right now id kill for a 50c idle on my mediasmart server im running an e8500 using artic silver 5 and the cpu idle temp is still the same!!!!!!

With the CPU upgrades you guys are doing are you using the stock cooler? if not what are you putting on there I have a spare E8400 i would like to put in my EX490 instead of the celeron.

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"Freedom is never free, it is paid for with the blood of patriots"

I just upgraded to the Q9300 and the temps are not too bad. Idle@40c-45c and under full load on all cores it gets to about 68c-72c which as far as i can tell is just fine since I cant see this thing ever running at full load on all cores.

Since its fresh I hope that maybe after a few days the thermal paste will go through a few cycles and maybe get a little cooler. But we'll see.

You will have to use the stock heatsink, as the hole pattern is non standard.
As well the space constraints are too tight.

I did read an article where a machinist made his own so he could sqweez a fan in there.
I think if I went to that trouble I would do a passive external water setup.

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Current DIY server DL380 G6 2xquad core 2.8ghz 32GB rdimm ram 512mb 2xHP 410 raid with 2x sas expanders (2 X norco RPC-4220) 48 slots stacked with room to grow.
30TB (Movie/File/Music)Win 2012 essentials 64bit Storage spaces
Ex490 E6400 4gb ram

Here's my E8400 at Idle:




and here's the CPU Usage while streaming Orb

So in terms of "bang for your buck" I think I'm going to go for an e8600 which are under £50 these days on ebay. I just want to clarify three things please as follows:

1) I need to do two reboots before the duel core shows
2) no fan upgrade or hint sink upgrade needed
3) no bios changes were required

I.e. you just switch the CPU put on some fresh thermal paste and away you go...

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Ian

HP EX490 with External VGA + Keyboard + Mouse Unit (still original Celeron 450 & 2Gb RAM for now!!)
Windows 8 Pro
House Has:
2 Dell Desktops
4 Dell Laptops
2 Samsung Smart TV's
Ps3
Xbox360

I'm running E5800 in mine, they are cooler then stock. Could be the arctic silver or less load on it, I don't know but I like it. 36C now where it was 40C with stock.

I have an E8600 but have not tried it in the media server, I do have one in my workstation at work (dell) and it is running very hot 70-72C at idle, but my work station has bad heatsink and not so great cooling fan.

Lots to consider, what part of the north/south you live in (room temp) how clean it is kept (air flow) and how much do you work ?, idle most of the time or do you have lots of stuff running all the time
?
I have been seeing some of the 4 core guys are getting a windows update that is messing with the console seeing the cores but when they rdp in to win2003 they can still see them.

I have no need for the extra power or I would try it, and I am looking to keep my servers alive for as long as I can, so I don't want to push it any more then the E5800.

EDIT:
I did a quick search and saw where one forum member tried it, he said it idles at 41C (which is about stock temp) and when it was working (trans coding) it went up to 51C. which is still in range.
I may just try it in my second server just for kicks, it just sets idle and has all red drives in it so it is running cooler anyway.

If you do decide to try it, please shout back with your temps. As to the rest of your question, just a reboot is all I had to do for it to pickup the new cpu.
Good luck

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Just to add to the pool of responses, I have E8500's in both my EX490's and both run about 45 at idle depending on room temperature. The only time they get hot, around 65-70 is when I am transcoding using Mezzmo or Airvideo programs. Both servers have never had an issue and the case fans do speed up when they get hot. I am still running V1 and still very happy with it. I did consider a quad core but thats pure indulgence and I keep looking out for a cheap 's' variant which is the 65W version.

The only bummer is that a recent MS patch broke the dual core display in the WHS Console view but doesn't affect the server in any way as the WHS OS still reports 2 cores.

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X510, Xeon Quad L3360 2.86GHz Server 2019 + Essentials 2016,SANS DIGITAL TR5M
EX490, E8400 Server 2019
EX490, E8600 WHS 2011
EX490, E8400 Ubuntu server 16.04
EX475 Athlon BE-2350 2.1GHz WHS v1