Does your CPU fan needs to be running 100%?

Day03

Day03

Day03

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3 May 2006
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I've been experimenting with the speeds of the fan on a Zalman 9500 CPU cooler to see how different speeds effect the temperature. I have an AMD 64 X2 4200+ CPU overcloked to 2.4GHz but also running Cool & Quiet so at idle it sits at 1.1GHz (I know that some of you will say i shouldn't overclock and run C'n'Q at the same time but I don't think there is any harm in doing so)

What I have found from my experimenting is that at idle (1.1GHz) there is only 1-2C difference if the fan is switched off (passive) or running at 100% and that's using Core Temp to read the temp, SpeedFan reported no difference at all.
When running at full load (2.4GHz) there was 2C between running the fan at 50% and at 100%.
This might not interest the serious overclockers for whom gaining 0.5C is prescious but for those who want a quiet PC I suggest you use SpeedFan and find out how fast your fans actually need to be running. At 50% speed the Zalman 9500 cooler is inaudible.
 
Its the same with my G-power Pro. I run mine at the slowest speed - 1700rpm and get an idle temp of around 30'c. With the fan at full speed - 3200rpm and sounding like a jet engine idle temps drop by approx 1 degree. So glad i got the pro version that comes with a fan controller as the extra noise for dropping a degree is just not worth it.
 
With my zalman running the fan @ 50% @ idle is fine, however when running the games 100% is better for the chip
 
I can run my 3200+ (2.5ghz 1.575v...crap clocker) just fine passively with the case fans at 7v using my freezer 64 pro.

Edit// Been running folding for a while and just turned the fan off (just before I posted this so 8 minutes ago) and it has got up to 47c which isnt too bad at all.
I normally run the fan at 75% though as it is silent.
 
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