Quiet my P II HSF?

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 10:56 am

The Slot1 HSF on my e-mail machine is anoying me. It's a 300 MHz Pentium II with a small "wizzer" fan in a long black plastic shroud that extends the length of the heat sink.

I think the CPU is a Deschutes (low power) because the memory is 100MHz which started with the Deschutes. It was not "state of the art" when I purchased in in the Fall of '98.

It's on a MicroATX motherboard, the fan is only 2.5 cm from the nearest DIMM and the heatsink is about 4 cm from the DIMM. The DIMM will have to be pulled to allow the fan's locking levers to unlock. I was thinking of removing the stock fan and pointing a Panaflow at the HS but the fan would have to be facing the back of the case to blow on the vertical HS. But there is not much room in there and I don't know how to support the fan there.

Any ideas? If I put a Fortron PSU (120mm) in the case could I run without a fan on the HS? Could put an 80L1A as an input on the front of the case, running at 5v to provide some fresh air. This way when I retire the P II system I could use the Fortron PSU and fan somewhere else.

Thanks,
Jim

Mr_Smartepants · Post by **Mr_Smartepants** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 11:29 am

How about a Panaflo L1A suspended from a Zalman fan mount?

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 3:27 pm

When I have seen the Zahlman fan mounts they are holding the fan parallel to the motherboard and the fan blows horizontally in a tower case, toward the motherboard. This heatsink has no horizontal channels, the groves/fins all run vertically and I think I need to get the air moving between the fins for some cooling not over the top edge of the fins. There is no space to get a fan at either end other than the PSU bottom fan.

If I could get something like a long Zahlman and hang a fan at 90 degrees to the bracket (parallel to the rear of the case) then this would work. Perhaps a piece of steel strapping would work.

Considering the age and power of this system, the answer has to be low cost. Will look at the Zahlman brackets again for inspiration.

Thanks,
Jim

dan_hxff · Post by **dan_hxff** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:27 pm

JimK wrote:The Slot1 HSF on my e-mail machine is anoying me. It's a 300 MHz Pentium II with a small "wizzer" fan in a long black plastic shroud that extends the length of the heat sink.

It's on a MicroATX motherboard, the fan is only 2.5 cm from the nearest DIMM and the heatsink is about 4 cm from the DIMM.

Thanks,
Jim

This Pent II can be cooled with just a big heatsink. You can see photos of them on eBay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... gory=14290 You see fan here but it's not needed. That heatsink is just less than 3cm deep including the metal base for the prongs.

My old HP Vectra has 350 MHz Pentium II cooled this way. A very quiet computer.

Only problem is your such a heatsink prolly won't fit your board?

Dan

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:18 am

That 350 PII on Ebay looked good. I will have to open my case again and measure from the CPU chip itself to the DIMM. Perhaps I should pull the fan off and see what I have under the plastic cover. Gee, a better HS and 10% more power for $12.50! I will have to start looking at Ebay again.

Does anyone know if I can get Temp. readings off the CPU in such an old motherboard? If I can, I would be willing to remove my present OEM fan and see where the temp goes. What would be too high for a PII?

Any trick to removing/installing P IIs or is it just like a card in an expansion slot?

Thanks,
Jim

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:24 am

Temp monitoring is really not necessary to determine whether there is adequate cooling. Overheating will show up as system instability long before anything burns. Make changes and use the system hard for an hour or run Prime95 or similar for 20 minutes -- system errors, lockups, etc will tell you whether it's cool enough. And unless you keep trying to run it despite immediate & repeated crashes / lockups, it is very difficult to heat-damage anything.

dan_hxff · Post by **dan_hxff** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 12:27 pm

JimK wrote:That 350 PII on Ebay looked good. I will have to open my case again and measure from the CPU chip itself to the DIMM. Perhaps I should pull the fan off and see what I have under the plastic cover. Gee, a better HS and 10% more power for $12.50! I will have to start looking at Ebay again.

Does anyone know if I can get Temp. readings off the CPU in such an old motherboard? If I can, I would be willing to remove my present OEM fan and see where the temp goes. What would be too high for a PII?

Any trick to removing/installing P IIs or is it just like a card in an expansion slot?

Thanks,
Jim

The photo at eBay is slightly different from my heatsink. My heatsink has the same prongs but no shortened prongs in the middle to accommodate a small fan..... the way the eBay one does. But you should get 95% the same cooling. I have an old Celeron 300A with a flat heatsink. Prolly the same as yours and the fan is very high pitched and annoying

My Pent II 350 is a cartridge that slides in and out. Just have to pull apart some tabs on top. At the base it DOES slide in like a PCI card....... with similar gold contacts.

Dan

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 3:29 pm

Thanks All,

I will remove the fan tomorrow AM, while it is cool and see what I have and what happens when I fire it up. Hopefully I will not need the fan at all.

All this system does is e-mail and simple web stuff like silentpcreview and dpreview fora, no complex CPU intensive calculations.

