Ixian
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- May 11, 2015
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Partially inspired by this thread.
I have a D-1541 board (8c/16t, 45 TDP) with onboard dual-port x540 10G-T and thought I'd share my experience getting it to cool more quietly in case anyone found it helpful. I'll have a full build thread up on my NAS upgrade later. BTW, all temps shown were taken in a 22c ambient room
The default fan that came with my board (Asrock D1541D4U-2T8R) worked fine for cooling, but in order to cool well it needed to run at least 6k RPM under load and at that speed is way too loud (and high pitched) for my tastes. After a lot of fiddling around I further determined there was no good sweet spot using IPMI to keep it from being annoying when under any significant load, though it's quiet enough at idle when the RPMs drop below 2k.
I also had an issue with my boards onboard x540 chip (10G-T) which, like all 10G-T, runs very hot, and was shipped with a very poor stock heatsink by Asrock - most x520/40s come with much larger heatsinks, and/or active cooling. This was cheap and easy to fix though - this heatsink on Amazon is $12 shipped USD, fits perfectly, and dropped my x540 temp by 12c idle and 18c under load (it tops out now at 57c under load - they are designed to run hot, but the upper 70c range it ran with the stock HS was a bit much). No additional cooling needed although there's threads to install a 40mm fan if you really want/need it. Cleaning off the old thermal paste and carefully applying new also helped, I'm sure.
For the 1541 it was a bit more of a challenge. I didn't want to try to replace the stock HS, as they are a serious pain to remove, will void the warranty, and you run the risk of breaking it getting it off. So I stuck with replacing the fan; at first I tried the A6x25 and got creative with zip ties like so:
This is kind of janky looking, but held it securely with no gap between the fan and HS. I used some automotive zip ties I had from a amp power cable run I did - they are rated up to 120c + and quite sturdy.
It worked well enough and was definitely a lot quieter, as expected, however my CPU temps would top out at around 75c under a 20 minute 8 core stress test. This is within spec for the 1541 but just barely - throttling kicks in around 80-82c. Also it was a big jump from the stock cooler, which kept it at an average of 64c with the same test (also same 22c ambient room).
I suspect I could have tweaked it a bit more - I could put the ties in a "U" shape to avoid having the straps cross over the top, where they block a bit of the outer blade edge, for example - but I suspect that wouldn't do much.
Finally I tried the Gelid 50mm "Silent 5" fan, which I've seen referenced on a couple of older blogs doing 1540/41 builds. It runs at a fixed 4k rpm and has excellent static pressure output. It is also indeed quiet, particularly for a 50mm fan running at 4k rpm.
Attaching it wasn't quite drop-in because while it fits the stock fan mount exactly the screws for the latter are made for the shallower stock fan and thus not long enough. I finally determined they were 4-40 size screws (and that wasn't easy, it's not documented anywhere) and that 3/4 length would do the job paired with some nylon washers. Big-box home stores don't really carry these, but my local Frys computer shop did.
The washers just barely fit inside the fan - this pic was taken before I screwed the two on top fully in. The screws are a little too long without washers for the stock mount, so you need them. With them, everything fit perfectly and securely (next to it you can see the copper replacement HS on the x540 chip):
Overall the Silent 5 did the job. It is pretty quiet - the Noctua is a little quieter, but neither one is noisy enough to be heard over your other case fans, and more importantly neither emits the high-pitch whine that the stock fan does when it is cranking. And it does a very good job cooling - 66c under load, statistically even with the stock fan. That leaves me plenty of headroom before throttling kicks in (the 1541 has a max temp of 104c, but of course you never want to get close to that if possible, 80c is the real cutoff I shoot for). Edit: Idle temps are 38c, which is better than the stock fan @4k rpm and, I suspect, as good as it gets with air cooling unless you completely replace the heatsink, which is unnecessary at these temps.
With a lower-powered chip I am sure it would do even better.
Hope someone still finds this useful. D-1541 boards are starting to show up more on the used market and some killer deals can be had on them, they are a great low-power yet powerful SOC and a decent step up from some of the higher-end Atoms now available, not to mention a lot cheaper used.
