Core 2 Quad Cooling Question

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robertwj

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I run a MSI G41M P33 board and recently i was given a Q6600 Core 2 Quad. My old CPU was just a plain 2.8 Core 2 Duo.

Something i noticed was that the heat-sink for the Q6600 is larger than my old one and when its on it spins very loud.
I bought a after market cooling heatsink/fan and it still is quite loud.

I changed some settings in the BIOS under CPU Fan Smart Target. I set it to 70 degress and the min fan speed % is at 65%. It does sound softer now since the change.

My question is: Do Core 2 Quads fans just generally spin louder than regular dual cores and was the change i made good? Will it throttle performance?
 
I did the same swap on my machine, but used the same old cooler as I had on the core 2 duo. Fan idles at about 1000 rpm and temp at the moment is 28 c. Same as the old core 2 - nice and quiet. The fan speed should react to the cpu temp, so I'd be checking for proper contact, good thermal compound, etc, if I were you.
 
It looks like it is firmly on and i just applied some fresh thermal paste yesterday. I do not have any additional fans in my case. Would this make a difference?
 
robertwj said:
It looks like it is firmly on and i just applied some fresh thermal paste yesterday. I do not have any additional fans in my case. Would this make a difference?
Click to expand...

Well, look at what's changed: The cpu - no big difference. And the cooler. Try the old cooler, see if it's noisy (fan running fast) too. Then you'll know its the Quad getting hot when the core 2 duo wasn't. Work it out from there.

Edit: Try leaving the Bios fan settings on auto. Those settings you mention might be preventing the fan ramping down to idle speed. ("Min fan speed % at 65%") .
 
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Those DeepCool heatsinks are extremely cheap, so don't expect too much from them.

Since you're complaining about the noise, why don't you decrease the minimum fan speed to like 20-40%?

AFAIK the Smart Fan Target is the target temperature that the motherboard would try to maintain by altering the fan speed. If you have a solid cooler, then you should never reach that temperature on idle, even at the minimum fan speed.
 
Pada said:
Those DeepCool heatsinks are extremely cheap, so don't expect too much from them.

Since you're complaining about the noise, why don't you decrease the minimum fan speed to like 20-40%?

AFAIK the Smart Fan Target is the target temperature that the motherboard would try to maintain by altering the fan speed. If you have a solid cooler, then you should never reach that temperature on idle, even at the minimum fan speed.
Click to expand...

Does this decrease performance in any way?
 
robertwj said:
Does this decrease performance in any way?
Click to expand...
That has nothing to do with the CPU performance. The only way it can influence the performance if you've set the values in such a way that the fan stops spinning and then any activity on your CPU might let it overheat.

Adjusting the CPU Smart Fan Target and Minimum CPU Fan speed could have a big effect on the temperature that the CPU runs at as well as the amount of noise the heatsink's fan makes. Other than those 2 things, it should not have any other effect that I can think of.
 
If you want something really quiete look at the closed water loop cooling like the H50 or H70
 
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