Greg McCarroll wrote: > So, I went and got myself one of those shiny new Pee Cee thingys > recently *spits tobacoo*, its got a real nice AMD Athlon 1600+ > (1400Mhz) in it, and I've been assured by the nice man in the shop > (website) it will run Nethack nice and quickly ;-). > > Now at this point, some of you who are thinking "you bastard greg, > telling us about your shiny new toys", the next bit is for you ... > > However all is not well in the Dungeons of Doom[1], the machine is > basically unreliable as f*ck. Now this may well be down to running > Windows on it, but I feel that even Windows can last more than 15 > minutes at a time. > > After much card swapping, cursing, blood, beer and tears, I've came to > the conclusion its a heat problem. And so I've decided to go to the > forum of the great and the good to find out some answers, but then I > remembered nobody in NY.pm would be awake so I came here ... > > With a CPU burn-in util running its running at 52~55 degree's > celsius. Checking out the AMD site it says the maximum temperature for > the CPU is 90 degrees, i'm assuming here, they mean the temperature > the CPU will turn into a very expensive pile of ashes. So I ask you > lot, what is the max temperature to run it at? > > To back up my theory that it is heat problems i've just managed to get > it to play Q3A for a fairly long time without weird crashes, by using > a typically greg-ish approach[2], however this really is not a long > term solution so does anyone have any recommendations for box cooling > kit? I'd ideally like something that works through the 5.25 inch > drive bays. > > > Greg > > [1] Nethack reference. > [2] http://www.mccarroll.org.uk/~gem/photos/index.cgi?topic=cooling >
I had the same kind of problem until I added a few fans [1] to the computer case. It started to sound like a helicopter taking off so I got a shiny aluminum case. Aluminum cases tend to cool everything down by about 5-15c depending on airflow, but are fairly pricey. In my case I still had to apply some jigsaw hacking to fit some extra fans [2] to keep it at a stable temperature. In your case, I think bolting a couple of case fans on should do the trick. Ideally one sucking air in at the front bottom, and one blowing out under the PSU. Looking at the large picture of your case, it looks like you already have the vents and mounting holes for 6cm fans (like the one on your CPU). Case fans are a lot cheaper and more effective than the small fans you get in bay coolers. If you do get case fans, make sure you check out how loud they are first, avoid any fans with 'screamer' in the name :) Sam [1] http://www.yeungs.net/compics/ShowMeTheFans.jpg [2] http://www.yeungs.net/newcase_small.jpg
