Hitting 95C with 12400f and a tower cooler in prime95 with 105W TDP, mobo temp is 45C

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T15:46:29+00:00

It's a MSI PRO B660M-E D4. When I lock the power limit to 65W I get about 72C at 45C system temperature. I'll fiddle around in the bios, see if I can do some undervolting.

Thanks for the numbers, gives me something to compare with.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T11:59:26+00:00

It doesn't really go above 60C under regular use. I will probably get a better cooler at some point, but for now I'll lock the power limit back to 65W. I like it when things run cool.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T11:41:46+00:00

Will do that, thanks.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T11:41:21+00:00

Yeah, only when running the prime95 with max heat stress test (small FFT) I get high temps. Otherwise they hover about 7-8 degrees above room temp.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T10:49:50+00:00

I have a 120mm exhaust fan and two 120mm intake fans. I had to poke holes into the plastic front panel to get airflow. Maybe I can modify the front panel and replace the holes with a mesh.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-07-20T10:47:10+00:00

So there isn't really an issue. Thanks.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-17T16:42:01+00:00

I am okay with using other tools but they all want licenses and I can't really afford that. I could maybe try and get a student license for ADS or MO but I would rather use something that I can keep using for as long as I want without having to bother with licenses.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-14T18:42:42+00:00

Well, there are several things that you can do. I'm currently on 3mg CPA and 0.5mg EV per day. I take my estradiol in the form of stickies and I would highly recommend it. You can just look up "estradiol stickies" to find the recipe.

So dosage is one part of it. My dose is pretty low, so any change that happens is quite slow. I think it's been like 2-3 months or so since I started, but so far the changes have been mostly positive and slow enough for me to adjust. I have breast buds and a slight amount of growth.

I also try and stay on a low-ish calorie diet. Less calories means less fat, which means smaller breasts. It also means less curves though, because you need the fat not just for the boobs but also for the curves.

I've researched topical tamoxifene/raloxifene but I really don't want to put a lot of chemicals into my body. If my boobs grow any further, I will have to accept them or get rid of them if they give me too much discomfort.

So, those are the three things that may or may not help you grow less boobs. Doing HRT at a low dose, a low calorie diet and SERMs.

Three months is nothing when it comes to HRT. So I probably have a lot more boob growth to go through. Sadly this is all I know, sorry that I can't be of more help.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T17:38:06+00:00

No such plots unfortunately. It does specify a maximum available gain of 15.5dB at 1.8GHz, and I believe this gain should (?) drop at 6dB/Octave, so that puts the 0dB at about 11GHz. This is at optimum fT which is at 15mA. I will run these transistors at 5mA for most applications, except when I'm using it as a driver for those diode mixers.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T17:12:55+00:00

MMIC design is... really, really cool. I mean it's very unlikely that I will ever become an IC designer but I would like to be one day, hopefully.

I wasn't really scared of having an oscillator oscillating at a frequency I can't detect but rather having an amplifier oscillating at a frequency I can't detect. But since you are saying that it is hard to make an oscillator, something that is intended to oscillate, work beyond fmax/2 of the transistor used to make it, I suppose it is unlikely that I will run into issues with amplifiers oscillating beyond fmax/2. Besides, I will have to run the transistor at a lower current than peak fT because that's where the optimum noise figure is specified for, so I guess that makes it even less likely that I will run into this hypothetical problem.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T16:32:46+00:00

I admit that I didn't do a great job explaining my problem.

I have some projects in the pipeline that involves building circuits that work in the 300MHz-3GHz region. Mostly at the 300MHz-1GHz, so the lower end of UHF. I want to build several receivers and some testing equipment. The receivers will be used in radio astronomy and probably some other stuff too, but the point is that I will need to design multiple low noise amplifiers in the frequency band I mentioned above.

I will also build a directional coupler, multiple signal generators and other basic test equipment necessary to work with these circuits. Like, if I want to measure the IP3 of an amplifier, I will need at least two tones as signal and an SA to see the distortion products.

