[mythtv-users] Overture case and heat

Scott Alfter mythtv at salfter.dyndns.org
Mon Jan 23 19:31:34 UTC 2006


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Urban Nightmare wrote:
> I got this case 
> (http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15728) a while back 
> and I've been dealing with the heat ever since.  I should also mention 
> that mine is old enough that it didn't have the side fan by the HD's and 
> no holes on top above the CPU.  I'm running a Gigabyte MB (IDE/IDE 
> raid/SATA raid), dual ddr, dual bios) with a Athlon 2500+ and 512Megs 
> ram.  Also in the case is a 6 gig root ide,  250 Gig /var/video, and 120 
> gig /var/video/media.  I've replaced the back fan with one that has 
> twice the air movement.  I've drilled a few holes above the CPU fan but 
> I just can't seem to keep the heat below 80C with the top on when 
> watching and recording at the same time (two capture cards).

I've had one of these for some time now and usually haven't had problems with
overheating.  Until recently, it was set up with an Athlon XP 3000+ with a
boxed-processor cooler, three hard drives, a couple of MPEG compressors, and
some other goodies.  It's running with the stock fan behind the hard drives and
has no extra ventilation over the processor.

I never checked temperatures, but the only parts that tended to overheat and
glitch were the MPEG compressors (especially the PVR-250), which have only
passive heatsinks and are out of the usual flow of air through the computer.
After experimenting with some replacement heatsink/fan combos on the cards, I
fixed the problem by adding an exhaust blower in the slot next to the PVR-250.

I've since upgraded to an Athlon 64 3700+, and the board it uses forces the two
cards over to the leftmost slots.  This leaves no room for the blower, and now
the PVR-250 is glitching again.  I thought I'd replace both cards (I also have
a PVR-350) with a PVR-500, but some quick experimentation Friday indicated that
it has some tuning problems (of the settings I tried, one tuner setting picked
up the lower-numbered channels, another picked up the higher-numbered channels,
and a third didn't work at all).  I had to put the old cards back in and get
the system running again to record Battlestar Galactica, and I've not yet had a
chance to try again with the PVR-500.

At first, the processor was running hot...not as much as in your system, but
100% load would reliably send the temperature into the low 60s.  If it hit 65,
some sensors on the motherboard would trip and sound an alarm.  I think I
might've gotten too thick a layer of thermal goo installed (I had used Arctic
Silver 5, which is fairly thick stuff), but I only learned of that when I had
to wrestle the boxed cooler off of the processor to replace it.  With one of
the Zalman "flower" coolers installed (the CNPS7700-AlCu, this time with Arctic
Alumina), the temperature only gets into the mid-to-upper 50s under full load.
 At idle, it's currently running about 35.

If your motherboard allows it, you might try one of the Zalman coolers.  They
cool better, and they're dead silent.  Mine runs at about 1100 rpm in normal
use.  The motherboard can kick it up to 2000 rpm if necessary, but the only
time I ever hear it speed up is for a couple of seconds before POST.  Even at
full speed, it's still very quiet.

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/            Top-posting!
 \_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden            >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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