The Cooling Project

[bistro]

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...