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InvisiBill
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,608
My ECO came in yesterday and I got it into my PC. There were a few minor issues with it...
I'd read that the cord from the pump unit was a bit short. Depending on the layout of your board, this wins mild understatement of the year. http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk280/bluemonkeytech/IMG_3636.jpg is one of the pics from the popular review by Henry Butt. That image is not deceiving - the 3-wire plug from the CPU unit is only about 6" long. The fan on the radiator plugs into the CPU's 4-wire PWM fan header, so the pump unit plugs into some other fan header (probably the one that you had your previous case fan plugged into). On my Classified E759, that plug was down by the PCIe 1x slot. With the ECO's CPU mounted "the right way", the cable comes out the top and couldn't reach any of my 3-pin fan headers. I rotated it 90° clockwise, so it now comes out the front side of the socket and will reach down under the NB heatsink to the fan header. I believe my AM2 board had another fan header pretty close to the CPU socket, but this board doesn't have anything nearby. The cable on the fan is a bit longer, but still none-too-long to reach my CPU fan header at the top front corner of the socket.
Mounting the fan/rad unit in my Cooler Master RC-690 was also a bit challenging. I plan to do some testing with different setups, but first I mounted it as-shipped in the back exhaust fan position. With the hoses at the bottom, the third nub on the rad (fill port, unused hose hookup, something else?) hits the large passive NB heatsink on the Classified. I've got two fans mounted on the inside top of the case (standard mounting location) with plain old round wire grills. To get the fan/rad mounted on the back of the case, I had to push the unit up into that fan to get the screws to line up with the mounting holes in the ECO's fan. I do have silicone gaskets between all my fans and their case mounting surfaces, which add a bit of thicknes, plus the mentioned grills. If you removed those, there may not be any contact at all, but it's still pretty tight in there.
With having to turn the CPU unit 90° and mount the fan/rad upside down, the routing for the hoses make them a little twisted and tensed up. I don't believe it's stressing anything too bad or causing any issues, it's just not perfectly straight line runs like you might see in some pictures. It does clean up the CPU area though.
Other than having to remove the board to swap the backplate (I really should've cut a hole in the tray when I painted it) and trying to figure out the best way to mount the rad and orient the CPU unit, the install was pretty painless.
Now for the good news. With my S1283V, I was seeing CPU (166x20, auto voltage, HT and Turbo on) temps in the upper 60's, like 68-70°C. After removing it, I can see that it did have some dust accumulation on the fins - it could stand to be cleaned, but wasn't packed full of crud or anything. Stock fan with the stock PWM control. After switching to the ECO in the default exhaust setup, I'm now seeing temps in the low 60's. It feels a bit cooler in the house today, so the ambient may be a bit lower (the wall thermometer says 68°F). I'm now seeing 61-63°C, though I think it was more like 63-65°C last night right after the measurements on the S1283V and the swap.
This isn't meant to be a super-scientific test, but it is controlled enough to say that my temps have dropped a good 3-5°C, possibly as much as 8-9°C. The CPU has been at 100% with dnetc for about 20 hours, so I'm pretty confident that the temp is stable here.
Here's my system with the S1283V installed.
I have 6x120mm case fans installed. The top/back corner has two exhaust fans. The other four are intake - front bottom by the hard drives, in the bottom 3 5.25" bays, in the lower spot on the side panel, and the front fan on the top. The S1283V divided the intake and exhaust from the top two fans, so cool air would come in near the RAM, pass through the HSF, then head back out through the top/back corner.
Here it is after installing the ECO.
The ECO is in place of the rear exhaust fan, in the as-shipped exhaust configuration. I didn't change the direction of any of my case fans. Even in this configuration, it did drop my temps. You can see how the rad and hoses are right up against the top fan, and the third port on the radiator that conflicts with the NB heatsink. A slightly different case might not have any issues with this location, and I don't think there are many boards with a huge passive NB sink like the Classified's.
I plan to switch the front fan on the top to exhaust and change the ECO to intake. This should pull in cool outside air for the CPU, while still exhausting the heat pretty much immediately out the top. My only concerns with that setup are that the two intakes front (drive bays) and back might fight each other a bit, and the two video cards exhausting out the back might cause some heat to get pulled back in by the ECO. Once I get some time to switch things around, I'll post those results too.
