Help! Sonata Case with all fans running at 58 degrees!

[spkack]

I have a Sonata Case with Gigabyte GA-7nnxp, Athlon 3000+ running at 2.1 Ghz, 1 GB RAM and silent boost HS. I've got 4 HDD's and two CD-RW installed as well. I'm running two 120mm case fans as wellas the PS fans and still can't seem to get the CPU to run any cooler than 55-58 degrees. I even used silver thermal grease to attempt to help. My internal case temps are around 40 degrees C and the ambient room temp is 75 degrees F.

Any ideas?

 

[xXgambitXx]

to me, the culprit seems to be that heatsink. i'm sure it's quiet but it doesn't move that much air. you just have to find a good distribution of noise to cooling.
maybe try out an adjustable fan and see what CFM you're comfortable with.

EDIT:
ok, maybe not. I just found this thread, and the second poster says they're running the same heatsink on a similar processor with much better results.

 

[mcveigh]

where are you mounting the 2nd 120 mm fan? I only have room for 1 in my sonata?

4Hdd's will cut down airflow and generate some heat. what are youusing to measure the temps?

 

[WobbleWobble]

I also have the Sonata and SilentBoost (running at half speed) running on my XP2500+ at 2.1GHz (1.775V) on an A7N8X-DX. I'm getting 43C CPU with 26C mobo.

I only have 1 HDD and 1 DVD-RW though.

Both my 120mm fans are on the Fan Only connector. Try leaving your case door open and see if it runs cooler.

Mcveigh, the 2nd placement for the other 120mm fan is behind the HDD racks closer to the middle of the case. Doesn't do much to cool the case in general but it's great for cooling the HDDs.

 

[PCHPlayer]

Run it for a while with the side off the case to see if better case cooling will help.

 

[spkack]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. The temps do come down with the side off the case, and I'm simply using the MB BIOS to indicate the temps. I usually run it with the front door off, so that doesn't appear to be an issue. Maybe this case just wasn't meant to have such a heavy load???

 

[tooltime]

i'm running 35 on average with only one each: ide HD, cd drive and floppy; ati 9800 pro, sound. one fan (stock). 3.2C, i gig kingston

are you using sata hd's?

 

[spkack]

Yes, I'm using 2 SATA's in a RAID 1 config.

 

[Sid59]

my cpu idle temps sit at 42C and System temps at 30C. My room is around 70F.

Inside my sonata i run
2500 Barton OC'ed to 2.2ghz
Radeon 9700 Pro
4x HDDs
2x Optical Drives.

not that the front 120 mm fan does anything, but i have one there. Both 120mm fans run off the FAN only line. Im sure my temps would drop a bit more if i let it run full blast.

 

[SilverBack]

I have an Antec SKL3700BQE which is basically the same case as the Sonata with the exception of the bezel. Mine runs really cool.
You do have your fans running the same way right? Air intake in the front and air blowing out from the rear?
I mean both fans blowing in won't work

 

[RalfHutter]

If you're running WinXP or 2000 your BIOS temps will be somewhat higher than your "in Windows" temps because Windows NT-based OSes issue a "hlt" command which idles the CPU when it's doing no work. It could easily run 5+°C cooler in Windows then when it's in the BIOS.

 

[spkack]

SilverBack - thanks for the suggestion, but I don have the front one pulling air in and the rear one blowing it out.

RalfHutter - I've checked the temps via the BIOS, and via EasyTune4 from WinXP right after booting and they are within 1-2 degrees of each other.

 

[EFinney]

Ok my room is at 75f and my cpu temp is at 41c . If you can try checking temps with the sata drives out of the case. Also you might try reseating your hs. I recently upgraded my hs on mine. I was running an alpha I had since the days of the celery 300A that I had on my bp6. I moved to the big bolt on Alpha.

I did notice a massive drop in temps from changing the hs. I reused the old hs and noticed that on same configuration, same proc speed same overclock and voltage i got much better temps on newer setup. Culprit was proper seating of the heatsink.

 

[Baronz]

40c is a bit high for case temp...make sure your airflow is good.

 

[DancingBear]

Check the temps of your individual drives using MBM. 4 HDD is a lot for the Sonata to handle. Keep in mind that all incoming air gets blown across those hard drives, so the air that you are blowing across the rest of the case has heated up significantly.

Also I would suspect that the 2 120mm fans doesn't help the problem. Try removing the front fan and see what happens to the temps.

You may also want to plug the rear fan into a non "fan only" plug so that it runs at full speed.

Or get a larger case with better ventilation. I can't imagine that the Sonata is all the quiet with all those drives. Working on quieting my system, I went down to a single hard drive in my Sonata. I keep a second drive installed, but not powered. I plug it in only to run backups.

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: DancingBear
Check the temps of your individual drives using MBM. 4 HDD is a lot for the Sonata to handle. Keep in mind that all incoming air gets blown across those hard drives, so the air that you are blowing across the rest of the case has heated up significantly.

Also I would suspect that the 2 120mm fans doesn't help the problem. Try removing the front fan and see what happens to the temps.

You may also want to plug the rear fan into a non "fan only" plug so that it runs at full speed.

Or get a larger case with better ventilation. I can't imagine that the Sonata is all the quiet with all those drives. Working on quieting my system, I went down to a single hard drive in my Sonata. I keep a second drive installed, but not powered. I plug it in only to run backups.

i agree with 4 hdds doesn't make the help the case temps ...

but having 4 hdds doesn't really add to the noise. I run 4 and it's barely audible. If all 4 drives were accessing and running something, then i'd agree.

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by: Sid59

Originally posted by: DancingBear Check the temps of your individual drives using MBM. 4 HDD is a lot for the Sonata to handle. Keep in mind that all incoming air gets blown across those hard drives, so the air that you are blowing across the rest of the case has heated up significantly. Also I would suspect that the 2 120mm fans doesn't help the problem. Try removing the front fan and see what happens to the temps. You may also want to plug the rear fan into a non "fan only" plug so that it runs at full speed. Or get a larger case with better ventilation. I can't imagine that the Sonata is all the quiet with all those drives. Working on quieting my system, I went down to a single hard drive in my Sonata. I keep a second drive installed, but not powered. I plug it in only to run backups.

i agree with 4 hdds doesn't make the help the case temps ... but having 4 hdds doesn't really add to the noise. I run 4 and it's barely audible. If all 4 drives were accessing and running something, then i'd agree.

Depends on the drives. I presumed that he was running some sort of RAID array with drives spinning away. In my case, my second drive is a 3 year old Maxtor. Not nearly as quite as my Seagate. Either way, that case is going to be either way too hot or way too loud with 4 harddrives.

 

[paperfist]

How did you get a second 120mm fan in and on the front of the case?!?!? My Sonata case has all the 3.5" drive bays in the front or did you mod it?

 

[wetech]

The front 120mm fan mounts to the back side of the HD rack. There are 4 holes used to mount the fan with the rubber plugs. It should, in theory, pull air from the outside over your HD's to cool them.