New Heatsink or New Case?

Hello, I'm having some heat issues, and need some advice on what to do next.

First of all, some relevant system specs:

Asus A7N8X-E MB
AMD Athlon XP 2400 +
Antec 480 True Blue PS (2 fans)
ATI Radeon 9600 256mb DDR Video Card (fanless heatsink)

The CPU has a generic 60 mm fan/heatsink combo that came installed when purchased from Aberdeen, Inc.
The case is a generic full tower ATX, with one chassis fan in the front, and the two fans in the power supply.

Also contributing to heat are a 250 GB HD, a CD-R/RW, and a DVD R/RW.

This is the first spring I've had all these components together in the case. Over the winter, I had no problems. However, several things have been occurring recently:

1. ASUSprobe (the monitoring program that came with the MB) has started reading 0 RPM for the power fan. However, I checked the power supply fans and they are working fine, and I even replaced the power supply. I double-checked the connector and it is firmly attached to the pins for the power fan on the MB.
2. Upon boot, the voice on the ASUS motherboard tells me "CPU fan failed," yet the CPU fan is running -- although I think it is running at less RPMs than normal.
3. The ambient room temperature, with warmer outside air and 3 computers in the room has increased several degrees (I would approximate 75 F)
4. The CPU temperature has begun to near 80 F, at which point the alarm sounds and I've been turning the system off (or it's been shutting itself down).

I've been reading about my options, and I am not particularly interested in modding the case or implementing a water-cooling system. However, I am currently contemplating getting a new heatsink+fan unit, and/or getting a new case.

The case I am looking at is the Thermaltake Kandalf.

I'm not sure which heatsink/fan I'd purchase yet, but I was considering the Thermaltake Silentcat if I went with just a fan + 60mm adaptor, and possibly one of the Volcano line if I went with a heatsink + fan.

So I'm trying to decide if I want a new case, a new fan + 60mm adaptor, a new heatsink + fan, or some combination of the above.

My questions are:

1. Which option do you think would yield the most results given the warm ambient room temperature and the other components?
I'm concerned that the ambient air, at 75 F, will be so warm that a new case will not do much to assist with the cooling. Yet the airflow setup of the Kandalf seems very appealing, especially if I continue to add drives, and given the fanless heatsink on the ATI card.

2. Are 80mm or 90mm fans on a 60mm adaptor really effective? I read a couple of posts in other forums where it was indicated that a 60mm adaptor produced a significant reduction in efficiency for a larger fan -- so much so that one might be better off simply getting a higher end 60mm fan.

3. Is there a good walkthrough for replacing a heatsink that I've overlooked? I found scattered discussions about the process, and the links to the Arctic Silver pages, but I'm not clear on whether I'd need anything besides the cleaner, the arctic silver 5, and an applicator (plastic gloves to prevent fingerprints? is a silver thermal compound best, or when would one use an epoxy or something like AS's Ceramique?)

4. Any ideas on why the power fan might not be registering in ASUSprobe?

Thanks for your help,

Todd

 

Well, that's what I get for trying to remember the temps from memory. Let me change my numbers.

Actually, now that I look, the CPU temp is a stable 32 C / 89 F. It's the motherboard that slowly rises towards 80 C / 176 F. Going to try the new case and see what happens.

 

First of all if you go to the Cooling and modding section (the section you have posted in) and on the first page you will see a post "How to tidy up cables??+how to duct" You will see pictures that I have posted of my A/V editing system. I was having heating issues and ended up buying a Thermaltake Shark, this was a tight squeeze for my server board and had to be modified a bit but is an AWESOME case! I also purchased ALL copper heatsinks, the biggest I could put on my board by Thermaltake as well. After spending countless hours figuring out how to TOTALLY rid my case of wires and have the best airflow as possible, it paid off. The case, new heatsinks and taking the time to rid the case of wires dropped the temps by 30 degrees!
I am only running the original case fans one 120mm in the front and one in the rear.
I am in the process of building my son a gaming computer. I started it off by buying a Thermaltake Tsunami and it's AWESOME as well. You can see it under the same post I mentioned above with all the modifications I have made to rid the case of the wiring ( It may be posted under spawndemon0..my sons logon ID). It also has two 120mm fans, I bought a Thermaltake 480 PSU that has fan controls 1 controls the fan of the PSU and the other I am modifying to blow out the top, removing the firewireport, earphone jack etc.
I also bought the biggest all copper heatsink for the CPU and I am replacing the stock chipset cooler with an all copper fan heatsink for better cooling.
There are times when I am working hours upon hours editing, compositing, rendering or even modeling and just like gaming computers it is very important that the system stay cool.
I believe from my experience that the case, the all copper heatsinks combined with taking the time to properly hide those pesky wires will drop your temps! I hope this has helped you out. If you get a chance go to the post I mentioned this will give you a better idea...a picture is worth a thousand words!

 

By the way, I will be building another computer A/V editing soon and the Kandalf is going to be my next case. I don't believe you can go wrong with this case!

 

Zephaus, you say

I find it difficult to believe that your mobo's temp is higher than the cpu. I would firstly check these temps in your Bios. May well be that the software monitoring prog is faulty. The mobo's sensor could be poorly situated but 80C seems high nevertheless.

As regards

I have a Thermaltake SilentBoost and the fan spins at about 2600rpms which sometimes creates the same problem at boot. A mod at another forum gave me this reply....>>at low RPM (2500 or lower) is a fairly common occurence on a lot of boards, not just MSI. It is caused by the fact that the amplitude of the speed sensor signal drops off with rpm, as does the frequency of the signal. Some fans have a bit stronger signal output and thus the reading doesn't quit until the speed is lower. Not much you can do except try different<<

Generally speaking if your cpu idle temp is 40C & load 50C then you have very sound and efficient cooling system.

Good Luck