Cooling your PC - Not worth the bother?

[Underemployed]

Dear all,

I've been browsing the various forums of the 'Case-Modding' community a lot recently. I want to do something outlandish with my rig.

My eyes are beginning to glaze over. There are so many possible cooling devices out there - thermo-electric peltier devices, water-cooling kits, huge fans, extra radiators, heat sinks for RAM chips...If it generates heat, someone out there is selling something to cool it.

BUT

I just wonder if any of it is worth the time, effort and money. A water-cooled setup would reduce noise and allow more overclocking, and is probably the way I will go. Yet half of what you read is similar to the hi-fi system rarified copper wiring voodoo crap you have debunked elsewhere in the forum.

On the plus side, there are regular reviews on the web where objective performance of processors, graphics cards and cooling setups can be found. Hard evidence in the form of recorded system temperatures, clock speeds, frames per second, can be found.

Yet none of this affects day-to-day computing. Vast amounts of money goes on new cards, coolers, memory and processors to squeeze out the last drop of performance. There is a dedicated band of PC enthusiasts whose only goal is to get high '3D Marks' on a benchmarking program whose relevance to real-world gaming is tenuous at best. Enthusiasts live or die by CPU temps and clock speeds. Yet the human eye can't really see frame speeds above 30/sec, which is already easily achievable by a mid-range system on all but the most demanding of games (and in-game details can be turned down to increase performance).

And does it really matter if your system runs hot? Will a CPU that runs at 70C go up in smoke before an identical one at 40C? Most CPU's are changed or upgraded inside three years.

Bottom line is, what should the skeptical viewpoint be on high-end cooling/components? Will a well-cooled system outlast a normal one?

Do the ends justify the means?

[teddygrahams]

The usual temperature range for consumer I.C. s is 0-70 degrees C ambient. So, 40 is better than 70. Industrial I.C.s are spec'd at -40 to 85 C, and military -40 to 125C.

Higher temperatures mean statistically more failures.

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by Underemployed
Dear all,

I've been browsing the various forums of the 'Case-Modding' community a lot recently. I want to do something outlandish with my rig.

My eyes are beginning to glaze over. There are so many possible cooling devices out there - thermo-electric peltier devices, water-cooling kits, huge fans, extra radiators, heat sinks for RAM chips...If it generates heat, someone out there is selling something to cool it.

BUT

I just wonder if any of it is worth the time, effort and money. A water-cooled setup would reduce noise and allow more overclocking, and is probably the way I will go. Yet half of what you read is similar to the hi-fi system rarified copper wiring voodoo crap you have debunked elsewhere in the forum.

On the plus side, there are regular reviews on the web where objective performance of processors, graphics cards and cooling setups can be found. Hard evidence in the form of recorded system temperatures, clock speeds, frames per second, can be found.

Yet none of this affects day-to-day computing. Vast amounts of money goes on new cards, coolers, memory and processors to squeeze out the last drop of performance. There is a dedicated band of PC enthusiasts whose only goal is to get high '3D Marks' on a benchmarking program whose relevance to real-world gaming is tenuous at best. Enthusiasts live or die by CPU temps and clock speeds. Yet the human eye can't really see frame speeds above 30/sec, which is already easily achievable by a mid-range system on all but the most demanding of games (and in-game details can be turned down to increase performance).

And does it really matter if your system runs hot? Will a CPU that runs at 70C go up in smoke before an identical one at 40C? Most CPU's are changed or upgraded inside three years.

Bottom line is, what should the skeptical viewpoint be on high-end cooling/components? Will a well-cooled system outlast a normal one?

Do the ends justify the means?




The only good reason to have so much cooling is if you are planning on Overclocking your PC, want slightly higher FPS in games, or you want a PC that lasts a good while before you have to replace it.

-Just My 2 Cents-

[Whomp]

Although the info is more difficult to find for Intel, Both AMD and Intel processors are rated to about 90C max temp.

However, it is fairly accepted knowledge in the high end PC community that anything continuously over 50C is pushing your luck, and anything over 60C for significant periods of time will shorten the life of the processor greatly.

The majority of stock processors with stock cooling will run between 35-45C.

High end cooling solutions are only worth it if you are overclocking.
Otherwise, processors are inexpensive enough that the cost of high end cooling doesn't make sense. You won't get enough extra life out of a cooler processor to offset the cost of the cooling.

