Well, summer's approaching, and everyone with a water-cooled main rig is laughing at you poor people without. My problem is, I belong to both groups. Water-cooled monolith, and a rather warm Shuttle SP35P2. Which appears to be getting warmer. At stock, the Q6600 in there idles about 50. The 9600GT sitting alongside idles at near-ish 60, and that's with a fan boost from 35% to 45%. Internal fans are set to "Low Speed" in the BIOS, and anyone who's heard the fans on this thing will know that anything above that is fairly audible. I've reversed the standard heatsink fan config to the fans are intakes (which, according to all sources, works to reduce temps, and it did), however, I'm not happy that with warm weather cometh the chip-melting. So, is there anything I can do to get this bad-boy cooler? I'm more than happy to replace fans, but have no idea what to get - a 92mm and a 60mm, both capable of pushing a fair amount of air, fairly quietly (I know this is a fairly tall order, but someone must know! And just about anything's better than the standard Shuttle fans!) I also have the option to swap out the XFX 9600GT for a Powercolor Radeon 4830. Brand alliegance aside, my only concern is I'd have to use USB Wifi as opposed to an internal card, since there'd be no room with the dual-slot fan on the 4830. Would it make THAT much of a difference to Wifi speeds? They're both rated at 54Mb speeds, and since USB2 is 54MB, I assume it'll be OK. I'm quite happy to spend a little in regards to keeping the thing cooler. I will NOT be spending money for GPUs. That's NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT. Just so we're clear. I'd prefer the extra grunt of the 4830 and the HDMI audio, but the question revolves around performance of USB Wifi versus PCI Wifi. Is there any reason on the Earth why performance should be better or worse with one or the other? Thanks in advance, guys! Will
How about trying a flexible PCI riser, and getting a low profile wifi card (if yours isn't already), and drilling a hole for the antenna. IIRC, some guy on Sudhian (SFF enthusiast forums) managed to integrate a tiny wifi key into his case with an internal USB header, check out those forums for Shuttle stuff. The riser will be a bit pricey, but you just might be able to squeeze the card under the power supply. Also, I definitely recommend swapping out the fans for higher quality PWM ones, it saved me an earache. If you don't have anything in the external 3.5 bay, stick a controller in, I had to get Zalman Fanmates, ended up costing too much. Hope I helped!
The Wifi card only cost a few quid, and can quite happily go in another machine. I've already got a USB Wifi stick, so I can plug that straight in. As for your idea about a fan controller, may be something worth looking into, actually. Any suggestion on fans? Can't find much info on 92mm or 60mm fans anywhere! As far as fan controllers go: Xilence FCP for £14 gets a stonking review in the CPC Labs - Here The Fan Mate 2 gets the same score, but I'd like to be able to leave the case on, without fiddling around TOO much. EDIT - Just been searching the forum and found your post on the Shuttle. What did you replace in the end? The 2 60mm fans on the back, the 92/60 on the CPU sink, AND the PSU fan? What size is the last one - looks to be an 80mm, but I can't tell for sure. Cheers in advance. Will
I didn't end up replacing the PSU fan, the rest were all Vantec Stealths in various sizes.. IIRC the psu fan is a thin 80mm, and I ordered the right fan, but when I opened up the PSU I saw that everything was packed way too tight for me to mess around with.. Replacing the rest did enough for the noise, I don't have temp problems, just replace all the thermal paste throughout with something higher quality. NB, SB, GPU and CPU. IDK about Vantec in the UK, but Yate Loon makes many different sized fans, and IIRC they're more available in the UK than Vantec.. Scythe and Rexus make fans of all sizes as well, but I have no clue about UK availability.
Any potential paste-ish surface has been cleaned and slightly dipped in AS5. The only 60mm fans I can find are these, so 2 for the back, and one for the heatsink, I'm guessing? Adding this to the shroud next to the heatsink should do the jobbie too, especially if I splash a tenner or so on a fan controller. And if I really want to go all out, I'm cracking open the PSU then looking for really thin fans, methinks. There's a round o' rep going round in this thread on me. Will
