel fan. Some people have reported they just removed the fan. the heck with that....I simply removed half of the corner of the fan and voila! the side panel fan is preserved....everything fit.

3. For cooling the the graphics cards I chose the Zalman VF900 blue LED VGA coolers. I had read excellent reviews about them (close to 700 good user reviews on Newegg alone) and decided to give them a shot. The stock cooler just didn't seem to hack it all that well and was extremely noisy at full speed. The Zalmans come with 8 ram heatsinks for the memory chips, but I had to buy an additional kit of 8 to cover the MOSFET chips on the right side (and use some copper sinks I already had). Note: For both the CPU and GPU I used Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound...no question here;there is no substitute. When the temp testing was done, the AC 5 had over 200 hours to "cure"; I left the system on 24/7 just for that purpose.

BFG 8600 GT Before:


Cool face, huh? That is of me when the store clerk rang up the total cost for all this stuff.

The BFG after installing the VF 900 cooler and the RAM sinks:

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3. For the case the choice was much simpler...just replace all the Antec LED 120mm fans (2 on front, 1 rear exhaust
and an additional inner fan) with the much more efficient and quieter Scythe SFF21F 120's. Yes, you lose the "bling" of the neato-keeno blue LEDs, but I have the inside all lit up with blue cathodes anyway...enough is enough. The inner case fan on this Antec case is located on the inside of the top hard drive cage. Along with the cage's front intake fan, it forms a wind tunnel straight to the graphics cards. I did not use this feature originally and just installed a couple of drives in there, but I figured it couldn't hurt....I was just too curious to see if it affected the GPU temps and/or the ambient case temps, so I removed the drives and lapped a Scythe fan on that puppy too. I took out a 150GB drive that I really wasn't using anyway, then moved the other two drives down to the lower drive cage with the primary drive. The upper drive cage cannot hold drives and have the extra fan attachment at the same time. I then connected the front fans and the graphic card fans to the front panel fan controller (CPU Scythe HSF fan is connected to the mobo; rear exhaust and side panel fans are powered directly...all at 100% rpm).

Front of case with the Antec fans in place:


AFTER...No more "bling", but a heck of a lot quieter and more efficient. It may look dark and spooky now, but there is nice and quiet cooling goodness in there...:



A note about these Scythe fans...The original Antec Blue LED 120: 2,600rpm, 34cfm, 30 decibels....Scythe SFF21 120mm: 1600rpm, 63.7 cfm, 28 decibels. You do the math as to which one is actually better for cooling. I still can't believe the Scythe's are actually as high as 28 decibels (some sites say it is no louder than 24db). Believe me...comparing the noise level of the original Antec fans against the new Scythe fans is like comparing a heavy metal rock band against the sound of a toothless man eating Jello....(Rest in peace, Grandpa).

What the interior looks like now with the changes:

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The Results...:

Before and after the modifications, all temps were monitored using Real Temp, RivaTuner Hardware Monitor and Everest while running Prime 95 (for the CPU) and with a video stress test from the Freestone Group for the graphics cards. Tests were taken at least three times to arrive at a fair average (actually they weren't that far off between all the temp monitor apps). Ambient temp of the room was between 21°C and 22°C (71 TO 72°F). The temperature in Greenland was....oh never mind.

CPU Temps (all temps are with the Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 to 3.2)
BEFORE--- Idle Temp: 45°C Load Temp: 72°C

AFTER---Idle Temp: 29°C Load Temp: 51°C
I also noticed that the chip cooled down far more rapidly with the lapped Ultra 120/CPU than did the non-lapped 9700 cooler and CPU.

GPU (graphics card) Temps
BEFORE--- Idle: 60°C with the fans at default speed (still noisy IMHO). Around 55°C with fans at a very noisy 100%. Load: 75°C to 80°C.
(Note that 60°C is considered "normal" idle temp for the 8800 GT)

AFTER--- Idle: 38°C Load: 55°C The load temp is now 5° cooler than what is considered the normal idle speed of these cards! Coolness reigns....

Case Ambient Temp---
BEFORE--- RivaTuner reported a case ambient temp of around 28°C with the two front panel Antec fans running at a VERY noisy 100% (2,600rpm) and moving 34cfm of air. The stock coolers were running at 100%.

AFTER--- With the two Scythe front fans with the inner Scythe fan running at 100% (1,600 rpm), practically inaudible and moving 63.7 cfm of air, the case ambient temp remained the same (28°C), but maintained that temp with a LOT less noise. So the ambient case temps did NOT change, but the profit of the mofifications was less noise...and I'm sure it has helped to lower the CPU/GPU temps slightly also by injecting more cool air into the case.

So....you can see a vast difference with just a few hardware changes. I had a lot of fun with this and am very pleased with the results. It was kind of like working in an Arizona gravel pit in the middle of summer, then going into an air-conditioned theater and watching "Happy Feet"...and having an ice cold soda...with popcorn...yeah!...maybe some Skittles too...oh, definitely some butter on the popcorn, but light on the salt and....but I digress.

Comments, questions, critiques all welcome. Just be gentle...

[Train]

What the interior looks like now with the changes:
Has a bad link.

Good article, nicely done. Thanks!

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Yeah...for some odd reason the break is intermittent. Sometimes it woiks, sometimes it do not. All I can say is keep trying.

[Train]

Well it did take 5 tries. But it showed up. A lot nicer looking now.

Going to have to check in on those Scythe fans for sure.

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The Scythes are expensive...around $20 each, but well worth it. Lots of airflow there.

[SpywareDr]

Excellent job ... both the cooling revisions and the article.

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Thanks guys....and right when I finished this job, the second computer upstairs burns out. The mobo was old anyway....time for a rebuild I guess.

[Train]

480 works every time.