OT: Cooling

diverG wrote on 9/13/2011, 11:02 AM

Just being playing with the 'rendertest' and realise 20 minutes is a tad too long.
Have concluded that at present the i7-2600K is probabley the way forward. If I need to keep costs down cannibalising my existing is a must, hence a home build.
Out of interest do you use the cooling system that comes with the CPU?
Have done so in the past but the cooling is just about adequate as long as the heat sink fins and the fan are cleared of dust every few years.
If not what is recommended. In the UK so newegg is not an option.

Geoff

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/13/2011, 2:06 PM

Every few years? Mine get cleaned out every 3 or 4 months.

john_dennis wrote on 9/13/2011, 5:21 PM

Intel warrants their retail processors to run reliably with the heatsink-fan combination they ship in the box. In fact, if the processor ever fails the Intel heatsink-fan is required to get a replacement processor. This all assumes that you do not over-clock. In the case of the i7-2600K, overclocking is sanctioned by Intel according to their scheme.

In some hostile environments or for extreme over-clocking, some choose different cooling options, but I use the stock fan and blow it out ever so often.

This dissertation comes from someone who spent his prime working on water-cooled mainframes.

diverG wrote on 9/14/2011, 6:29 AM

Thanks John.
I’ll take your advice. Room temp rarely gets above 25degC and I’ll be working with full Intel kit..

The reason I raised the query is that my current core2 duo runs around 54degC and rises to close on 80degC after an hour’s rendering. (monitored by Core Temp). Cleaning only drops the max temp down about 5deg. Tj Max: 85degC. I’ve had odd rendering problems over the last 8 years but have always tracked the problems back to the odd dodgy event/clip.

I’m giving 15 years away to young Grazie so this could well be my last new pc.
Once again thanks

amendegw wrote on 9/14/2011, 6:36 AM

[chuckle]
...Jerry

JJKizak wrote on 9/14/2011, 7:14 AM

If you get it too cool (Boise-Einstien Concentrate) (spelling?) your processor will actually slow down to a crawl.
JJK

ReneH wrote on 9/14/2011, 9:10 AM

I changed from conventional to water cooling. It has made a difference in terms of heat and fan noise. The water cooling systems are better designed and easier to install these days, so may want to look into water cooling and consider it as an option.

farss wrote on 9/14/2011, 9:17 AM

Actually you don't need to get anything like that cold to stop a semiconductor. I spent a couple of chilling days working in a large freezer to qualify our systems at -20degC.
Generally self heating stops the actual semiconductors from getting cold enough to stop conducting but our gear had to be able to restart from cold after 12 hours at -20degC. It all passed and I nearly did too.

For the OP, there's some pretty simple water cooling options from Corsair I think that aren't expensive and don't require any mainainace as they're sealed. These move the heat to the rear of the case so the fan on the small radiator blows the heat directly outside the case.

For anyone with dust problems the Antec 1200 or better still the DF-85 cases seem to be designed with you in mind. The innards of my 1200 is very clean thanks to the three filtered fans. The DF-85 has the plus that the filters are much easier to get out to clean.

Bob.

bakerja wrote on 9/14/2011, 11:23 AM

I went with a Zalman CPU cooler (not liquid) and a Nexus quiet power supply. Made my quad core whisper quiet and cool as a cucumber. Overclocking an asus motherboard to 3ghz for about 1.5 years now with no issues at all. Here's a good site to see what is available for your system.

http://www.endpcnoise.com

jab

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/14/2011, 12:23 PM

I've got a stock cooler on my AMD Phenom. The noise isn't much, in fact I hear the case fan more. with the ambient background noise (dehumidifer, people talking, cars, animals, etc) it's barely noticeable.

Just make sure it's mounted in correctly. I didn't when I first got my Phenom & thought Vegas was overheating my system. Ends up it was an unclipped heatsink. :D

Rob Franks wrote on 9/15/2011, 1:19 AM

"Generally self heating stops the actual semiconductors from getting cold enough to stop conducting but our gear had to be able to restart from cold after 12 hours at -20degC. It all passed and I nearly did too."

It depends on the temp rating of the semiconductor. I live where it gets down to -40c (-40f) in the Winter, and that's not including windchill. The on-board car computers work fine without issue. Self heating is not even an issue since a car will sit outside for hours on end off and not running. It's things like batteries, LCD displays... etc that have trouble in the cold. Batteries lose at least half their energy it that kind of cold and LCD displays are SLLLLLOW. It's kind of funny when you first turn the car stereo on... at least until it warms up. There's absolutely no bass at all. The woofers are completely frozen and it takes a while for them to loosen up.

As far as cameras go... the electronics works fine. It's the mechanical items that start to suffer. Your focus and zoom systems become noticeably slower in response time and hard drives shut down long before -40. Switches and dials also become quite stiff and brittle so if you're not careful they can break off without too much effort

farss wrote on 9/15/2011, 2:18 AM

"Switches and dials also become quite stiff and brittle so if you're not careful they can break off without too much effort "

Indeed, this was the first thing I noticed working at -20, our extension leads went rigid and probably would have snapped if pushed hard.

I don't know at what point a semiconductor will actually stop working. I've certainly been able to stop them from working by spraying them with Freon. How cold they actually got I have no clue and they always recover once warmed up.
We ran the tests because some of the ICs were only spec'ed to 0deg, if we wanted them spec'ed to -20 we had to buy the mil spec ones at considerable cost. We figured in reality the commercial spec'ed ones were no different internally to the mil spec ones and would work just fine even from a cold start at -20 and our test proved this to everyone's satisfaction.

Bob.