Shuttle ST20G5 Fan main noise

[yabadaba]

This is my 1st shuttle. I notice that when CPU loading peaks and the CPU temp reaches 80degrees, the fan goes bonkers and kicks into turbo-speed like a maniac. The noise volume is unbearable.
I often reach this CPU temp when encoding video etc. Is there summats wrong with my setup or are all shuttles like this?
I have the Shuttle Tool which can change the fan speed, but it seems like the 80degrees CPU temp will kick of an overide and have the main fan spinning at full speed till the cpu loading is back to normal (ie when I finished encoding...)

When idle the Shuttle Tool indicates CPU temp at 64degrees... at which the fan is almost silent. Soon as it even touches 80degrees will bring on the noise big time. The worst is that sometimes momentary peaks in CPU loading will kick off the fan into turbo speed & my system sounds like a hells angel reving up a motorbike!

Help!

[ultimate]

That temp is far too high, did you assemble the shuttle or was it bought complete?

The first thing I would do is to clean off the old paste from the cpu and heatsink and renew it also make sure the heatsink is correctly seated and check your bios settings for temp control

[yabadaba]

Fixed!

Thanks for the info that my system was unusually hot!

The guy who built the system had WAY too much grease on the CPU. I have CPU loading at 100% and its now just 53 degrees and no more fan running at turbo speeds.
In the dismantling process I almost had a heart attack when forcibly removing the ICE block from the CPU. I could feel tension of the grease bond between the CPU and the ICE block. The CPU just would ot let go of the ICE block. Eventually the CPU was torn out of the socket entirely with the CPU still firmly attached to the ICE block! This was with the CPU handbreak still on! Nuts! Luckily the pins were fine… Everything is dandy, but I dread the next time I need to do this say for a CPU upgrade? There must be a nack to separating the ICE block from the CPU…

[xzeezeex]

I have a ST20G5 and have the exact same problem. The fan is totally silent, then it goes nuts like a rabid vacuum cleaner.... It's really lame....

The CPU idles at about 52 degrees. Then if I do something CPU intensive, say a 3D rendering, it will spike up to the 70s and then hit 80 in about 5 seconds or so... Then we're in vacuum-cleaner land....

Is that normal?

I had the machine assembled by Mwave when I bought the shuttle from them, so I assume they put it together correctly... Will have to pull it apart I guess if this is abnormal behavior.... I was hoping to avoid dealing with the innards, that's why I used mwave...

[ultimate]

It sounds as if you have the same problem and it would not take long to fix yourself but I would not advise it if you dont feel capable.

Basically it entails unclipping the heat sink from the cpu, clean the cpu by removing the old paste and also from the heatsink, reapply a very thin coat of a decent paste i.e: arctic silver etc and reassemble, but if it is under warranty then get on to mwave for them to sort it out.

As before those temps are going to kill your machine!!!

[xzeezeex]

Well, sort of fixed....

I unclipped the ICE module heatsink and cleaned off the previous heatsink compound. There was WAY too much on there... was oozing out the sides....

Applied some arctic silver and now my idle temp is able 39 degrees, hitting the 60s if I'm doing something intensive. But, if I'm rendering a short movie for instance, it'll hit the "danger-zone" 80 degree mark where the fan goes on full blast again....

Is this just the way shuttle systems are? And will hitting 80 degrees cause damage to the system?

[ultimate]

I do presume that you cleaned both cpu and heatsink and and made sure that the heatsink had no "lumps" left on it and then apply the arctic paste verythinly the actual idea is just to fill the microscopic imperfections in both the cpu & heat sink so there is no air gap between the 2 it doesnt need a "sandwich" of paste if you know what I mean.

The high temp when rendering is still too high but obviously better than it was, and if above does not help I would be looking for a better heat sink & fan or is there any cables in the way of the air flow around the cpu?.

Hope above helps

[xzeezeex]

Yes, I did clean off all the old paste. Was very careful about that.

I'm actually thinking that I may have put too much of the arctic silver 5 on yesterday. I just opened up the box to try to go through the process again and use only a very small amount, but now the heatsink won't come loose from the cpu....

Any ideas? I don't want to damage the system because it works great under a normal load....

[Flash]

normally when a heatsink refuses to budge of a cpu its because either the CPU heatshield to the heatsink itself is warped slightly and causing a tiny vacuum which sucks the cpu onto the sink when pressure is applied.

Be very careful as this can lead to bent or snapped pins.

[ultimate]

It does appear that you have put too much paste on, so twist the heat sink left & right slowly at the same time with a slight upward pull after a while they should part company, but go easy on it as in known cases the cpu can come away from the M/board intact if this happens then just check the pins on the cpu to see if they are not bent and it should be o.k. but be patient

[xzeezeex]

I took it all apart again and reapplied the AC5. This time, I was very careful to following the instructions on the arctic silver site EXACTLY.

Now I'm idling at 52-55 degrees, and am in the low 70s at full load.