That said, I feel that buying a heatsink with a decent C/W rating (moderately priced at $25- $30) will give you a decent return.

I overclock all my computers (AMD processors) and need the beefier cooling.

Some of the products out there are just silly. RAM heatsinks for example. Most high end RAM comes with them now, but it hasn't been proven that it helps in any way.

Downloading a program called Motherboard Monitor ( http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311 ) will let you see the current temps in your system, or it may be available in BIOS setup under "PC Health".

Whomp!

[Whomp]

Originally posted by Underemployed

snip
Yet the human eye can't really see frame speeds above 30/sec, which is already easily achievable by a mid-range system on all but the most demanding of games (and in-game details can be turned down to increase performance).
snip



The FPS thing got me to Googling. It brought up an interesting point because FPS is such a big deal in the gaming community.

I found this article:
http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

There is a common misconception in human thinking that our eyes can only interpret 30 Frames Per Second. This misconception dates back to the first human films ...
I found it a pretty informative read.

Whomp!

[Underemployed]

Thank you, Whomp!, for that article! An eye-opener if ever there was one (pauses for audience applause - is taken away by the Bad Pun Squad instead).

I sit through umpteen graphics tests a week on different systems and have never once spotted any difference once the frame rate gets above 40-60. It was the monitor's fault all along! I shall start saving for that HDTV and 9800 Pro now.

Thank you all for answering. It is certainly 'common knowledge' that CPU's don't like running warm, and they definitely shut themselves down if they get too hot. But have there been any long-term studies of the effects of running CPU's at or very near their top-rated temps? Much as I trust (and indeed rely on) the PC enthusiasts experience, I feel I need more than anecdotal evidence before shelling out a pile of cash for fancy tubing and a bilge pump.

...And yes I DO overclock my poor AMD2000 (and my graphics card....) and they DO run hot even with improved fans...grah. BUT IT'S ALL WORTH IT FOR THE 3DMARKS!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by Underemployed

Thank you all for answering. It is certainly 'common knowledge' that CPU's don't like running warm, and they definitely shut themselves down if they get too hot. But have there been any long-term studies of the effects of running CPU's at or very near their top-rated temps? Much as I trust (and indeed rely on) the PC enthusiasts experience, I feel I need more than anecdotal evidence before shelling out a pile of cash for fancy tubing and a bilge pump.

...And yes I DO overclock my poor AMD2000 (and my graphics card....) and they DO run hot even with improved fans...grah. BUT IT'S ALL WORTH IT FOR THE 3DMARKS!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!


Well, what type of graphics card do you have?

I have an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

It does look awesome graphics and FPS wise..

I do have to give this fair warning to you about ATI though...

Their stuff gets HOT FAST!!!

I had to get some Artic Silver stuff, and some heat sinks for the on board video ram.

If you don't get the proper cooling for an ATI card, it won't crash...

Although, you will get these ugly Red lines running up and down your screen after about 30 minutes worth of gaming...

-Just My 2 Cents-

[thrombus29]

Funny this came up,

Just today I sold the guts of my p42.26/512pc2700/Ati 8500pro128 to my boss's kid to put in a shuttle system so he can use it as a Pro-Tools rig for his room.

The Shuttle small form has this "Heat Pipe" thing that seems to cool better in a smaller space than a stock p4 cooler.

I am kind of nuts about the sound of my system because it is in my room and on 24 hrs, so when I ordered my stuff today I was looking for stuff to reduce noise/cooling volume needed.

[Underemployed]

From what I've read, water cooling is the way to go for noise reduction. It's not for the faint-hearted though.

((^-_-^)), I have a 9500 Pro which is overclocked thanks to a BIOS flash. It has a crystal orb cooler on the GPU and an overhead fan, so I'm not too worried about it but the CPU seldom dips below 50C with the case side off! (It's and AMD2000 overclocked to 1.75Ghz) And this is with a fairly beefy fan...maybe I should get some Arctic Silver goo, I just can't bring myself to spend £10 on 2g of silvery toothpaste.

OK enough techie stuff...plenty of forums dedicated to this stuff already...

Thanks to the JREF I now need to spend thousands on a new screen...thanks very much guys...and improved cooling...better graphics card...


