Cooling PD830 on a P5WD2 with x800gt???

I am having some heat issues with my motherboard. I am curious to know how some of you are keeping your systems cool? What case do you have are you using water cooling? My CPU temps are OK but I cannot get enough airflow into my case. There is a lot of heat around the video card too.
Here is the system:

P5WD2 Premium
Pentium D830-Zalman CNPS9500 LED CPU Cooler
Powercolor Radeon X800GT
Corsair DDR2-667 2X512
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6V300F0 300GB Serial ATA (3.0Gb/s) 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer
BenQ DVD+RW
Asus CDRW-DVD
Lian-Li PC6070 Plus II Case-Stock fans
Antec NeoPower 480
Maxtor DiamondMax 250GB SerialATA 7200rpm w/16m Buffer(Media Storage)
Samsung 215tw 21" widescreen monitor, Win-TV PVR500

I am not sure if I need to get another case or change the cooling system in the case? or am I just paranoid. Motherboard temps ramge from 39c-45c but it is usually around 41c-42c. CPU idle at 47c

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

thats a great cpu cooler and should be keeping the temps lower than that by a lot. If your case allows, put a fan in the front to suck in air and then have (again, if u can) one on the side and one big one (12mm) or whatever u can put on the back. If its been a while since u built this, shoot off all the heat sinks and fans, if they need it, with a can of compressed air. That should help.

Im running a Bigwater SE for my proc and although people say its not that great, it keeps temps on my 3.7ghz prescott (orig. 3.0ghz) idle around 35-36 and under load 39-40. There is another radiator you can add to it in the drive bays but i dont need it until i get a GPU water block. If you decide to go water cooling, make sure it can handle your gpu also cause u dont want it burning up once u get the proc squared away.

 

My case has 2 80s in the front 1 80on the rear and a 120 exhaust. The case has sound deadening material on the inside.
here is a link to the case. Check out the airflow design. The duct will not fit over tha Zalman9500

http://lian-li.com/Product/Chassis/Middle_Tower/Classical_Silent/M_C_S_PC-6070plus_2.htm

 

Well if the duct is in the way, did u take it off? It could be killing your CPU airflow. Lian Li cases are known for their great airflow so it should be great once we get it figured out

 

The duct is off. I tried it with it on and off. I will try to remount the cpu fan when I get home tonight. what direction should the fan on the cpu blow? Do you think that the thermal past that came with the fan would be any better than AriticSilver?

 

if anything it would be worse.

Im not sure which way the cpu fan SHOULD be blowing but it seems logical to have it blowing towards the back of the case.

 

Okay lets clarify some things for you:

The Lian-Li case you have is designed to minimise noise pollution and to do this it has an unusal thermal design flow path. Most cases will treat the PSU as well as the rear fan as extraction and the side fan as inlet. Your case as you have shown uses the rear fan as Inlet with a funnel onto the CPU fan (which blows onto the CPU to distribute heat quickly dissipating the heat):

http://lian-li.com/Product/Chassis/Middle_Tower/Classical_Silent/M_C_S_PC-6070plus_2.htm

The Zalman CNPS9500 is a side mounted Heatsink which is designed to blow heat onto the exhaust and fin array and directs the heat to the rear exhaust fan (yours is an inlet):

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=514&page=3

Therefore if you have not switched the rear fan around (from inlet to exhaust) you have the rear fan blowing in air straight into the exhaust flow of the heatsink. Basically you are creating a thermal "backwash", two fans blowing directly onto each other, within your case and things will heat up (system environment affecting the mobo xxC).

Suggestions:

Flip the rear fan around to extract air, if you flip the Heatsink around (so fan is towards the rear of the case imo this will only heat the case up).

Another thing you could do if you have room in the 5.5" Drive bay is add a fan here and create a "straight through flow path" like that used in BTX cases. This mod shaved 4-5C of my CPU temps

 

I have the Zalman facing the front of the case so the airflow goes with the intake from the rear. I had the system setup the other way too (2 degrees cooler). I had to take out one of the front bezels to let some more air in the front of the case. This defeats the purpose of having a case with a dront door and lets a lot of dust into the case. If I closed the front door or put the bezel back in temps rose to 44c so I switched back to airflow in. I have tried to get another fan inside but there is no room.

 

It sounds like you've explored the options. When you removed the front bezel was the flow towards the front or the rear of the system? It defeats the purpose of the door and acoustic sheilding I know, but you could flow from the rear and remove the front bezels and let it extract from the front possibly mounting a fan in there? The only other option I can think off is to get H20.

