Temperature and Noise

The documentation on the barebone keeps silent about any special technologies for less noise and better cooling. They must have put all their effort into the design of the case. And yet, it would be better to have a quiet home computer rather than an overheating reaction turbine, however spectacular it may look. So, this section is about the noise-temperature characteristics of the E-bot, especially because its specification doesn’t suggest a very high performance.

So, the active cooling system of the E-bot consists of two parts: a CPU cooler (it also cools the entire inside of the system case) and a North Bridge cooler. The South Bridge is cooled by a passive heatsink, and there are also vent holes in the bottom and side panels of the case. The North Bridge cooler is an ordinary 40mm fan fastened to an aluminum heatsink. This cooler is fastened to the mainboard by means of steel wire that holds on two loops in the textolite. The North Bridge chip is cooled actively because it contains an integrated graphics core.

The CPU cooler is quite another story. It is a design masterpiece that also cools the entire system case.

That is, one 80mm fan takes heat off the CPU and exhausts warm air from inside the case. Here’s how it works: three copper pipes go out of the aluminum sole of the CPU cooler to transfer heat to the aluminum heatsink. Now, the most important thing: in the assembled system the heatsink is situated right between the aforementioned fan and the vent grid in the back panel. Hot air is sucked in from the case by the fan and is blown through the heatsink and is then exhausted.

 It seems fine, but systems on heat pipes are not yet really good coolers. A fan can improve the situation but only if its purpose is to cool the CPU alone. It’s not so in our case. Moreover, the cooler’s sole is finished downright inaccurately:

As you can see, the surface is all uneven as if someone spilled molten metal on it. Of course, this worsens the heat contact. We don’t know if it’s a defect of the particular sample or an indication of a bad quality of manufacture overall, but the cooling system looks suspicious.