(Edited for speeling)

[Whomp]

Originally posted by Underemployed
OK enough techie stuff...plenty of forums dedicated to this stuff already...
(Edited for speeling)

Fair enough. For thos interested the message forums over at ARSTechnica are probably the best info for stuff like this.

For what its worth, I have the same processor you do, and it's overclocked to 1.8GHz. I spent $50 on a decent heat sink and some Arctic Silver.

My CPU temps are 39C idle, 42-43C under load.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Whomp
[B]Although the info is more difficult to find for Intel, Both AMD and Intel processors are rated to about 90C max temp.

However, it is fairly accepted knowledge in the high end PC community that anything continuously over 50C is pushing your luck, and anything over 60C for significant periods of time will shorten the life of the processor greatly.



Mine's continuously over 50C and can reach a max of 61C when playing games. It shortens the life of processors? Ok, but 2 or 3 years after you've bought your processor it's going to cost next to nothing to replace anyway. I could fork out for another fan but I just reckon it wouldn't be worth it since I'll be getting a new comp in about 18months anyway. At the moment I have asus A7V333 mobo, XP1800 processor and MSI Ti4200 graphics card and 768mb of RAM. So prob about 12 to 18 months before I replace.

Mind you, hope I'll be able to play Half Life 2 ok. Put all eye candy on max setting with resolution of 1600 by 1200 for games like "Medal of Honor" and "Return to Castle Wolfenstein". But they're about 18 months old.

[thrombus29]

Another silly point:

If you have a Abit board, the temps are reported about 10 degrees too hot from the CPU probe.

[Trollbane]

I would think that the heat is not the entire issue with the processors shortened life span, but it has more to do with the change of temperature messing up the materials. If you could keep the processor at say around 60C constantly (Or any other temp that is well below or above any critical temperature) the processor wouldnt suffer as much as in the case where you have the idle processor at room temp and fire up the mega-blast compressor cooling kit to freeze the bugger and get large variation in the temperatures.

[ImpyTimpy]

Interesting..

I've got an Intel P4 3.0 HT on an Intel865 board with a Radeon 9800 Pro vid card. The CPU stays around 37/40 C when it's just running normal apps. When playing graphics intensive games it goes up to 50C. The graphics chip does get hot (it feels hot to touch but not burning hot after a very intense gaming session and a 5 min rest). Stock cooling on everything. The case currently has a 80mm fan at the front and it will have two exhaust fans in the back soon.

Runs very stable, hasn't crashed once so far. The problem at the moment is there is a lot of hot air build up inside the case (during heavy load games) which isn't getting extracted fast enough (currently only exhaust is power supply fan) but like I said it is stable. No weird lines, no crashes.

The only reason I'm getting more fans is for that piece of mind :)

[Soapy Sam]

Water cooled computers? Keep tropical fish in them?
OK- it's old fogies 'fess up time:- Who put a pint of milk on top of their Sinclair ZX80 to keep it cool?

Seriously, are the obvious dangers of running water through a computer not apt to outweigh any gain in cool quietness?

[ImpyTimpy]

Quick update. I've added two exhaust fans (60x25), one is hooked into the motherboard, the other works off the power supply(it's just in front of the CPU). The motherboard connected fan is just above the Radeon. Temperatures have dropped by about 4 degrees (CPU at 33/34 during normal, 47 during very intense gaming).

No performence difference but the CPU fan has become much quieter since it doesn't have to work as hard. So it seems over the top cooling solutions are not necessary (at least in my case they're not).

[Luke T.]

Some folks here know I have recently been having problems with my computer overheating. I finally went out and bought a new power supply yesterday.

I am leaving one side off my computer from now on. The power supply is only rated for 180 watts. That sucks. But the more powerful power supplies were too big to fit in the computer. I suppose I could have bought a higher rated one and just placed it next to the computer...

My computer is a Hewlett-Packard job. When I went to CompUSA, they told me a new HP form-fitted power supply would cost me $212. With trade-in.

:roll:

I laughed in the guy's face.

So I went to Frye electronics and bought a generic one of the exact same dimensions and specs for $25.

My computer sits in front of a westward facing window. That means toward the end of the day, it gets pretty warm in here. So I just leave the shades drawn. Soon, I will be moving the computer to our master bedroom as this room is going to become our shortly arriving baby's room.

