Shuttle Cooling Solutions

[castlegrayskull]

Afternoon all.

I have an SB81P running a 3ghz processor, 2gb of ram, 2 80gb sata disk running in a raid 0 config and a 7800GT

The cpu seems to hover at around 59 degrees at normal use
The system tends to be about 39 degrees

is this about normal ... if so .. how can i cool it down without killing the silence i enjoy ?
Does the heat transfer compound make much difference ? .. i didn't put it on this system due to worrying about having to send stuff back and t being covered in paste (previous bad experience!)

Thoughts ?

Cheers
Dave

[DanceswithUnix]

Thermal paste can make quite a difference. I have had a couple of degrees drop just from changing from one type of paste to another, I have never tried running without any and find the prospect rather worrying!

I bought an 80p bottle of acetone from the chemist to clean up CPUs and heatsinks, the stuff comes off very easily with solvents.

[castlegrayskull]

fear not, it runs quite happily without the paste, but as the system is up and running quite happily i think the chance of me sending it back now are slim!

What paste would you recommend ?
and just how much should i actually put on ?

Cheers
Dave

[herulach]

seriously put paste on, now. arctic silver, follow the instructions on their website, ie about half a grain of rice in the middle of the proc.