snoepie Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 It's steamy hot weather in The Netherlands. Motherboard (Asus P4PE) temperature is almost 50 degrees celcius (Asus and Intel recommend a working temperature around 40 degrees). There are three fans inside: power, chassis and cpu (P4 3,0Ghz with "in a box"-fan). Is it possible to let the fans rotate faster? (at present 2700 rpm)? At startup the rotation is about 3300 rpm but soon after startup the speed goes down to 2700. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 There are quite a few aftermarket HSF's for the P4 chip.. you said "power, chassis, and CPU".. by that I'm assuming Power Supply, chipset fan, and CPU, in which case you should really have an additional fan underneath the power supply (usually 80mm), and possibly one in the front-bottom of the case. I'm an AMD person myself, so I don't know specific models, but I can tell you that the brands I have use are Coolermaster, ThermalTake, and PCToys. Also keep in mind that the AsusProbe software/hardware is notorious for reporting temps as higher than they actually are, so I bet you are actually running at about 45C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoepie Posted June 1, 2003 Author Share Posted June 1, 2003 Thnx Doctor but how to increase the actual speed of (one of) the fans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 If it is really hot today, it would be safer just to take the side panel off your computer until it cools down tomorrow. You don't want to risk killing a fan and then losing one of your components!By the way, welcome to the forum. It is always nice to see another female around here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Thnx Doctor but how to increase the actual speed of (one of) the fans?It might be better to install additional fans. The computer tower cases I am seeing lately all seem to have many fan locations. My tower has a chassis fan right behind the front panel, another mounted on the rear panel, and yet a 3rd fan mounted on the removable side panel. I think you would have more success adding more fans. My tower also has fans in the power supply and on top of the P4 CPU, of course. Another unit I built recently had a 6th fan on top of the 'Northbridge' IC next to the CPU, for a total of 6 fans!You may not be able to adjust the rotational speed of any of your fans- at least, not easily. They would either have a single speed (top speed) or they might use a temperature sensor to reduce speed when the inside air cools down. For more cooling (and more noise), temperature sensing fans could be replaced with fixed-speed fans that always run at maximum speed.Only 3 fans in a P4 machine sounds to me like not enough fans. If you have only 3 fans, I am surprised! Add 1-2 more fans. Also you can get better cooling from what you have by replacing the wide 'ribbon' cables for IDE 1&2 and your floppy drive with new, round profile cables. The round cables allow your fans to move more air- ribbon cables block some airflow very often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 If it is really hot today, it would be safer just to take the side panel off your computer until it cools down tomorrow. You don't want to risk killing a fan and then losing one of your components!By the way, welcome to the forum. It is always nice to see another female around here! Hi, teacher- That is what I would have thought as well. Take off the side panel to cool things down. I was surprised to read somewhere that it might actually _decrease_ cooling to leave the side panel off. Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? I think I might have seen this advice in the literature for a GigaByte MB in a system I built recently. I will try to find the reference. It is helpful to know that the tower cooling schemes have been pretty well thought out. Certain fans draw cooler air into the enclosure, other fans exhaust warmer air back outside. You can tell the airflow direction with most fans by just holding your hand over the fan area (carefully! watch for fans having _no_ finger guards). If adding more fans, it is very helpful to figure out what the designed airflow direction is inside. With the side panel off, any fan trying to move air through the tower must now push or pull some portion of the airflow outside the box. That means that the amount of air moving directly over and past the MB must be reduced. The inside of that closed tower is basically looking like a 'plenum' (air-handling chamber) that contains the combined (net) total air flow from all fans, both 'pullers' and 'pushers'. Remove the side and you no longer contain the air flow. Your plenum becomes the entire room you are in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 All great advice! Temporary measure only I think on taking off the side cover though.Adding such an inexpensive component as a fan, and not running the risk of one dying and you not knowing it right away, particularly on the CPU can be enough to cry over! I lost a CPU that way ... 450 Pentium III, I had no idea the fan on the CPU had stopped working till I was getting OS errors. By then the damage to the CPU was catastrophic and it took out some components on the motherboard when it crashed and burned.Just not worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 I have the ASUS P4PE motherboard too and if you go into the BIOS there is a setting in the Hardware configuration called Q-Fan. If this is enabled, the motherboard adjusts the fan's speed depending on the temperature of the CPU. Mainly this is to lower the fan's noise when the CPU isn't at a high temperature. To increase the fan RPM, disable this feature so that the fans spin at its rated speed, but you lose the quietness of the lower fan speed. If you don't want to do that you can also adjust the ratio for rotation speed/CPU temperature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoepie Posted June 1, 2003 Author Share Posted June 1, 2003 Thanks you all for the good advises. In the Netherlands realy hot weather is about 3 or 4 weeks a year. So extra fans (and a lot more noise) is not really an option considering the 49 weeks of bad weather.This afternoon I took off a side panel and placed a large tableventilator blowing air towards the motherboard. The MB-temperature dropped to 39 degrees (AsusProbe readings).Following Peachy's advise I changed the Q-fan-setting. I think my home-computer will survive the rest of this coming hot-week.Thnx you all and Julia thanks for the welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Glad to hear you were successful! Nothing worse than a computer that melted down! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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