[Reginald]

Originally posted by Trollbane
I would think that the heat is not the entire issue with the processors shortened life span, but it has more to do with the change of temperature messing up the materials. If you could keep the processor at say around 60C constantly (Or any other temp that is well below or above any critical temperature) the processor wouldnt suffer as much as in the case where you have the idle processor at room temp and fire up the mega-blast compressor cooling kit to freeze the bugger and get large variation in the temperatures.

As I understand it it's more often the flexing and relaxing of the motherboard with the heating and cooling cycles of the machine that result in many failures. If that be the case then stability of temp is the way to go.

[ImpyTimpy]

Sounds like your case is simply too small with too much components packed into it (typical HP). The problem with leaving the side open is you get a lot more dust on the in-take fans. Yes, short term it will cool the computer down since you get the airflow in there but long term - not a good thing.

I suggest you look at getting a larger case and migrating the components accross. More room to breathe = cooler computer.

I have a HP to do some work from home here as well. The thing overheated and the CPU fried. Took well over a month to get fixed. Don't go with brand name computers, not worth it. :)

Originally posted by Luke T.
Some folks here know I have recently been having problems with my computer overheating. I finally went out and bought a new power supply yesterday.

I am leaving one side off my computer from now on. The power supply is only rated for 180 watts. That sucks. But the more powerful power supplies were too big to fit in the computer. I suppose I could have bought a higher rated one and just placed it next to the computer...

My computer is a Hewlett-Packard job. When I went to CompUSA, they told me a new HP form-fitted power supply would cost me $212. With trade-in.

:roll:

I laughed in the guy's face.

So I went to Frye electronics and bought a generic one of the exact same dimensions and specs for $25.

My computer sits in front of a westward facing window. That means toward the end of the day, it gets pretty warm in here. So I just leave the shades drawn. Soon, I will be moving the computer to our master bedroom as this room is going to become our shortly arriving baby's room.

[clk]

Originally posted by ((^-_-^))



Well, what type of graphics card do you have?

I have an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

It does look awesome graphics and FPS wise..

I do have to give this fair warning to you about ATI though...

Their stuff gets HOT FAST!!!

I had to get some Artic Silver stuff, and some heat sinks for the on board video ram.


Sure....
Why don't you tell us about the time you overclocked a 2 Ghz P4 to 6 Ghz?? :rolleyes:

[ImpyTimpy]

Hmm... As posted by Chessman:

I do have to give this fair warning to you about ATI though...

Their stuff gets HOT FAST!!!

I had to get some Artic Silver stuff, and some heat sinks for the on board video ram.

If you don't get the proper cooling for an ATI card, it won't crash...

Although, you will get these ugly Red lines running up and down your screen after about 30 minutes worth of gaming...


You might be onto something there clk... Having to get extra cooling solutions just so the card runs?????? Like I said, I run a ATI Rad 9800 Pro stock cooling, no weird lines for me, very stable.

Maybe chessman's forgot to take his meds again...

Originally posted by clk


Sure....
Why don't you tell us about the time you overclocked a 2 Ghz P4 to 6 Ghz?? :rolleyes:

[Trollbane]

Originally posted by ImpyTimpy
Hmm... As posted by Chessman:

You might be onto something there clk... Having to get extra cooling solutions just so the card runs?????? Like I said, I run a ATI Rad 9800 Pro stock cooling, no weird lines for me, very stable.

Maybe chessman's forgot to take his meds again...



The early batch of R9700 Pros had some samples where the cooler was pretty badly connected to the GPU... So that might be a possibility.

[thrombus29]

My last card was a built by ATI 8500,128, and the fan on it started screaming 4 months after I bought it (fixed it with some lube in the hole under the sticker).

I just bought a Herculies 9800 cause of the better cooling, a little more expensive but Newegg had it for $30 off with the RAM I bought.

As for overclocking, right now I am running my 2.4c at a 1.4 cause I am waiting for the Abit 1c7-max3 mobo to come out and my present Motherboard only supports 400/533 FSB and you know you cant' touch that multiplier in a intel chip.

Runs nice and cool.

[a_unique_person]

It's a harmless hobby that keeps kids of the streets.

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by Trollbane


The early batch of R9700 Pros had some samples where the cooler was pretty badly connected to the GPU... So that might be a possibility.


My parents bought an OEM Radeon 9700 Pro.

NOT THE RETAIL VERSION!



