* davec63367@yahoo.com:

> I recently bought a refurbished xw6200 workstation from HP and have
> been very pleased with the quality and quietness of it. It only came
> with one 2.8GHz 1MB xeon which I've since upgraded to dual 3.6 1MB's. I
> know BIOS temp readings are not that accurate, but the HP BIOS offers
> no provisions for monitoring the temps so I loaded up Speedfan to at
> least give me some idea of what they were.
> What disturbs me is that one CPU (0 if it matters) seems to peak at
> temps sometimes around 51C and this is under no real load. Also the fan
> on this CPU has never dropped below 1600RPM while the cooler running
> CPU can get away with dropping down as low as 600RPM.
> Since I'm stuck with the Foxconn heatsinks for this particular
> board, I wanted to ask some other 6200 users about their temps. Even
> the cooler running CPU stays around 44-46C which just seems too hot to
> me.

My (recently replaced) home workstation was a xw8200 with two XEON
3.6GHz/2MB cpus, and I can tell you that these babies run _really_ hot,
even in idle. What you experience is normal with the old Netburst-based
XEONs, but besides the heat and wasted energy it's not really a problem...

> The CPU's were seated with great care, Artic Silver 5 and this is
> certainly not my first time around the block with dual xeons, but don't
> these temps seem unusually high or am I just being paranoid? If so, do
> you think that replacing the Foxconn heatsink fans with some quiet but
> higher CFM fans might help?

Does your machine still have warranty? If yes then I'd avoid replacing
the heatsinks with something that doesn't have a HP P/N. Especially
since these heatsinks are not bad at all...

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
> * davec63367@yahoo.com:

>snip<

> My (recently replaced) home workstation was a xw8200 with two XEON
> 3.6GHz/2MB cpus, and I can tell you that these babies run _really_ hot,
> even in idle. What you experience is normal with the old Netburst-based
> XEONs, but besides the heat and wasted energy it's not really a problem...

Thank you Benjamin, I was fairly certain that this was simply the
nature of the beast. Lot of watts, lot of heat.

>
> Does your machine still have warranty? If yes then I'd avoid replacing
> the heatsinks with something that doesn't have a HP P/N. Especially
> since these heatsinks are not bad at all...
>
> Benjamin

Yes, I still have most of my one year tech support left but frankly
the last tech I talked to about this really wasn't very knowledgable
about what I was asking. I guess I wasn't too clear in my original
post. I know I can't replace the heatsinks themselves, the Foxconn's
are the only ones that will fit the hole spacing on the board. What I
was thinking was to just replace the fans on the heatsinks with some
higher CFM fans. Shouldn't be a problem, I believe they are just
standard 70mm x 15mm fans. I would go for the highest RPM and lowest
dba of course. Maybe I should just go ahead and do a 24 hour torture
test on them and see how hot they actually get first.

Thanks again,
Dave

Can you fry an egg on the chassis? If so, you have a problem... Ben Myers

On 16 Nov 2006 19:55:21 -0800, davec63367@yahoo.com wrote:

>
>Benjamin Gawert wrote:
>> * davec63367@yahoo.com:
>
>>snip<
>
>> My (recently replaced) home workstation was a xw8200 with two XEON
>> 3.6GHz/2MB cpus, and I can tell you that these babies run _really_ hot,
>> even in idle. What you experience is normal with the old Netburst-based
>> XEONs, but besides the heat and wasted energy it's not really a problem...
>
> Thank you Benjamin, I was fairly certain that this was simply the
>nature of the beast. Lot of watts, lot of heat.
>
>>
>> Does your machine still have warranty? If yes then I'd avoid replacing
>> the heatsinks with something that doesn't have a HP P/N. Especially
>> since these heatsinks are not bad at all...
>>
>> Benjamin
>
> Yes, I still have most of my one year tech support left but frankly
>the last tech I talked to about this really wasn't very knowledgable
>about what I was asking. I guess I wasn't too clear in my original
>post. I know I can't replace the heatsinks themselves, the Foxconn's
>are the only ones that will fit the hole spacing on the board. What I
>was thinking was to just replace the fans on the heatsinks with some
>higher CFM fans. Shouldn't be a problem, I believe they are just
>standard 70mm x 15mm fans. I would go for the highest RPM and lowest
>dba of course. Maybe I should just go ahead and do a 24 hour torture
>test on them and see how hot they actually get first.
>
> Thanks again,
> Dave

Ben Myers wrote:
> Can you fry an egg on the chassis? If so, you have a problem... Ben Myers
>
Lol, no it's not quite hot enough to do any cooking yet! Actually
the chassis temp stays around 25C, the airflow is very good and yet it
is a very *quiet* machine. I love quiet. I'll post again when I can
break out the wok and avoid those distracting dinner breaks.
Dave

* davec63367@yahoo.com:

> Yes, I still have most of my one year tech support left but frankly
> the last tech I talked to about this really wasn't very knowledgable
> about what I was asking. I guess I wasn't too clear in my original
> post. I know I can't replace the heatsinks themselves, the Foxconn's
> are the only ones that will fit the hole spacing on the board.

