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khenry
To cut a long story short, the death of my PC’s mobo three weeks ago didn’t take any of the expansion cards or RAM with it. However, it did kill the Phong’s twin 120mm fans and that was the other reason for seemingly unstoppable overheating. Moving the parts out of a case with only 80mm coolers slowed down the buildup, but within half an hour the temps were back up again.
I was lucky to get another three weeks out of the coolers but they were clearly going downhill (though without the distinctive noise of ball bearings failing) before they just stopped spinning. They were ripped out today after failing to spin up from either the 3-pin header or conversion to Molex.
So it’s back to PC World for another pair of the fans I bought last Friday. The original set had a good innings of four straight years’ daily use. I’ve installed a spare Jeantech 120mm which I purchased in a PCW sale for a fiver (UPDATE: It was branded Jeantech, but turned out to be made by someone else.). I’ve now moved it to the rear of the case if its air shifting ability lives up to the ratings on that Italian site. The Scythe fan will now go at the front. So my sole LED cooler will still be the 80mm side panel fan.
At least there’s a practical, rather than merely visual argument for using LED fans now. You know they’re past their prime for cooling when the lights begin to fade, but in the next summer component sale when 120mm coolers drop to a fiver, I’ll definitely pick up a “standby” pair so that fan failure won’t put either machine out of action for long. I’ll also re-seat the CPU and HSF and give that a final test before I go out. If AS 5 just can’t keep the temperature down, then I’ll have to consider a final Socket A heatsink on top and another change of TIM.
UPDATE: Stuff it, I’ve had enough. Phil’s review of the Scythe Kaze family of fans (page 58 of Issue 57) was both funny and well detailed, and after everything I’ve just been through, I ordered one now. The noisiest 1900RPM version was sold out, so I’ll start with the midrange and hopefully not have to work my way up.
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