I hate to say it but, OEM STOCK COOLING SUCKS! Major heating problems arised 1 hour after

All you get is a lousy f**king heatsink with a dinky fan on it that does not disipate jack squat!


I had to go out and my Memory heat sinks, Some Artic Silver, and a new fan/heat sink combo called the Thermatake Crystal Orb.

After all of that, all of the problems with corruption in the video output vanished.


Here is guide in case you have the same problem with your Radeon Card:


http://www.rage3d.com/radeon/cooling/

[richardm]

Originally posted by ((^-_-^))

http://www.rage3d.com/radeon/cooling/

That is surely an example of "Not worth the bother", though, isn't it?

The guy goes through a huge palaver of sanding down the surfaces of chips to ensure that they're perfectly flat, ("Make sure you stop sanding if you hit copper on the GPU" he adds, helpfully).

He carefully trims sticky pads, and polishes the bottom of his new copper heatsink ("Make sure it doesn't touch any nearby components!" - really, if you're this clueless then you shouldn't have the lid off in the first place, to my mind)

At the end of all this work, effort and expense, what improvement do we see over the basic product?

We have soared from 68.9 fps to a mighty 72.1 fps. Whoop-de-doo!

Remember: An overheated component is nature's way of giving you the justification you need to buy some new hardware!

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by richardm


That is surely an example of "Not worth the bother", though, isn't it?

The guy goes through a huge palaver of sanding down the surfaces of chips to ensure that they're perfectly flat, ("Make sure you stop sanding if you hit copper on the GPU" he adds, helpfully).

He carefully trims sticky pads, and polishes the bottom of his new copper heatsink ("Make sure it doesn't touch any nearby components!" - really, if you're this clueless then you shouldn't have the lid off in the first place, to my mind)

At the end of all this work, effort and expense, what improvement do we see over the basic product?

We have soared from 68.9 fps to a mighty 72.1 fps. Whoop-de-doo!

Remember: An overheated component is nature's way of giving you the justification you need to buy some new hardware!

Here is the deal though...

That is just only 1 tweak!

If you apply a whole lot of tweaks with more cooling etc etc.

You get an awesome system...

I have seen computers go up about 20 FPS or more with out overclocking a system.

40 or even more with Overclocking.

Overclocking is really stressful on any computer though, and it is not recommended for long term use, unless you have some type of water cooling system that can disipate that high heat constantly.

Anywho.

Just toy around with your system a little.

If you really don't want to shell out any extra cash for cooling, you could just go for software tweaks.

Evidence Eliminator (I am assuming most people have heard of this program by now) is a nice piece of tweaking software actually.

It defragments fast, and it thoroughy cleans up junk left in the registry and on the hard drive. AND NO, IT CAN NOT REALLY ELIMINATE EVIDENCE ON YOUR PC! :p

I have noticed after running 1 session of the program, on the highest cleaning mode, windows runs much faster, and I have a shorter load time between levels in games.

I also recommend, if you have windows xp, closing out explorer before you start a game.

Windows Explorer is a resource hog! You can generally get a good 6 FPS more if you close out windows explorer.

When you are done with the game, just type explorer.exe in the run box after you do ctrl+alt+delete

I also recommend this FREE tweaking program. I use it frequently!

http://www.xteq.com/

This company makes there own little program that tweaks your OS to the max.


You could do a hardware overclock in software via CPU FSB

www.podien.de

This is an FSB (Front Side Bus) overclocker.

If you are not careful, and you don't have enough cooling on your motherboard you'll fry it!!!!

[Response to blatant flame]

Oh, and my response to you clk and ImpyTimpy.

I admit that I was trolling when I joined this forum!

Fer christs sake, why do you drag this sh** out of the bin again, and again!

I have been lurking for the most part, except for my attempt to get Jedi Knight to bite onto two of my threads on Politics, Current Events, and History!

My response to your juvenille is butt out and pi** off if you are going to keep up this petty juvenille behavior...

I have been open on who I am, yet, I am really wondering why clk has dare not posted his name, or even a picture of himself...


[/Response to blatant flame]


Back to the topic.


I have just these words for you.

If you are satisfied with your PC's current performance I do not recommend any hardware tweaking. I do recommend software tweaking though, no matter how new the PC is.

You can always amp out a few extra FPS just by using the stuff I have mentioned above.

