CM 690 - AM3 955 Build

[ayah]

That's... a lot of holes.. What's your load temps on CPU/GPU look like?

[Surfer_2099]

Originally Posted by ayah

That's... a lot of holes.. What's your load temps on CPU/GPU look like?

DirectCanada shipped my Win7 a few hours ago, so that means it will be here by the time I get home tomorrow after work! Yay for Direct Canada!

As I said above, it's just running Ubuntu 9 atm, and while I love Linux as a backup OS and for just basic computing, I was not in the mood to load up the different packets required and then parse a bunch of text files created by the Terminal console to get CPU/GPU temps. I will wait until I have Windows installed. The tools are just better.

Originally Posted by enaberif

Oh man that pooooooooor 690 had no idea or chance.

And your airflow is all wrong.

Yeah... she didn't know what hit her, but I wonder about your airflow recomendation. Fans can be turned around quite easily if someone offers me a better flow chart.

I went with the "Heat Rises" approach to things, although the one fan that I was always up in the air about (Ron McLean worthy pun) was the upper side panel fan. As well, I was not a huge fan (another pun) of the H50's airflow config at first, but it does cool the CPU quite a few degrees cooler drawing fresh air across the rad and into the case over pulling warm air out of the case. I know that from trying both directions on the rad and and the upper side panel fan and just looking at the CPU temp in the Bios.

And to be frank, the web statements I read about the Corsair H50 stock config increasing case temps were greatly overstated IMO. However, I am always open to suggestions.

got to give the man credit for been creative ;)

you harddrive might run a little warm with that air flow.

Thanks for that. As for the Hard Drive, a lot of the air from the font intake fan gets dissipated by the Drive Cage so it does get cooled a bit, but I agree and if I do find the hard drive is running a bit warm, I just have to pull it down a few slots to the middle of the tray directly into the airflow of that lower front fan.

Any other comments or suggestions are welcome!
Bedtime_Canuck :)

[SugarJ]

The only fan I'd try reversing is the upper panel fan. If it affects your MB or CPU temps, I'd make it an intake rather than an exhaust. But I'm a positive kind of guy. (positive pressure, that is)

[headsh0t]

Nice looking Mod man, good stuff. I've been wanting to mod my cm690 and have been thinking of ideas for a while now. Maybe this will actually motivate me to do it now.


Question though, was there a noticeable improvements in airflow after cutting out the mesh from the fan mounts? Did it have a big impact on noise/turbulence?

[miggs78]

Wow cool.. slick red color (my fav :D )..

Nice build..

[Silvgearx]

with 1 intake fan, and 3 exhaust. CM690 panels sides inter changed.

my HDD temp @ 33C, gpu loads @ 61C, Case temp always @ 32C-33C

as for cpu i got no clue since it was a poor mans quad. (buy 2 get 2 free)

(last time i check was 54C on load)

[sswilson]

Airflow considerations aside... Thanks for posting this up. It's great to see folks going all out with their builds.

[Surfer_2099]

Originally Posted by headsh0t

Question though, was there a noticeable improvements in airflow after cutting out the mesh from the fan mounts? Did it have a big impact on noise/turbulence?

For the PSU hole, the airflow is greatly improved because as you could see from the pic, before hand, the PSU and stamped hole did not line up properly due to the PSU fan's offset.

As for the other holes (top, side panel, back, bottom), I find that there has been a moderate airflow increase only.

As for noise, the difference is considerable. The stamped grills created a lot of noise (near whistling for the higher speed fans) compared to the wire grills I installed.

So for a few hours of work with some metal cutters, an MNPCTECH template (props to them), a DVD (they are 122mm fyi) and a jigsaw, a slight increase in overall airflow and a marked decrease in noise was well worth the effort.

As well, the extra fan in the 3.5 tray that I set up pulls a LOT of nice cool air into the case.

Sugaj wrote:

The only fan I'd try reversing is the upper panel fan. If it affects your MB or CPU temps, I'd make it an intake rather than an exhaust. But I'm a positive kind of guy. (positive pressure, that is)

Like I said above, THAT's the one fan I am still unsure of and once I get the Windows7 installed and my PC Tools set up, I am going to try both configurations and see which seems to yield the better results and the least noise.

Thanks for the comments and the suggestions, more is better so feel free to post.

Cheers!
Morning_Tea_Canuck :)

[Surfer_2099]

Double Post:
Installed Windows 7 64-bit without a single problem which is always nice. Someone above asked about temps, so here's a quick statement without pics atm. Currently, the system is stock CPU, RAM and GPU with the fans running as pictured on the first page.

CPU Idle - SpeedFan 4.39 reports 24C and CoreTemp 0.99.5 reports 24C as well
CPU Load - Running full instance of Prime95 64bit - SpeedFan reports 42.5C and CoreTemp reports 42C
(Everest Trial reported 23C for Idle and 42 for load as well)

GPU Idle - CCC reports 34C and GPU Caps v1.7.0 reports 32C *the CCC number is 6C lower than before I pulled the 5850 appart and applied the MX-2 Thermal Compound*
GPU Load - running GPU Caps Fur for 1 hour, CCC reports 77C and GPU Caps reports 76C *edit- fan is on auto and does not spin up above 33%*

Case Temp- SpeedFan reports 22C and Bios *after a quick reboot* reports 21C

So, those are my starting points for my potential overclocking efforts. I feel these numbers are really really quite nice and if the software tools are accurate, then I am in a good spot to start pushing the CPU and GPU to some better numbers.

Once I get a few more tools and software programmes installed, I will see where I can go and post up pics to validate my numbers.

Cheers!
OC_Weekend_Canuck :)

[Surfer_2099]

Just an FYI in case anyone is interested.

Initially, I had the upper fan in the side panel pulling air out, but I have since turned that fan around and am now pulling air into the case. It blows directly onto the resistors and the motherboard heatpipe. I have to conclude that it helps cool things down a bit because since I have turned that upper fan inwards, I have better stability at higher overclock settings.

Cheers!
Free_Updates_Canuck :)