Eek! My XP 120 things it's a 'personal massager'

[JenniAMDCHP]

Ok..anyone who has experience with the XP -120 may know that the kit comes with two lines of silicon(?) that you lay atop of the heat sink before placing the 120 mm fan on top of it. This reduces vibration.

So when I installed my heatsink, I put the sticky-bar silicone lines on the heat sink before attaching the fan(panaflo) with the clips. Unfortunetely, I apparently had placed the lines in a bad location - not close enough to the edge of the heat sink I guess because the fan blades were hitting the silicone along the surface.

So I took a xacto knife and cut away all the silicone lines that ran across the heat sink where the fan could possibly touch it - I did this without lifting the fan - just poking through the fan (When it was off, of course) and cutting away what I thought would be excess silicone line..

I thought if I left just the bits on the corners, things would be fine. Apparently there was so little left on the corners - that the fan has pushed it into the sink, so it's not being a very effective vibration thing right now. It's vibrating to the point where the wooden desk that my computer is on is vibrating. I know vibration - especially of this magnitude - is not good for components. My question is - what should I do? I've contemplated just removing the little bits left on each corner and putting the fan right up against the heat sink, but that seems to me like it'd make more vibration then having little pieces that are left on each corner. The thing is, the pieces that are left are in crappy shape - either mostly pushed into the sink, or heck, I dunno.

I'm thinking I need to get some new anti-vibrating silicone/gel/whatever lines from somewhere..but I don't know what stores have it, or where to get it from (I'd hate to pay 5$ shipping just for two very tiny lines of silicon - I'd prefer a store..so if anyone knows - Frys, Radio Shack, ?)

Any help is appreciated. Feeling my desk vibrate is driving me bonkers.. =)
-Jen

 

[RalfHutter]

Assuming your fan's sitting squarely on the heatsink, it shouldn't be vibrating that much. I'd check out the fan itself to make sure it's not defective. Yes, they can normally vibrate a bit, but not enough to transfer the vibrations all the way into your desk!

If you're satisfied that your fan is OK, look for one of these Antec fan vibration gaskets. They sell them at CompUSSR and Fry's. You don't even need to use the entire gasket, just cut some strips off of it to use like the ones that come with the XP-120.

You could use just about anything rubbery between the fan and the heatsink. Rubber O-rings or faucet washers (from Home Depot) could be used for instance. Be creative, but check out your fan first, it shouldn't be vibrating that much.

 

[xbassman]

Go buy some 3m foam tape.
It is used for mounting pictures and stuff. You can buy iot at any hardware store or Wal-Mart for about 3 bucks.

Cut 4 small strips and put them on the corners of you fan between it and your heatsink.

 

[ApacheChief]

Youch, I just ordered my XP-120, I'll have to watch out for that.

 

[JenniAMDCHP]

No no - I'm 99% sure the fan is fine. See, the XP 120 mounts the fan atop the heat sink in a really weird way. I'm a fan of the 'screw in/washers/nuts' method myself - but the XP 120 has to long and thin wire bars that you pull up on 2 sides of the heat sink. They pull up and over, and the wires have a little bend on each end that locks into place into the hole opening of the fan where screws would traditionally go.

I guess this is nice in that all you need to do is unclip the wire bars to remove the fan rather then screw/unscrew - but I think it adds a little bit to the vibration problem. Screws can really hold a fan tightly up against a heatsink - and although the bars hold the fan tight enough against the sink to keep the fan from going anywhere(It won't), I don't think it combats vibration as much. I think this is why they include 2 small strips of anti-vibrating material - but yeah, I made the mistake of putting the anti-vibrate strips too far inwards, and the fan blades tapped against them so I had to remove all the strips along the middle. Well with the middle gone this allowed the powerful fan to push the tiny little bits of the bar left on each corner into the fan sink and or just generally made it less effective. I took the fan off last night and removed the teeny little pieces of what was left and then just tried putting the fan right up against the heat sink. It vibrates a lot less now - as in I can still feel a faint sensation on my desk but nothing like before.. (Keep in mind my case has about 5 fans, the power supply has 2 fans, the motherboard has 3 fans - including the XP 120's 120mm panaflo - the other 2 cool the DPS power supply mechanism and the chipset). So I think it was vibrating really bad because what I had left under the fan was actually worse then just having the fan against the heat sink.

Just remember to put the strips in a place where the fan blades won't be going over it - and you should be okay guys It's still a superb heat sink. I have my FX-53 overclocked to 2.6 Ghz and under full Seti load and other things like winamp, multiple firefox browsers, zmud, MIRC, - the temperature tops out at 56 celsius. That's pretty amazing in my book. I've been holding back on the urge to take the heat sink off and reapply the arctic 5 - Can anyone verify that under the above loads, considering the OC - that this is a pretty good job that I did, and don't need to redo the paste? Anyhoo. Thanks for the suggestions guys.
-Jen

 

[Arcanedeath]

It depends on what your ambiet temp is when you took that reading but that seems very good for an FX53 @ 2.6ghz assuming you ambiet temp. isn't really low.

 

[jkresh]

hard to say how good those temps are without knowing what other fans you have in your case. I am running an slk 949 with a 3200+ at 2.4ghz at 42C under prime load, but I do have 6 case fans including a 80mm delta with a fanbus and a 92mm delta also connected to the fanbus (at reltiavely low speed), so if you case doesnt have great airflow your temps are good, but if the case has solid airflow you might be able to do better.