I7 stock cooler Q's

I just built my third rig and got it up and running very smoothly with a little help from you guys. My only nag is that the stock cooler is pretty freakin' loud. I'm not super excited about OCing yet but I was thinking of investing the 40-80 bucks in a new CPU cooler just to quiet this thing down. What are my options? Can anyone find a measurement of the sound levels in the stock I7 so I have something to compare it with? I don't wanna spend the money to upgrade to something more powerful but louder. Thanks for your consideration.

 

are you certain that there's no wires or anything rubbing against the fins of the fan?

 

Yeah, quite certain. It sounds like the fans stuck at top speed even though my temps are in the 40-50c's even under moderate load. I tried "messing around" in BIOS but didn't have any luck getting the CPU fan adjusted.

 

what are the rpms for the fan? should be under the system health in the bios

 

Thanks guys, Halo nailed it I think. I'll check through my BIOS one more time to see if I can get it to chill the *bleep* out when I'm not doing heavy gaming. The spec sheet is exactly what I wanted to see the Dcb rating compared to some of the custom cpu fans I've already researched. Thanks much, I'll update this post with whatever I find.

 

Sorry, couldn't find the edit post button (does it exist here?)

Mobo is EVGA x58 1366

Idle temp is between 42-50 and I haven't hit more than 60c with intensive gaming. This is with my case fans all set to low. (they're mostly silent at that level, and only louder than the CPU if maxed)

my RPMS are reported as 900-905 for the CPU
and around 1500rpm for the Chassis and power.
Aux read 4700! I'm pretty sure I just plugged my case fans into the Chassis, Power, and Aux connections on the mobo but I can check if that is a factor.

Smartfan is set to >60c set fan 100%
<30c set fan 50%
for all fans. Unfortunately it won't let me bump the second number any higher than 30c which seems odd.

There is a "manual" option that I can use but I don't know what numbers would be good to start with. Anything look out of place yet? I'm not completely dense but I've done all my previous builds totally in the dark without outside help so maybe I lack some basic logic here Gonna go try a few more things in BIOS.

 

Edit:

I switched from smartfan to manual and set everything to 50% and I think it's running cooler AND slightly quieter. I'm gonna see what happens if I set everything to 25% Couple things I found in BIOS that I don't understand yet: Turbo mode, Dummy OC and "extreme cooling". I have all disabled at the moment, but maybe I should be using these features.

I can guess Dummy OC is a built in overclock, and I'm guessing Turbo mode is related to OC as well. Should I be using those if I don't have a problem with my temps right now? Extreme cooling has me wondering as there isn't any explanation for the two options under it. Sorry if I'm being too vague about things.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118045


get those two, install the, and your golden, its what i use for my core i7 and the thing is damn near silent and keeps everything cool around 50-57C under load. about 38-41C Idle.

 

it disappears after 30 minutes or so.