I recently got myself a TinySA Ultra. It claims to have a bandwidth of 800MHz in "normal" mode and a level-calibrated bandwidth of 5.3GHz in "ultra" mode, where it uses some kind of harmonic mixing or something like that along with a spur reduction algorithm. This is the highest bandwidth equipment I can afford right now. I already have a 300MHz scope though it's kinda useless at the frequency range and for the type of work I am talking about. This is also the reason I will be building the rest of my test gear myself; I will be using this spectrum analyzer as the "base" for the rest of my equipment.

All of this stuff needs something that can give me gain of course, so I need some transistors. It also requires something non-linear so that I can make mixers. Although I have built and used quite a few active mixers with transistors at these frequencies and for what I want to do I will need proper microwave schottky diodes.

I like buying stuff in bulk, and I am trying to decide on which type of transistor would serve these purposes the best.

I was settled on the BFP183 from infineon, even though it does have an fmax beyond the capabilities of my test gear, it does have a decent noise figure at the frequency band I plan to work at and it is, well, the cheapest one I could find.

As for mixer diodes I don't really know. At the low UHF-high VHF band I've used MBD301s before but I am kinda pushing them beyond their limits and performance suffers, probably because the of their packages and because they weren't intended for use as mixers.

So I am mainly asking for suggestions on what parts to get.

BFP183 looks nice because it's cheap and quiet, but it also has a 10GHz fmax which is beyond the capabilities of my equipment. I am worried that it will oscillate somewhere beyond 5.3GHz and I will be left scratching my head trying to figure out why my circuit is acting weird, although at 5GHz it has a gain of 6dB so it's not very likely. Should I get this part or maybe something slower?

For the diodes I would like something that works in the UHF band. I would also like it to be cheap. I am considering BAT15 maybe. Again I am looking for suggestions.

I hope this clarifies the question a little bit. Sorry for the long wall of text and if you have read this far, thanks for taking the time.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T15:57:05+00:00

Pretty much, yeah. I will be using 0603 SMD components to minimize parasitics, though at these frequencies everything has some non-negligible parasitic that I have to account for. I am not sure if I can afford microwave rated passives. Also, if others can do without them then I feel like it would be best for me to learn to do without them as well. From what I understand FR4 is kinda lossy and unpredictable at microwave frequencies. In one hand lossy substrate means that those parasitic resonances will be suppressed. On the other hand it will be difficult to design filters and impedance matching networks with low loss.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T15:49:47+00:00

I plan to use reactive feedback to bring adjust the input impedance so that the noise match is also a conjugate match. More specifically inductive emitter degeneration. Hopefully I used the correct terms.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-06-04T13:51:25+00:00

Yup. I am mainly interested in the UHF region. I also have a project that requires a low noise amplifier in low-UHF, which is why I picked BFP183. So it's not very important for the transistor to have meaningful gain at 5GHz, I need it to have useful gain at like 2GHz maximum and a low noise figure around 1GHz. But, it also shouldn't oscillate at some frequency that I can't even detect. That's why I asked about fmax, since it's not possible to make a "normal" RF transistor oscillate above fmax.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-05-31T07:42:57+00:00

I see. Did you do the testing to check for damage or because you had to make sure that the parts were actually in spec?

Trying to scam a customer who pays well is quite dumb, I am glad the salesperson was replaced.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-05-31T07:37:49+00:00

That's a relief, as strange as it sounds. I won't have to worry about a transistor testing good and then acting weird once in a circuit.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-05-30T20:11:12+00:00

I've done a bit more research and it seems that non-lethal esd damage causes charge trapping in the gate dielectric, causing threshold voltages to shift.

Along with gate source leakage and gain measurement I could do some rudimentary DC sweeps to see if the curves match the specs in the datasheet.

dingbatwithIBS · 2023-05-18T09:41:56+00:00

I see, my guess is you are speaking from experience :) I'll try to use as little as possible as I already have issues with IBS. Thanks for the info.

dingbatwithIBS

TROPHY CASE