Water cooling Asetek 545LC: which fan to use with it?

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Success with the Asetec installed!

-My average idle temp (just recording TV etc) WAS 57-60 degrees Celsius. (with the stock ICE)
-My NEW average temp with the Asetec water cooler installed is 50-54 degrees Celsius.

That's just enough difference to ensure the fan stays on low

My fan no longer spins up and everything stays silent. Before I'd occasionally hear the fan spin up to high but now I'm running cool and quiet. I'm happy, mission accomplished. I let the fan suck air "in" (like the instructions said to do) instead of out like it was. (and yes I'm using the new quieter 92mm 3rd party fan I installed previously still) I also replaced the Power Supply fan with the 50mm mentioned previously. It seems to push enough air and is dead silent. Install was easy, just cut, stripped, and crimped black/red wires together.

I now have a legit hush living room shuttle HTPC!
 
UPDATE #2:
Looks like I didn't wait long enough. The new ave temp is 54-57.
The 50mm power supply fan is still noisy and spinning extra fast now. (hmm)

I think my next step is to take out the 50mm fan, and cut/nibble a 80mm hole in the side of the power supply/case cover, and not have ANY tiny fans.

I confirmed my machine is dead silent when I stick a screw driver in to stop the 50MM PSU fan.
 
Great news indeed. Mine is 43-46 by an Intel app. Yes, the only noise coming from the barebone seems to be psu 50mm fan but I cannot complain actually, it is really dead silent.
Because everywhere is written to take extra care in dealing with the tubes, I had hard times placing player+hd inside. I had to flex the tubes and they are hard to deal with!
Yesterday, I stressed the system with Intel(R) Extreme Tuning Utility and the temp was around 62-65, playing games as Max Payne or Need for Speed has been a pleasure finally.
 
Update #3, looks like the CPU is staying cool, but the over all temp inside the case is BURNING HOT! (like omg way too hot) I've left the case off, and everything is quiet again. I'm starting to have second thoughts on following the suggestion of having the fan suck air inwards instead of outwards. Should I try to reverse the fan or just go for the side cut hole fan mod of the PSU? I'm thinking that with the nice big fan sucking air OUT of the PSU side, it will also take out all the hot air built up from the CPU fan intake. (or should have BOTH fans sucking air outwards maybe? Thoughts?
 
P.S. I may have been mistaken about the sudden noise being from the PSU fan, I think it's a mind game the way the 92mm fan echo's through the PSU. (since the fan is in the center of the case) Heat slow builds up until it turns the PWM to max speed.

So again, if I leave the shuttle case OFF completely things are staying totally cool and quiet. (as in UNDER 50 degrees!) hmmm
 
This link shows way INTAKE is recommended
http://blog.antec.com/cooling/asetek-air-flow-matters/
, but it might not apply to the default shuttle case unless we add a second large outtake fan. (such as the side mount PSU fan I'm planning on doing next)
 
Sorry for the triple posts, I'm not able to edit my posts for some reason. One more thing.......

The asetek site also says:

"Generally, intake is best for maximum CPU cooling. However, the best solution for you depends on your overall setup. The main idea is to have an equal number of fans blowing in, as there are blowing out. The cooler the air moving through the radiator, the cooler your CPU will be. See Stu's blog entry on air flow for more details."

That reinforces my idea of adding the second outtake fan for maximum quiet cooling and quite 24/7 HTPC operation.

 
If you don't have an exhaust fan to get rid of the warm air, then you might consider this. SFF cases often don't have many fans and using your LCS as an intake is great for mid cases or ones with multiple fan I/O. In situations where there are only 1-2, you will want to apply for the best application for you.
 
Thanks Rubix, it's all making sense now based on the push/pull links I posted above and your post.

Over Night update:
My temps are still staying BELOW 50 with the case off.

It seems I absolutely need an outtake vent in the small shuttle case.

Which option makes more sense to try first? I have two identical "quiet" 92mm fans to work with.

Option 1)
-I leave the Asetek fan as an intake, sucking cool air from outside, across the radiator, and into the case
-I cut a hole in the side of the power supply & case, hookup the second fan to suck our outwards, pulling the hot air trapped inside the case through the PSU and out the side

Option 2)
- I reverse the Asetek fan to Push air through the Radiator and out the back of the case
- I hookup the 2nd fan in-line with the other fan on the back of the case so it helps PULL the air out in tandem. (two fans working together) This might result in more air flow and will also suck hot hair out of the whole case in general.

Which method is worth a shot? The second option would be easier to do, and possibly easy enough to just "test" first. I'd like to ask first though before trying anything since it's not exactly easy to rip my system apart and don't want to lose TV recordings.

 
Ok, so after some experiments, I concluded that for the Shuttle, it's best to have the fan's venting hot air OUT of the case instead of sucking cool air INTO the case. This is because the shuttle case is WAY too small and their is no secondary exhaust fan to keep the super heated air from building up all crazy hot. (DVD drive, and case will feel VERY very hot after awhile)

I now have TWO 92mm fans working together. One internal, attached to the radiator, "pushing" air OUT. One external fan "sucking" air OUT. I got the screws at my local hardware store. internal is powered via FAN1 and external has the power wire snaked through the popped out unused VGA hole powered via FAN2. I used a molex to fan wire adapter to power the Asetek water Pump directly. The RPM's stay around 1000-1200 and the CPU stays below 50 degrees C. The machine is not Whisper quiet, but it's a steady hardly notice type of sound that won't bug me. Success! (no need to cut a hole in the power supply to add a big slow yet)
 


I updated to 1.08, loaded and saved defaults, and even power cycled. The fan speed will still NOT be obeyed. I recorded a video even. We all need to open a support ticket with shuttle so this get's resolved. (I just did)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHjCO7lfSsE
(ignore the extra street cleaning noise in the background in the first part of video)
 


As I said, 1.08 doesn't fix the fan speed issue. I just got a response from the support ticket I submitted with Shuttle:

"Hi Jon,

Thank you for choosing Shuttle Computers.
We apologize for the inconvenience you encountered with your SX79R5.
In fact, you are the first one to report the fan issue to us.
After testing, we confirmed that the problem does exist.
We already contacted our BIOS team and they will come out with a BIOS update soon to fix this issue.
We will let you know when the new BIOS is released.

Once again, thank you for choosing Shuttle Computers!

Best Regards,
Tech Support

Shuttle Computer Group, Inc.
17068 Evergreen Place, City of Industry, CA 91745"
 
They are sending me a $10,000 check! (joking)

Here's the beta bios fix! I haven't had a chance to test this yet, since it's my HTPC/DVR (don't want to miss TV recordings)

"Hi Jon,

The BIOS team came out with a new BIOS update that fixes the fan speed issue.
We already tested it on our side and confirmed that the update solves the problem.
Since it is still a BETA BIOS, it can only be flashed under DOS mode.
Please refer to the following link for instruction of how to flash BIOS in DOS mode.
http://global.shuttle.com/products/productsFaqDetail?faqId=2093

I tried to send you the attachment but failed.
It seems like your email server does not like the attachment content.
I uploaded the BIOS to our server and you can download it from this link:
http://us.shuttle.com/download/SX79_SmartFan.zip


Best Regards,
Tech Support

Shuttle Computer Group, Inc.
17068 Evergreen Place, City of Industry, CA 91745
us.shuttle.com"
 
Bios update worked, I'm now on Low instead of Smart speed. RPM's are at a constant 1220'ish and CPU cores are averaging 45C. My system is still quiet, but things are staying cooler since Low is a bit faster than the default Smart speed
 
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