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Mobile Athlon XP CPUs
mal - Aug 17, 2004
  mal Aug 17, 2004
I'm wanting to run a couple of my PCs a bit quieter, but without sacrificing temperature so I'd been thinking about using mobile Athlons instead.

They're not that much more expensive to buy and sound like they will run a heck of a lot cooler, hence allowing a slower CPU fan, hence less noise.

I'm also thinking about building a bare bones machine in the future and I reckon a mobile Athlon would be just the ticket.

So yeah, has anyone used them at all? If so, how did you find them?

 Alexvrb Aug 18, 2004
Find them? They sell them all over the internet. Just make sure you're getting a Socket 462 mobile chip and you should be good to go. They aren't that different from the desktop variants, aside from being unlocked and being fantastic overclockers (partly because they're fully unlocked even today). Though recently AMD has been making a broader range of chips, for instance they have Athlon 64s that are almost as low power as the Pentium-M chips, all the way up to fast mobile Athlon 64s that are almost as power hungry as mobile Pentium 4 chips.

Anyway, I don't see why you're having noise problems in the first place. It could be as simple as finding a better cooler (and no you shouldn't have to resort to watercooling). But mobile Athlons at stock speeds do run a lot cooler, for sure... though honestly you could probably just underclock your current chips and decrease the voltage a little bit and achieve similar results. It all depends on what kind of performance you need.

Something else I should mention - make sure your noise source is what you think it is. By that I mean pull the computer out, disconnect the HDs and chassis fans, and listen. I've yet to own an Athlon that forced me to have a noisy fan. That doesn't mean I haven't used noisy fans in the past, but they drove me nuts and I replaced them.

 mal Aug 18, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Alexvrb@Aug 18, 2004 @ 06:08 PM



 Find them? They sell them all over the internet.


"How did you find them?" = "Did you find them to be good or bad?"

Well, that's how my brain works anyway...

It's also not just the CPU fan, it's an attempt to lower the overall temperature so I can safely run my case fans slower too. I could probably just do it now anyway, but I guess that I'm being over cautious. *shrug*

 Alexvrb Aug 18, 2004
Well, yeah, shelling out money for mobile Athlons would be one way to solve your problem. You could use a fanbus and try and find a good balance now. Are you absolutely sure the noise isn't from the HD? If its really your fans just being too noisy, I'd also recommend looking at a better heatsink/fan combo. What do you have on them now, and what model chips are we talking about?

 thewasp31 Sep 8, 2004
my hp nx9105 laptop has a AMD Athlon XP-M Mobile 3000+ processor. I must say I'm pretty happy with it. When the prcessor is not in allot of use it switches to 800Mhz hence no fan and very little heat. I'd reccomend it, but they maybe soon be taken over by the AMD64 chips.

Also have you considered a VIA C3 1.2Ghz chip? They are supposed to run pretty well and again, are supposed to be the coolest (lowest heat) chips available.

Though I can't say anything on the C3, only got a Cyrix II 266Mhz lying around somewhere

 Alexvrb Sep 8, 2004
I don't think he wants to switch platforms, just chips. Edit: Referring to the C3/A64 suggestion. He could still replace with an XP-M

Which is why my suggestion was to replace the HSF, since he's got perfectly good processors. If the other fans are noisy too, you can drop their RPMs a bit or use quieter fans. If the HD(s) are a noise issue, there isn't as much you can do for that (besides replacing them). The really effective HD noise dampeners cause heat to rise dramatically (dangerously), and the best in-between solution I saw dropped both temp and noise a bit, but not tremendously. Plus it was expensive, and eats up a 5.25" bay.