Need a CPU fan that changes speed?

Associate
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29 Jun 2013
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I have a three year old Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard with an i7 920. It is warmer than it should be. (Idle 50C, but 82C when running Prime95.) Only slightly overclocked, BCLK=166 instead of 133, and I've just reduced it to 150 to keep the temperature down, now 47C when idle).

The cooler is a Thermalright Ultra 120 1366RT eXtreme CPU cooler with 120mm fan.

The fan speed doesn't change, it stays at 1500 - 1562 rpm. I understand that this fan is not capable of changing speed, although it does report its speed correctly to the motherboard.

Is there any way to change the fan on this cooler so that it changes speed? Would a different fan attach to the cooler? Would this help? Thanks.
 
Soldato
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any 120mm fan should fit that cooler.

You will want a pwm fan so the motherboard controls the speed.

What do you want to spend on a fan?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Noctua NF-P12-PWM 120mm Silent Case Fan - PWM Pin £19.99
1 x Noiseblocker NB-eLoop Fan B12-P - 120mm PWM £15.98
1 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Focused Flow PWM Cooling Fan £15.98
1 x Corsair Fan, SP120 PWM Low Noise High Pressure Fan 4 pin, Single Pack (CO-9050011-WW) £14.99
1 x Akasa 120mm Piranha high performance PWM air ripper blade fan £13.99
1 x Alpenföhn 120mm Wing Boost Plus PWM Fan - Black & White £11.99
1 x Zaward Golf III Fan 120mm PWM ZG3-120A - black/red £9.98
1 x Akasa Smart n Cool PWM Fan 120mm - Black £9.98
Total : £122.80 (includes shipping : £8.25).



That is a selection of pwm fans I would consider buying.
 
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Caporegime
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some motherboards let you control non pwm fans anyway by reducing the voltage of the fan at different temps so check your motherboard settings
 
Soldato
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Hi, what is the 920 overclocked to and CPU voltage set at in the Bios, also check to see if the cooler is lose. If not just tighten up each screw a touch this may help in reduce temps, when was the last time you gave your PC a good spring clean inside the case?
 
Associate
OP
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Some of those fans (e.g. Noctua) are slower than the current one (1500-1600). But the Noiseblocker looks good, at 2000.

How would I connect one of those fans to the Thermalright? The fan that came with it has fingers that grip the fins.

The 920 is overclocked by upping the BCLK from 133 to 166. I've turned that down to 150 for the moment. No voltage or other changes to the default settings. The cooler is well secured. I do keep it clean but your question made me take another look. I found there was dust between the CPU fan and the cooler fins. I just took it off and cleaned it. But it has not made much difference.
 
Soldato
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Those temps seem at least 10-15c higher than they should be. I ran an old Thermalright 120 Ultra (4x pipes) on my 920 @ 3.55GHz with 31-34c idle and 68-70c stress testing.
Maybe you need to clean things. ;)
 
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I've cleaned everything. It is all spotless. If I start it up and go into the BIOS the CPU is 43C with the cover off. The 12GB memory puts out quite a bit of heat.
 
Soldato
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Does the fan not separate from the mounting shroud thing? looks like it should.

There are other factors to take into account with fans other than raw speed. A good cooling fan has a good static pressure rating which the ones I have specced have. The pressure is needed to force air through the fins to cool the heatpipes.

Also with them being pwm they will only spin up to the required speed to maintain a temperature, when the cpu isn't stressed they will spin slow to prevent noise.
 
Associate
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its probably over volted a bit, if you left voltage on auto.

try to set it manually to something a bit lower. lots of guides online for the 920
 
Soldato
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You should be able to drop that by at least 0.1v. It is surprising how much difference 0.1v makes to the temperatures, both at idle and load.

I've been running mine at 170 @ 1.12v (as reported in CPU-z) for a couple of years.
 
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Permabanned
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I'm running a 920 on a P6TD

CPU: 166 x 20 = 3.320 GHz @ 1.18v
RAM: 1333 @ 1.50v

Idle: ~41c
Max: ~69c

Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
(quiet, but not particularly effective)
 
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