tl;dr: I would be eternally grateful if you would help me find a way to hold a trimmed down OEM i7 cooler against a socket 478 Pentium 4. The kludgier the better.

BEHOLD! WallPC!



I recently found myself in need of a living room computer. Into my spare parts box I dove, and out I emerged, victorious, with 2.8 hyperthreaded GHz of Pentium 4 glory, an Intel D865PERL board, 2 GB of DDR400 memory, and an AGP NVIDIA FX5200 256MB. Not having a spare case, and not really wanting one cluttering up my apartment's living area, I kludged those parts together with a no-name power supply and DVD-ROM, along with an ethernet card (the origins of which are an absolute mystery to me) and an old 250GB hard drive, then kludged all that onto an old cork board with push pins and zip ties. It's been quite the conversation piece so far:



The monitor runs at 1024x768 and is old enough that when bought, LCD displays were a new thing. Nailed to the wall, hidden behind the screen, are a old set of "iPod speakers" the kind with the integrated dock that chews up 4 AA batteries in about 30 minutes. Fortunately, they have an auxiliary input, and work much better with the AC adapter.

Total cash outlay so far: $0.00

The first problem to emerge was an intermittent but obnoxious loud buzzing sound. The culprit turned out to be this VGA fansink:



The fansink was cool to the touch, so back into my parts box I went, where I pulled a socket 775 board with lightning damage that was rescued from a system left by my complex's dumpster. A little work with pliers and vice grips, and I had successfully liberated an appropriately sized heatsink.


Holy exploding northbridge batman!

The missing piece of the northbridge chip was fused with the bottom of the heatsink. I resorted to a hammer and chisel to get it off.

It gouged horrifically.

I did not fix it.

Still seems to work alright with some new TIM though. Pin spacing was even correct.



Here is where I'm looking for your help. The CPU fan runs at over 3000 RPM, and is now the loudest component in a system designed to run essentially all the time in my primary living space, right at head level. It's actually quieter than you would expect, but not quiet enough. Now, I recently installed a Corsair H60 in my primary system, which leaves me with this OEM i7 cooler available:



The cooler visible in the background is also available. It's another pull from the lightning damaged system. I know nothing about it other than that it fits socket 775 and it's made by Cooler Master. Not even the model. The i7 cooler's 130W TDP is massively overkill for the 70W Northwood core P4, so I'm hoping to get a double header of reduced noise and some of the overclocking that I seem to remember P4s being known for in their day. The problem is that this is where it needs to go:



I'm an engineering student, and have access to a machine shop, so I can cut a hunk off of the heatsink to clear the capacitor bank, but I have no promising ideas for how to actually hold the cooler against the board, and I really don't want to remove the square black plastic anchor for the OEM unit until I have a sure solution. Anyone here have any ideas?

You should REALLY consider removing "the square black plastic anchor for the OEM unit" , since any time you can put it back(it's hold in place with some kind of push-pins/removable plastic rivets), and it can be removed/re-attached(carefully) without any damage to the MB or HSF holder.
Regarding the new HSF combo: I would go with the Cooler Master, and make replacement adapters(in the machine shop, based on the existing ones to fit the holes on the MB; same shape, different hole placement) for the P4, either using the existing push-pins(from the CM heat-sink, or from MB HSF holder), or a screw based mounting solution.
BTW, I love the way the system looks

I'd look for a Scythe Ninja to stick on there. With bolt on options for the Rev 1 and rev 2 models, why not?

My main workstation has a first rev model Scythe Ninja that adapted 775 to a 478 mounting scheme, and my AMD rig uses a second rev Ninja which bolts onto the AMD mounting plate.

Should work just fine for what you're looking for. Given the size difference of 478 and 1366, I'm not sure that you would even be able to bastardize that together.

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I don't think I can get the anchor off without damaging it. The pins aren't the kind you usually see, they look like this:



The black plastic barbs are attached to the anchor, and are held apart by the white plastic peg, which has it's own barb to keep it from being removed. I tried gently spreading the black barbs and pulling on the head of the white peg with some pliers, but the plastic just started to shred. I think it's a one-way-only deal.

The CoolerMaster HS is quite loud, and the board does not seem to be capable of throttling the CPU fan. It's much louder than the P4 cooler. Also, on closer inspection, it's push pins are damaged, but I was able to remove the mounting hardware as it was only attached by a few screws. With that out of the way, I might be able to mount it with some wire, but I'll need to find a way to knock the voltage down or get my hands on a different fan first. I'd still rather cut down the i7 cooler and get it on there somehow.

As for fabricating mounting hardware, while it's a possibility, making parts is quite a lot more time consuming than just cutting chunks off of things, and the material and tooling costs would likely exceed the $25 I can get bonestonne's suggestion of a scythe ninja for.

And as for the ninja, I'd hate to put money into such an old system when I have 2 working heatsinks sitting collecting dust.

Maybe if I drilled and countersunk holes in the top of the heatsink at the appropriate spacing, then held it to the board with low profiles bolts and washers so that the fan would still clear? Some nylon washers on the back of the board would avoid shorting issues... Any better ideas?

My preferred method to remove the white anchors were: take a flat screwdriver(~2-2.5 mm wide), and push the pins flat with the back of the board, then you can push it out completely from the black barbs with a small Phillips(#0, #00) screwdriver; then you can push it out the black barbs(last time I've done this procedure it was 3 years ago ). It should work without problems, unless the plastic became brittle over time.
Once the HSF holder removed, you can check the other HSF combos against the mounting holes, maybe you can get away with some kind of forced mount; IIRC, the 478/775 holes are pretty close, closer then the 775/115X...
I would stick with the original mounts(push-pins) on the LGA775 HSF combos as much as possible, since they give you enough contact pressure for good heat transfer, without damaging the board.
Silencing the CM fan:1. clean and lubricate the fan; 2. resistor in series on the red wire, try from 33 ohms up to 100 ohms; once you're satisfied with the result, cover up the resistor with heat-shrink tube(3/16"/2.5mm) or just with some electrical tape.
One more reason to use the CM HSF: the mounting system - if you have enough material on the push-pin adapter, you can get away with filing, or just find a screw based mount, which you cannot do easily on the i7 HSF
Another option to explore: cut out the fan from the original P4 HSF, and replace with a less noisy one...

Edit: I have doubts regarding the existence/placement of the red wire on the CM fan, so the proper way to describe the which wire should be manipulated it would be: the middle wire on the CM fan connector(3pin).
Recommended resistor values: 33/51/75(82)/100(120) ohms.

Apologies to the helpful SPCR-ers out there, my time has been stolen by my truck's transmission, which decided to start making the sounds of imminent bearing death at 165,000 miles.


Transmission rebuilds are FUN!

The project was extended significantly when I oop-sed a synchro hub that's out of production into 10 pieces with a 20 ton press during the tear-down. Read the instructions, kids.

With school and possibly a new job starting on Monday, It's been priority one for some time now. Soon enough, however, my vehicle will return to the ground, and my tinkering may resume.