 

I have thought of H2O but I don't know anything about it. If I went with H2O I would want to cool everything and go silent. When I had the bezel out the airflow was to the rear. There are 2 80mm fans in the front of the case that pull air from under the front.

 

Problem solved. Thanks Bold Eagle, I was able to get an 80mm fan in the drive bays and that fixed it. 36c idle and 39c under load. If I crack open one of the bezels I can get even lower but I don''t need the dust. Zip Ties to the rescue!

 

Now I am thinking of going to water cooling. I took my exhaust fan off and reversed it to blow on the video card as an experiment. My video was freezing up in 3Dmark 05 with my case sides on. I took them off and redirected the exhaust onto the video card and I was able to overclok the video card and increased my 3DMark 05 score from 4066 to 4178. When I put the system back together with the fan in the proper direction and sides back on I could no longer overclock the card because it heats up to much. I did bu the Zalman VF700-AIcu fan but I ahve not installed it yet.
My case doe not have alot of room for the kit so I would more than likely have to use an external system. I want to cool the entire system. I ahve already read the DIY section about water cooling. Unless someome has a list of all the parts I need and has tested the setup, I would want to get a complete kit.

I am looking for recommendations base on your on experiences. Thanks!!

Kits or shopping list.

 

That GPU cooler looks nice what I do is if I aren't using PCI cards I have removed a couple of the rear PCI panels and I can feel air coming out from my GPU fan, but you do have your exhaust on the rhs. You could try turning that around and opening any rear PCI slot panels and see if that exhausts especially once you put that new cooler on.

H20 non the wiser but here are some links from good technical sites and hope this helps provide info:

http://www.tomshardware.com/search/...rdware&ca=all&ty=all&ed=all&so=da&ro=10&hi=on

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=articles#11

Toms has a DIY and MAD's you might have to scroll down the page, but here are the seriously hardcore guys:

http://www.vr-zone.com/index.php?t=22

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/16watercooling.html

You should become enpowered from these sites.

There are people who try to unlock those pipes on your x800gt you know:

http://www.techpowerup.com/

Enter x800gt into their search field and see what you find.

 

My X800GT does have the R480 chip amd 1.6ns mem. My only fear is flashing the bios and it not working. I do not have a second video card to correct the problem if it fails. So far all I have found is that you can update the bios but I have not been able to find info on getting the pipes unlocked. I have downloaded the changed bios and winflash too. I have not found clear instructions for flahing in windows either so I have not flashed the card yet.
I tried to reverse the exhaust fan to intake but there is not enough exhaust from the psu and the 80mm fan on the rear.
I will check out the links. Thanks!!

 

By the way your spot on to be concerned about the dust the above pic I posted worked really well for about 2 weeks but then in gaming for a few days the CPU was hitting upto 73C. I pulled the system down and found the top of the heatsink was choked with dust and signifcantly impaired. Removed that front fan and closed up the front, cut up some thin sock material and lined both of my side inlets and now are hitting 62-63C while gaming but it cools really quickly once I stop. NO MORE DUST for me.

Have started with my new system build, PC1 below and that CNPS9500 looks so sexy I cant wait till the rest of my parts arrive.

Will have at least 2 120mm fans but may consider a 3rd my front panel is highly perforated and lined with foam, excellent inflow potential and well filtered but sill depend on noise.

 

I agree with the cautious approach I would certainly think twice because once it's down and you can't get the old BIOS back if you need you can kiss any warranty good-bye. That site does have good directions (can't find it at the moment) for doing this sort of thing and you should always save you old BIOS while you are doing it. I would be doing it before the OS in DOS myself but make sure you have sorted in your head before undertaking it.

 

I keep the front closed most of the time. Even with the front closed my temps are still lower than before. Just the extra airflow in the case seems to make a big difference. For the most part my temps are ok but I want to get the noise down a little. Video card fan is the loudest followed by the 9500 at full speed. When the weather cools down here in Texas my heat problems should be gone.

 

I have the old bios saved and I also downloaded the origianl ati file and the tweaked bios. I am just no ready to flas yet. Has anyone been successful? If so please post the method you used. I would try to do it in dos if I could find clear instructions. I have both Atiflash and Winflash too but I have never used them. Is it the same as flashing your mobo bios. I ahve done this in windows for my mobo serveral times with no problems.