You get what you pay for. Try some arctric silver 5, i've had good results with it. Some also recommend ceramique, by the same company...I tried that with my most recent upgrade(one of these). Seems to be working well...crunching at 44C with a 400mhz overclock.


The greatest impact that thermal paste will have is on your temps. Not sure how using silver paste could cause your 3200 to think it was a 1900...it may have just been reseating the hsf that helped. (or temps were so bad it underclocked, but I would think it would shut down instead if that were the case...)


How you liking the aria? Also, what are your hard drive temps like, having it so close to the power supply?

Strange, but glad to hear things worked out.


Was looking at the Antec Aria at one point, but decided to go for a fuller desktop and got the Antec Sonata instead.

Greeting from another Artic fan
I use artic fans and coolers everywhere I can. They are quiet and reliable. The artic series of snazy looking coolers are something else. First I thought they were into "fridge" technology. Now I know they ... just work.... they look cool, but most of all they are quiet and do not weigh too much (within board manufacturers limits). I use the standard white paste that comes with the product.

Nice pics Dave.

I have done a lot of research on cooling boxes and have seen many different cooling solutions, however one conclusion I can share with everyone (emperically proven) "airflow is the key success factor in cooling" If you can define a good air flow path in your case with a minmal amount of fans, then you have a reliable machine. The speed of the flow should be a function of the workload (i. heat generated within the case)

The most revealing thing I found was that internal fans that "spot blow" (like on a hard disc or video card) unless absolutely crucial should be avoided as they create turbulence within the case and actually raise the air temperature ( a bit like driving a car at very high engine speeds instead of changing to a higher gear).

.... my three cents. I hope I didn't bore anyone.

mmmmmmmmm copper

Yes gordoma - you are right. I was refering to Artic cooling - wasn't very prceise - sorry.

I use the same cooler as you on one of my P$ machines. It is an absolute dream.

Advantages:
1. meets the load spec of the 468 sockets (amazing how many units do not - then people end up with breakage, cracks or material fatigue problems, not to mention ALRGE HOLES - when they transport their PCs and "hit a bump" along the way)
2. They are low on power consumption as they are so efficient (this removes some load off the power supply)
3. Quiet
4. excellent price/performance ratio

Disadvantages
1. BIG - gets in the way on some motherboards
2. The air flow direction - unfortunately, you cannot always fit the cooler to blow out the back of the unit, so sometimes you have to blow the CPU generated heat into the power supply and the power supply draws it out the case. The power supply fans runs fast and may get noisy. If your power supply doesn't have the ability to take this hot air and pump it out, the yu have a problem as the heat accumulates at the top of the case. To resolve this you need a power supply with a vent (and/or fan) located at the bottom (for a top mounted power supply)

I will look for some easy-to-access test other peole have done and post them later on.

Glad to hear that there are some Artic (cooling) fans here - LOL I sure am!! I do like their range of noisless (no fans) convectional CPU coolers. They seem to be withdrawing them slowly - too pricy