Right. But there are heatsinks that fit...

> What I
> was thinking was to just replace the fans on the heatsinks with some
> higher CFM fans. Shouldn't be a problem, I believe they are just
> standard 70mm x 15mm fans.

Be careful, these are 4pin fans that fit to the on-board thermal
management. On these machines the fans are matched to the thermal
controller. By fiddling around with it you are very likely to end up
with either worse colling and/or more noisy system.

I really think you're trying to fix something that ain't broken...

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
> snip<

> Right. But there are heatsinks that fit...
>
Wow, that's news to me. Could you point me in the general direction
of where I could at least check out the specs on some of these? I
couldn't google anything in terms of a CPU heatsink/fan replacement. I
would appreciate it very much.

> Be careful, these are 4pin fans that fit to the on-board thermal
> management. On these machines the fans are matched to the thermal
> controller. By fiddling around with it you are very likely to end up
> with either worse colling and/or more noisy system.
>
> I really think you're trying to fix something that ain't broken...
>
> Benjamin

You're probably right. I'm sure it's more critical on the CPU's
than the case fans, but I did have to use a homemade shroud with a
Visualize 92mm fan on the front of the case for awhile because the HP
part is no longer available from them and the third party vendors
wanted outrageous prices for the assembly. Finally found one under $40.
Point being, the homemade job was a three pinner and other than running
at full throttle constantly the noise difference was barely noticable.
But I will take your advice and run CPU Burn-in for 24 hours. I don't
want to fix something that ain't broke. If the temperatures stay below
say 55C, I'll drop it. You have to understand Benjamin, it's my baby, I
love it.
Thanks,
Dave

* davec63367@yahoo.com:

> Well, I'm here in the US and it consistantly came up on HP's
> website as "No longer available". Matter of fact, the Foxconn heatsink
> part no. comes up as "No parts found" and then lists all the models it
> went into. Go figure.

Well, some parts are listed in HPs part shop as "no longer available"
but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not available from HP any more.
The part shops usually contain parts that are demanded a lot, other HP
part reseller usually still can get the parts that aren't listed on HPs
part shop any more.

> Well thanks again for your advice. I think I'll take it and just
> leave well enough alone. I'm still going to torture test it this
> weekend though. Intel specs give a 70C thermal on these puppies and 50
> seems to be too close to me under no load but I trust your expertise.

As I said I had (still have it but don't use it anymore) a fully loaded
xw8200 (2x 3.6GHz XEON/2MB, 16GB DDR2, 4x300GB U320 10k disks, Quadro
FX4500) which now has been replaced by a xw9300. The 3.6GHz XEONs with
2MB still run very hot even when they are cooler than the older 1MB
variants because the 2MB versions do support some power management
features (EIST). At work we have dozens of xw8200 (and now an incrasing
number of xw8400) and also several xw6200, and they all run around as
hot as yours. Most of these machines are running 24hrs/day and under
full load, and we very rarely have any problems with them (sometimes a
disk goes bad, sometimes a broken memory module, but that's it
basically). Very sturdy and extremely reliable machines. No need to
worry about temperatures.

Really, I'm quite sure if you make any changes you'll end up regretting
it...

> BTW, I was doing some googling on another subject and Itanium came up
> on one of the HP UX groups. Boy did you take alot of sh*t over that!

Well, I really like Itanium because it was one of the most powerful
processors out there, especially in floating point operations. But now
it's getting a bit long in the run, with intels latest core2-based XEONs
(5100 dual core and 5300 quad core) being faster than Itanium.

> Have a good weekend and thanks again,

You're welcome.

Benjamin

Hi again,

Two interesting things came up as I've been googling for any
modification for excessive heat on the CPU's (well, one of them) in
this box:

1.) How the hell did this entire thread go to:
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic210811.html ??? If anywhere,
it should have gone to "howtoleavethingsalone.com".

2.) And how come Benjamin and Ben Myers get their names in and I'm
only "Guest"? I feel so neglected (sniffle, sniffle).

Seriously, my temp on CPU 0 is outrageous. I'm going over 61C
within *one minute* of starting CPU Burn-in. I can only conclude that
if indeed these Foxconn's are the right tool for the job, then my
installation is at fault. Too much TIM, too little, who knows? I do
know that if I pull the heatsink off, reseat it and it's still running
~15C (at least) hotter than the other, I will be very pissed because
putting that sink in this machine is a total pain in the ass. I wish I
could just get the 4-pin fan they use and replace it first, at least to
try. This fan never varies more than 5 RPM off of 1600 RPM, but I can't
seem to find one. The much cooler CPU's fan's RPM's are all over the
place constantly.

I'll let you all know what works so nobody else has to do this
(especially over at howtofixcomputers.com, hehe).

Dave