Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Got some MX-4 ordered.
TKS

(03-04-2014, 09:01 PM)Theron Wrote: [ -> ]Got some MX-4 ordered.
TKS

Let us know how it goes and how easy or hard it was to put the MX-4 on. If you're are successful and the results are successful in bringing down the temperature then for sure I will go that same route. Indeed, I still haven't ordered mine yet but a successful outcome with the MX-4 would definitely seal the deal.

Thanks!

Today the fan clicked a little when I first turned the unit on. After a couple of minutes it disappeared. When I do go in to repaste, I'll see if I can put in a better fan as well. The fan speed was really low, lower than I had ever seen, so perhaps the fan doesn't like being undervolted too much. It was at 1088RPM when I noticed the noise disappeared, but I was out of the room and didn't follow the progression precisely.

Update - It's either a defective fan or it's clipping a loose wire or something. At boot the fan was at 948RPM and made the slight clicking sound. After a minute or so the noise disappeared, and the fan was still at 948RPM. My CPU temps do seem to be dropping now compared to before. Perhaps the paste is properly cured now. I want to get it apart to check the fan, so I'll still be applying the Arctic MX-4.

Anyone know the size and shape of the fan? I hope it's standard and not a specialty deal.

Update 2 - It is definitely Windows maintenance that is pushing up the SSD temps as speculated in an earlier post. It is well within normal range at all other times, but jumps up to a max of 78C with 100% read, write and total activity during maintenance. The close proximity to the WiFi/BT module probably doesn't help,either. Hopefully the occasional bump won't cause long term issues. I'd like to get at least three years of use out of it.

Update 3 - I have seen in the event logs that both TRIM and defragmentation have occurred. There has been some reporting that Windows 8/8.1 has a bug where SSDs are still being defragged. There is a blog with a fix, but MS says it is just a reporting error. I will keep monitoring it.

I'm going to start another custom build soon, turning an old radio into a nice m-ITX build with an i3-4330. I assume it would be a bit slower in Dolphin with the HD 4600 because the HD 5200, not the i5-5470, seems to be the bottleneck in the Brix Pro. It should make a nice HTPC though.

Success...Disabling the default defrag from automatic maintenance and adding a trim command in scheduled tasks led to a 10C drop is SSD temp during maintenance. It does still rise for a very brief period, but it stays under 70C.

http://www.outsidethebox.ms/why-windows-8-defragments-your-ssd-and-how-you-can-avoid-this/#_Toc352763197

(03-10-2014, 02:01 AM)Theron Wrote: [ -> ]Success...Disabling the default defrag from automatic maintenance and adding a trim command in scheduled tasks led to a 10C drop is SSD temp during maintenance. It does still rise for a very brief period, but it stays under 70C.

http://www.outsidethebox.ms/why-windows-8-defragments-your-ssd-and-how-you-can-avoid-this/#_Toc352763197

Wow! That's a huge improvement.

Replaced the thermal paste with MX-4. Not a huge improvement, but I'm still glad I did it because the paste Gigabyte used was dry and crusty. At least I'm good for 8 years now, long after the Brix Pro will be replaced most likely.

I didn't open the fan housing, but it will be easy to replace if the need arises.

Edit - If you do take your Brix Pro apart, be prepared to use a little force to get the liberally used adhesive pads apart.

(03-16-2014, 03:23 AM)Theron Wrote: [ -> ]Replaced the thermal paste with MX-4. Not a huge improvement, but I'm still glad I did it because the paste Gigabyte used was dry and crusty. At least I'm good for 8 years now, long after the Brix Pro will be replaced most likely.

I didn't open the fan housing, but it will be easy to replace if the need arises.

Edit - If you do take your Brix Pro apart, be prepared to use a little force to get the liberally used adhesive pads apart.

By how many degrees °C's did the temperature drop?

4-5C at idle and 2-3C under Dolphin load, but I'll need to put in an extended Dolphin session to see for sure. Temps were in the high 80s to low 90s during previous sessions. I'll report back. EDIT - The peaks are just about the same and it seems to average a few degrees cooler, but with that little variance it could just be environmental. It's definitely not worse, so I'm happy to have that crusty dry stock paste replaced with the MX-4. It does seem to take longer to heat up after boot and a bit quicker for the fan to drop down after ending emulation, but it also seems to take longer to cool to idle temps from 70C than before.

I ran Prime95 stress test while running Dolphin and got up to 99C before thermal throttling kicked in. The fan kicks up to 4000RPM then. 100% CPU usage on all cores for extended times is too much for such a small box with a stock cooler.

During normal use, I doubt the CPU would ever reach 80C, but it would during heavy gaming and emulation.

(03-16-2014, 05:29 PM)Theron Wrote: [ -> ]4-5C at idle and 2-3C under Dolphin load, but I'll need to put in an extended Dolphin session to see for sure. Temps were in the high 80s to low 90s during previous sessions. I'll report back. EDIT - The peaks are just about the same and it seems to average a few degrees cooler, but with that little variance it could just be environmental. It's definitely not worse, so I'm happy to have that crusty dry stock paste replaced with the MX-4. It does seem to take longer to heat up after boot and a bit quicker for the fan to drop down after ending emulation, but it also seems to take longer to cool to idle temps from 70C than before.

I ran Prime95 stress test while running Dolphin and got up to 99C before thermal throttling kicked in. The fan kicks up to 4000RPM then. 100% CPU usage on all cores for extended times is too much for such a small box with a stock cooler.

During normal use, I doubt the CPU would ever reach 80C, but it would during heavy gaming and emulation.

Thanks so much for your thorough analysis. I'm not crazy about those results. I think that I might go with Zotac's Zbox EI750. According to one professional review, it runs slower than the Brix Pro, but it's a lot quieter and runs at 65-75C in load CPU & GPU

Here's the review for those who might be interested:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/systems/67173-zotac-zbox-ei750-plus/

Seems like a you can either have peak performance with high temps and noise or lower performance with lower temps and noise. I hope once Skylake arrives, we will be able to get both in these small packages. Maybe even Pico-ITX sized boxes would be possible.