Truth be told, unless you are planning on gaming frequently, or trying to out do your friends PC's in 3dmarks, it really is not worth the bother, unless you want your PC to boot just a little faster!


Simple yet true!

-Just My 2 Cents-







(Note to self: Get back to work on Noam Chowsky!)

[ImpyTimpy]

Originally posted by ((^-_-^))

Here is the deal though...

That is just only 1 tweak!

If you apply a whole lot of tweaks with more cooling etc etc.

You get an awesome system...

I have seen computers go up about 20 FPS or more with out overclocking a system.

Cooling will not make your system faster. Also I wonder what "software" tweaks you applied to get an increase of 20FPS? Shut down unnecessary background processes? Disabled AA? Got a screwy driver that doesn't render properly?

Fastest way to increase system performance is to change memory timings.


40 or even more with Overclocking.

Ok, what are we talking about here? Details man, details.


Overclocking is really stressful on any computer though, and it is not recommended for long term use, unless you have some type of water cooling system that can disipate that high heat constantly.

?? That's a load of rubbish unless you're planning on doing very serious overclocking. Otherwise small overclocks won't push your system into melt-down.


Anywho.

Just toy around with your system a little.

If you really don't want to shell out any extra cash for cooling, you could just go for software tweaks.

Ok, why do you equate cooling with increase in performance? I honestly don't see any difference and I don't know who else does. Extra cooling is done for people who want to overclock their systems usually. It will not make your computer go faster (unless it's overheated and your Intel CPU is throttling back


Evidence Eliminator (I am assuming most people have heard of this program by now) is a nice piece of tweaking software actually.

It defragments fast, and it thoroughy cleans up junk left in the registry and on the hard drive. AND NO, IT CAN NOT REALLY ELIMINATE EVIDENCE ON YOUR PC! :p
I have noticed after running 1 session of the program, on the highest cleaning mode, windows runs much faster, and I have a shorter load time between levels in games.

Ok, defragmenting your drive will generally speed it up. That's why your levels are loading a little faster. You could've saved your money and just ran defrag that comes with your windows.


I also recommend, if you have windows xp, closing out explorer before you start a game.

Windows Explorer is a resource hog! You can generally get a good 6 FPS more if you close out windows explorer.

WTF? Are you talking about shutting the explorer process down, or are you running explorer window open in the background? Explorer process will restart itself if it's shutdown.


When you are done with the game, just type explorer.exe in the run box after you do ctrl+alt+delete

I also recommend this FREE tweaking program. I use it frequently!

http://www.xteq.com/

This company makes there own little program that tweaks your OS to the max.

You could do a hardware overclock in software via CPU FSB

www.podien.de

This is an FSB (Front Side Bus) overclocker.

If you are not careful, and you don't have enough cooling on your motherboard you'll fry it!!!!

[Response to blatant flame]

Oh, and my response to you clk and ImpyTimpy.

I admit that I was trolling when I joined this forum!

Fer christs sake, why do you drag this sh** out of the bin again, and again!

I have been lurking for the most part, except for my attempt to get Jedi Knight to bite onto two of my threads on Politics, Current Events, and History!

My response to your juvenille is butt out and pi** off if you are going to keep up this petty juvenille behavior...

I have been open on who I am, yet, I am really wondering why clk has dare not posted his name, or even a picture of himself...


[/Response to blatant flame]


Back to the topic.


I have just these words for you.

If you are satisfied with your PC's current performance I do not recommend any hardware tweaking. I do recommend software tweaking though, no matter how new the PC is.

You can always amp out a few extra FPS just by using the stuff I have mentioned above.

Truth be told, unless you are planning on gaming frequently, or trying to out do your friends PC's in 3dmarks, it really is not worth the bother, unless you want your PC to boot just a little faster!


Simple yet true!

-Just My 2 Cents-

(Note to self: Get back to work on Noam Chowsky!)

Hold on... Small increases in FPS (2/3 or even 4 frames) does not mean you've tweaked your system! If anything I'd say your "system" runs at the same speed as it did before.

Most software tweaks simply involve closing down unnecessary background programs to free up cpu/memory. You don't need elaborate software to do that for you. CTRL+ALT+DEL and do it yourself.

You don't need elaborate software to defragment your hard drive either!

