good and cheap silent cpu cooler for duo?

[reven]

can anyone recommend a good and cheap silent cpu cooler for a duo? (i need to get 2 of them).

i had good experience with the zalman CNPS9700LED (or similar models) but one in one of my boxes has gone all loud all of a sudden (well i swapped motherboards and now its decided to be loud), like the fan only wants to spin at full spin, if i unplug the fan the cpu doesnt get hot or anything - so its not working hardcore because of heat.

so looking for an alternative, preferably one with no fan, but that might be bit expensive..

TIA

[whurlston]

With it getting loud on a motherboard swap, it sounds like the bios settings are set to be "full on". What motherboard do you have?

[reven]

the motherboard is GA-EP31-DS3L (its a gigabyte), looked everywhere in the bios but didnt find anything that controlled the cpu fan speed that was editable.

[herbs]

There are devices that allow to adjust the fan physically called fan controllers (couple of £), or you can add a resister on the line of cable of your fan, I normally run mine at 7 volts as this seems a good compromise for me, just monitor the cpu temperature and change if it gets too hot.

[jam_zhou]

I use a ninja mini with my nsk2400, so my only fans are 2 huge case fans. My core duo is about 35 deg C.

Jam.z

[Anthony]

I use an ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...=ACFZ7-PRO).

I used it on my E6750 Duo, and am now running it on my Q9400 Quad. It usually runs between 500 and 1000rpm, and my processor usually idles in the low 30c range.

Of course, a lot of the fan noise comes from the power supply, so you should find a PSU with a 120mm or larger fan also.

Bigger fans = slower speeds = less noise

Also, newer hard drives are a lot quieter than old drives used to be. My Seagate drives are virtually silent.

My computer has a 120mm case fan, 120mm PSU fan, and a 98mm CPU fan. Unless the room is really quiet and I'm pushing the computer hard, I don't hear the fans at all.

Anthony

[gEd]

Well according to your manual,
http://download.gigabyte.ru/manual/mothe...ds3l_e.pdf

"The motherboard supports CPU fan speed control, which requires the use of a CPU fan with fan speed control design"

In BIOS under PC Health you need to check
CPU Smart FAN Control
Enables or disables the CPU fan speed control function. Enabled allows the CPU fan to run at different speed according to the CPU temperature. You can adjust the fan speed with EasyTune based on system requirements. If disabled, CPU fan runs at full speed. (Default: Enabled)

Have you tried installing easytune?

However, this may only work with a 4 pin fan and the 9700 only has a 3 pin fan.


Also, check out the dynamic energy saver.
http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherbo...uctID=2779

I use the equivalent on my ASUS P35 mobo and it seems to work well, throttling the cpu and voltage depending on load.

cheapest and easiest solution would be to use a Zalman fanmate 2 variable resistor. (didn;t the 9700 come with one?)

Passive (no fan) might be very tricky and would need a big expensive cooler such as the Thermalright ultra 120 extreme that I use in my games pc. This may also be too big to fit in a htpc.

CPU Coolers
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews.html?cat=...RodXNpYXN0

AFAIK, the best cheap cooler is the AC freezer 7 that Anthony referred to.

[liteswap]

Late to this (!) but I just installed a Scythe Ninja Mini on my AMD X2 4850e (45W) CPU. That's without a fan, in an Antec Fusion case.

It runs at 28-30 degrees C idling, up to 40 degrees when working reasonably hard. I've not seen peaks (very short ones at that) higher than 50 degrees. Sweet and silent.

[pcostanza]

It probably won't work for you but I just built a new system and got a CoolerMaster V8. It's HUGE! Very, very quiet and I can't get the CPU to go above 47 at all. Normal pc activity is 36 degrees C.
I think another key is cable management so that the case has good airflow. Keeps everything cooler.

[Pob]

Well according to your manual,
http://download.gigabyte.ru/manual/mothe...ds3l_e.pdf

"The motherboard supports CPU fan speed control, which requires the use of a CPU fan with fan speed control design"
.

Yes the four-pin PWM fans on motherboards that support them have been a revelation for me - I also use Arctic Cooling PWM CPU and case fans.
However I came across one motherboard that although supporting PWM 4-pin fans, still spun them much faster and noisier than my Gigabyte board - so I use Speedfan on that one;
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php
and it works a treat - though does need some work to setup.