Jim

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Sat Apr 19, 2003 11:12 am

Bad news

Just removed the HSF from the P II and the Heat Sink comes with it!

The HS and fan mount/shroud are all one piece. It's very light, feels like PLASTIC with a small 3 x 3cm piece of Aluminum in the center to contact the CPU, no signs of any thermal compound.

One good thought, when I get a better HS for this thing I will use a little thermal grease of some sort and will be way ahead of the present setup for transfering that heat.

Ebay, here I come!

Jim

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 5:55 pm

I have been watching Ebay and have seen a few heatsinks like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... gory=14290

Looks like leaves of grass sticking out from the CPU. I wonder if something like this would work well with the PSU Inlet just above it to keep the air moving through those spikes?

Been looking at 333s, may as well get the increase in power when I do the change.

Thanks,
Jim

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 6:00 pm

JimK wrote:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... gory=14290

Looks like leaves of grass sticking out from the CPU. I wonder if something like this would work well with the PSU Inlet just above it to keep the air moving through those spikes?

Been looking at 333s, may as well get the increase in power when I do the change.

That HS is about ideal for low airflow cooling because of the large spacing between the pins.

dan_hxff · Post by **dan_hxff** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 9:44 am

JIM K .... This may be the Pent 2 heatsink.

http://sales.goldmine-elec.com/prodinfo.asp?prodid=6128

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Thu May 01, 2003 5:00 pm

Thanks Dan and MikeC

Got a 333 with one of those "Leaves of Grass" heatsinks, no fan

This thing is so nice. Who would think that a 50mm fan would be SO LOUD. Should have done this two years ago, but then it would have cost $25, not the $8.50 it did now.

The old PSU, with the fan grill cut out, is not that bad. I may wait a week and see if it is worth $32 to replace it with a 120mm Fortron or not. The cost of the new PSU vs the cost of a Panaflow 80 M1BX, leads and shipping to mod the old 200w unit make replacement a better idea. The labor is easier too.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Tue May 06, 2003 9:47 am

I've recently silenced my old P2 350

1. Replaced stock HSF, with a passive heat sink. Much like the first eBay offer above.
2. Modded the Enemax PSU; Removed the 80mm fan and swapped the 92mm.
3. Suspended the hard drives on foam

Very quiet. I can only hear it at night.

edcrane · Post by **edcrane** » Fri May 09, 2003 10:37 am

I just moved my old p3-450 rig (slot based with similar annoying 30-40mm fan) to my new apt. and was suprised to find it signifigantly louder than it used to be. Turns out there was a fault contact on the fan connector that was only providing power intermitently. Basically, my cpu has been quiet for the last year because the fan was off. I've been running it 24/7 and haven't had any stability problems...so my conclusion is that with reasonably low case temps, at least this processor doesn't require active cooling. Just to be safe I took the snap on fan/plastic cover off the heatsink and dremeled a port in the side of my case. I added 4" pvc to direct the cool air directly onto the processor. Since there's no grill, every once in a while I stick my hand in and touch the cpu heatsink. Even @ load it never heats up much. My 5400rpm maxtor seems to get a lot hotter.

Anyway, you might wanna try that as well.

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Sat May 24, 2003 5:29 pm

Thanks for all the "been there, done that" help.

First change on this system was a new HDD as the old one was ready to die. Office Depot had a deal that with coupon and double rebate that netted a Maxtor DM+8 for $14.98, so I passed on the 'Cuda IV. Mounted the new drive in a 3.5 -> 5.25 bracket sitting on foam in the bottom of the case like everyone here say to do, ran AMSET. Quieter and cheap fix.

Got the "Leaves of Grass" looking passive HS on a 333 P II and eliminated the noisy HSF (Ebay $8.50). The BIG IMPROVEMENT!

Started running DTemp and noticed the HDD runs 38 - 44 degrees. Did a proof of concept/quick fix modification. Nibbled out the case fan grill and the grill in the plastic fan mount "basket" and used an 80mm temp controlled fan from CompUSA, figured it was the quietest thing they had. Not too bad, really. Cannot hear it with the PSU fan (no grill). HDD temps now 27 - 30

The PSU fan was not that noisy and I lasted a few weeks until I finally went for the 120mm fan Fortron. $32 well spent.

Now it is quiet, I could live with this. I am pleased but that cheap fan is sounding louder. I think I will get the drive up into the airflow from the front inlet, get some sort of heatsink/Al channels on it and cover the rear exhaust that has never had a fan. Pulled a PCI slot cover so there is air moving over the face of the video card.

This has been a fun six weeks, spent $62.50 + tax/shipping. Well worth it but I would like to get back to a one fan system. Email and fora browsing are quiet now.

Quiet my P II HSF?

Quiet my P II HSF?

Re: Quiet my P II HSF?

Hear Sink Like This?

Re: Hear Sink Like This?

JIM K

NO FAN, Faster CPU!