Your first area of o/c should be the video card, then the FSB (if you feel the need). Altering the memory timings can also have a fairly good performance boost (no overclocking necessary!). You can also screw around with the video card driver and change the settings there. Disable AA and AF and you'll notice a good speed increase.

Thinking that some additional piece of software is magically making your processor and video card faster is plain moronic.

Once again, looks to me you've fallen for bu***hit or/and are intentionally spreading it.

[clk]

ImpyTimpy,
I hate to see you waste your time arguing with chessboy. Chessboy has never overclocked a computer in his life. He once claimed to have overclocked his GameBoy so that it ran Windows!

[De_Bunk]

I leave my PC on 24 / 7...it has not been switched off for nearly two years...(except when i had a trip to the County Big house)

But...In the height of summer...i place two fans infront of the tower....( Dont do it at the back...it blows the extracted heat back inside)...

If i don't... i have problems...

Its happened a lot to me...

DB

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by De_Bunk
I leave my PC on 24 / 7...it has not been switched off for nearly two years...(except when i had a trip to the County Big house)

But...In the height of summer...i place two fans infront of the tower....( Dont do it at the back...it blows the extracted heat back inside)...

If i don't... i have problems...

Its happened a lot to me...

DB



I see...

Actually....

De_bunk your cooling idea is really not that bad...

Hey, if it makes it so your CPU doesn't fry, it works. :)


Anywho, now that you mention it, it kind of reminds me of this little miracle created not to long ago...

Loud as he** yet, it cools the PC very efficiently.

Lots of places for lots of fans...

Or, you could just be lazy, and...

Take a side of your PC case of...

Cut out a circle large enough to fit a standard sized fan in the side of the case. Plugin the Fan.

Turn on the PC.

There you go, a nice and cheap cooling system. :D



http://www.sharkyextreme.com/img/2003/01/ex_guide/cm_case.jpg

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by clk
ImpyTimpy,
I hate to see you waste your time arguing with chessboy. Chessboy has never overclocked a computer in his life. He once claimed to have overclocked his GameBoy so that it ran Windows!



F*** YOU CLK!!!!

I NEVER CLAIMED THAT!

THAT WAS SOMETHING LeFevre SAID, AND WELL, It stuck and I never even claimed that I did that!

Find one post where I actually said that you fool!




:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[clk]

Originally posted by ((^-_-^))




F*** YOU CLK!!!!

I NEVER CLAIMED THAT!

THAT WAS SOMETHING LeFevre SAID, AND WELL, It stuck and I never even claimed that I did that!

Find one post where I actually said that you fool!




:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

You claimed it on PalTalk, not on the forum. I believe LeFevre, not you, because LeFevre is not a chronic liar. Even if you never said it, you once claimed to have overclocked a 2Ghz P4 to 6Ghz, which is almost as ridiculous as the GameBoy claim.

[Underemployed]

By amazing coincidence/synchronicity/divine internvention, I am shortly going to get one of those cases (Coolermaster ACTS 201-SX but without the show-off window panel).

Hopefully it will mean I can run my system with the case side on, as I currently have 3 case fans plus a special graphics card fan, an uprated cpu fan and of course a PSU fan. Without the side off my cpu temp never gets below 50C.

It's very noisy. I've built a system with one of those coolermaster cases and they are silent compared to my current setup.

As to your idea about the domestic fan stuck in the side of the case, it's been done and it is extremely unwieldy, as well as the risk of electrical interference having a main-powered device right next to your PC.

[thrombus29]

What worked for me was switching all the casefans that came with for Antec Stealth fans and then hooking them up to a fan controller. I turn them up under load, keep them down when idle.

Also the Enermax "Whisper" power supplys are super quiet.

Do you have a ABIT board? If you do 50C is the same as 40C in a other brand board.

[De_Bunk]

Ive overclocked my LCD watch....i can now communicate with the dead....

And i can tell you...they are not happy...


DB

[clk]

I overclocked my wall clock so it could run faster. Now I'm early to all of my meetings! :confused:

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by De_Bunk
Ive overclocked my LCD watch....i can now communicate with the dead....

And i can tell you...they are not happy...


DB


lol :roll:

De_bunk, enough with the Overclocking humor.

[Theodore Kurita]

Originally posted by clk
I overclocked my wall clock so it could run faster. Now I'm early to all of my meetings! :confused:


That joke is actually not so bad clk...

Try posting it on some tech forums and see what responses you get...