I have a D-1541 board (8c/16t, 45 TDP) with onboard dual-port x540 10G-T and thought I'd share my experience getting it to cool more quietly in case anyone found it helpful. I'll have a full build thread up on my NAS upgrade later. BTW, all temps shown were taken in a 22c ambient room
The default fan that came with my board (Asrock D1541D4U-2T8R) worked fine for cooling, but in order to cool well it needed to run at least 6k RPM under load and at that speed is way too loud (and high pitched) for my tastes. After a lot of fiddling around I further determined there was no good sweet spot using IPMI to keep it from being annoying when under any significant load, though it's quiet enough at idle when the RPMs drop below 2k.
I also had an issue with my boards onboard x540 chip (10G-T) which, like all 10G-T, runs very hot, and was shipped with a very poor stock heatsink by Asrock - most x520/40s come with much larger heatsinks, and/or active cooling. This was cheap and easy to fix though - this heatsink on Amazon is $12 shipped USD, fits perfectly, and dropped my x540 temp by 12c idle and 18c under load (it tops out now at 57c under load - they are designed to run hot, but the upper 70c range it ran with the stock HS was a bit much). No additional cooling needed although there's threads to install a 40mm fan if you really want/need it. Cleaning off the old thermal paste and carefully applying new also helped, I'm sure.
For the 1541 it was a bit more of a challenge. I didn't want to try to replace the stock HS, as they are a serious pain to remove, will void the warranty, and you run the risk of breaking it getting it off. So I stuck with replacing the fan; at first I tried the A6x25 and got creative with zip ties like so:
This is kind of janky looking, but held it securely with no gap between the fan and HS. I used some automotive zip ties I had from a amp power cable run I did - they are rated up to 120c + and quite sturdy.
It worked well enough and was definitely a lot quieter, as expected, however my CPU temps would top out at around 75c under a 20 minute 8 core stress test. This is within spec for the 1541 but just barely - throttling kicks in around 80-82c. Also it was a big jump from the stock cooler, which kept it at an average of 64c with the same test (also same 22c ambient room).
I suspect I could have tweaked it a bit more - I could put the ties in a "U" shape to avoid having the straps cross over the top, where they block a bit of the outer blade edge, for example - but I suspect that wouldn't do much.
Finally I tried the Gelid 50mm "Silent 5" fan, which I've seen referenced on a couple of older blogs doing 1540/41 builds. It runs at a fixed 4k rpm and has excellent static pressure output. It is also indeed quiet, particularly for a 50mm fan running at 4k rpm.
Attaching it wasn't quite drop-in because while it fits the stock fan mount exactly the screws for the latter are made for the shallower stock fan and thus not long enough. I finally determined they were 4-40 size screws (and that wasn't easy, it's not documented anywhere) and that 3/4 length would do the job paired with some nylon washers. Big-box home stores don't really carry these, but my local Frys computer shop did.
The washers just barely fit inside the fan - this pic was taken before I screwed the two on top fully in. The screws are a little too long without washers for the stock mount, so you need them. With them, everything fit perfectly and securely (next to it you can see the copper replacement HS on the x540 chip):
Overall the Silent 5 did the job. It is pretty quiet - the Noctua is a little quieter, but neither one is noisy enough to be heard over your other case fans, and more importantly neither emits the high-pitch whine that the stock fan does when it is cranking. And it does a very good job cooling - 66c under load, statistically even with the stock fan. That leaves me plenty of headroom before throttling kicks in (the 1541 has a max temp of 104c, but of course you never want to get close to that if possible, 80c is the real cutoff I shoot for). Edit: Idle temps are 38c, which is better than the stock fan @4k rpm and, I suspect, as good as it gets with air cooling unless you completely replace the heatsink, which is unnecessary at these temps.
With a lower-powered chip I am sure it would do even better.
Hope someone still finds this useful. D-1541 boards are starting to show up more on the used market and some killer deals can be had on them, they are a great low-power yet powerful SOC and a decent step up from some of the higher-end Atoms now available, not to mention a lot cheaper used.
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