I'd read that the cord from the pump unit was a bit short. Depending on the layout of your board, this wins mild understatement of the year. http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk280/bluemonkeytech/IMG_3636.jpg is one of the pics from the popular review by Henry Butt. That image is not deceiving - the 3-wire plug from the CPU unit is only about 6" long. The fan on the radiator plugs into the CPU's 4-wire PWM fan header, so the pump unit plugs into some other fan header (probably the one that you had your previous case fan plugged into). On my Classified E759, that plug was down by the PCIe 1x slot. With the ECO's CPU mounted "the right way", the cable comes out the top and couldn't reach any of my 3-pin fan headers. I rotated it 90° clockwise, so it now comes out the front side of the socket and will reach down under the NB heatsink to the fan header. I believe my AM2 board had another fan header pretty close to the CPU socket, but this board doesn't have anything nearby. The cable on the fan is a bit longer, but still none-too-long to reach my CPU fan header at the top front corner of the socket.
Mounting the fan/rad unit in my Cooler Master RC-690 was also a bit challenging. I plan to do some testing with different setups, but first I mounted it as-shipped in the back exhaust fan position. With the hoses at the bottom, the third nub on the rad (fill port, unused hose hookup, something else?) hits the large passive NB heatsink on the Classified. I've got two fans mounted on the inside top of the case (standard mounting location) with plain old round wire grills. To get the fan/rad mounted on the back of the case, I had to push the unit up into that fan to get the screws to line up with the mounting holes in the ECO's fan. I do have silicone gaskets between all my fans and their case mounting surfaces, which add a bit of thicknes, plus the mentioned grills. If you removed those, there may not be any contact at all, but it's still pretty tight in there.
With having to turn the CPU unit 90° and mount the fan/rad upside down, the routing for the hoses make them a little twisted and tensed up. I don't believe it's stressing anything too bad or causing any issues, it's just not perfectly straight line runs like you might see in some pictures. It does clean up the CPU area though.
Other than having to remove the board to swap the backplate (I really should've cut a hole in the tray when I painted it) and trying to figure out the best way to mount the rad and orient the CPU unit, the install was pretty painless.
Now for the good news. With my S1283V, I was seeing CPU (166x20, auto voltage, HT and Turbo on) temps in the upper 60's, like 68-70°C. After removing it, I can see that it did have some dust accumulation on the fins - it could stand to be cleaned, but wasn't packed full of crud or anything. Stock fan with the stock PWM control. After switching to the ECO in the default exhaust setup, I'm now seeing temps in the low 60's. It feels a bit cooler in the house today, so the ambient may be a bit lower (the wall thermometer says 68°F). I'm now seeing 61-63°C, though I think it was more like 63-65°C last night right after the measurements on the S1283V and the swap.
This isn't meant to be a super-scientific test, but it is controlled enough to say that my temps have dropped a good 3-5°C, possibly as much as 8-9°C. The CPU has been at 100% with dnetc for about 20 hours, so I'm pretty confident that the temp is stable here.
Here's my system with the S1283V installed.
I have 6x120mm case fans installed. The top/back corner has two exhaust fans. The other four are intake - front bottom by the hard drives, in the bottom 3 5.25" bays, in the lower spot on the side panel, and the front fan on the top. The S1283V divided the intake and exhaust from the top two fans, so cool air would come in near the RAM, pass through the HSF, then head back out through the top/back corner.
Here it is after installing the ECO.
The ECO is in place of the rear exhaust fan, in the as-shipped exhaust configuration. I didn't change the direction of any of my case fans. Even in this configuration, it did drop my temps. You can see how the rad and hoses are right up against the top fan, and the third port on the radiator that conflicts with the NB heatsink. A slightly different case might not have any issues with this location, and I don't think there are many boards with a huge passive NB sink like the Classified's.
I plan to switch the front fan on the top to exhaust and change the ECO to intake. This should pull in cool outside air for the CPU, while still exhausting the heat pretty much immediately out the top. My only concerns with that setup are that the two intakes front (drive bays) and back might fight each other a bit, and the two video cards exhausting out the back might cause some heat to get pulled back in by the ECO. Once I get some time to switch things around, I'll post those results too.
