Safe to briefly disconnect cpu fan?

weyland yutani

weyland yutani

weyland yutani

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Snowdonia
I use a Corsair A50 in my pc which does a great job in cooling but the drone it makes is starting to get on my nerves a bit. I want to test how quiet the machine is without it running.

If I disable the mild overclock is it safe to disconnect the cpu fan for just a few seconds? Also, can anyone recommend a good heatsink that is also fairly quiet, or at least quieter than the A50?

Thanks.
 
You live in Snowdonia just crack open dem windows :p

I wouldn't recommend disconnecting the fan as the CPU will just keep building heat I imagine. Water cooling is the only real silent method especially if you have an overclock on the CPU.
 
Yeah a runaway thermal meltdown is what I feared lol A bit of noise cant be avoided obviously but watercooling is definitely no go for me, just wondering if there are any slightly quieter fans out there. £20-30 budget?
 
Load up some software so you can see the CPU temp, keep an eye on it. Unless the processor is under full load, it'll be fine to unplug the fan for a few seconds. Check whether there's a BIOS setting to shut down on CPU failure though - some systems won't work without a CPU fan connected.
 
For a few minutes it will be fine just keep an eye on temps with HWMonitor. No need to remove the overclock either, it isn't like you are going to run Prime 95 or anything. It will throttle back if temps get too high depending on what processor it is.
 
I don't expect the A50 is all that bad as a heat-sink, it's just the Corsair fans that are a bit noisy. You could try buying an alternate fan, possibly something PWM controlled to reduce the noise it makes, especially at idle. I'm not altogether sure how much the fan on the A50 varies according to CPU temperature or indeed if it does so at all.

Edit: Ah the A50 is a 3 heat pipe cooler so is low to mid end and comes with a user selectable fan speed between noisy and super noisy.

I'd replace it. You can get half decent cooler's for £30.

Mind you if you only run a mild over lock maybe the A50 is ok and will remain so with say an Apache in use, or a Noctua PWM.
 
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Not sure myself either. It doesn't sound like it ramps up or down depending on load. It does a good job at cooling to be fair, just a touch louder than I'd like. If I knew a replacement fan could clip onto the heatsink without a problem that would be a good solution.
 
The A50 isn't great, but check to see if there are any BIOS options to reduce the fan speed for the CPU fan header.
 
Speed said:
The A50 isn't great, but check to see if there are any BIOS options to reduce the fan speed for the CPU fan header.
Click to expand...

Worth a look into this as some motherboards do allow some basic control of 3 pin fans on their 4 pin headers, or at least mine does but through Speedfan. There is one brand of motherboard that abandoned voltage control some time ago so it's probably sod's law that you have one of those.
 
Hi, by default, the A50 fan spins at 2000 RPM, you can reduce the fan volume by attaching the resistor cable that comes with the A50, this will reduce the fan speed to 1600 RPM making it a little more silent.

I would also recommend the Apache black for a replacement if you fancy changing the fan.
 
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