Pentium II 266 without Fan?

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Fri Nov 22, 2002 6:51 am

Hi there.

I spend some time yesterday building up some systems from stuff I have lying around and ended up with a Pentium 2 system (among others). the Fan of the PSU (an old ATX PSU propably 200W or something) starts *really* quiet, but gets really(!) loud after the system has reached the windows desktop and stood idle for a minute or two.... so well I'll just rip it out and put a Papst 8412N/2GL in there and power it @ 7 or 9V some time... maybe even 5?

But what annoys me more is this damn little CPU Fan... a nastly litlle 40mm Fan. i tried running it at 7V, but this one has really bad bearings, so this doesn't really solve the problem.... maybe a GlobalWin FA420 @ 7V would be enough? Currently that's not an option though, since I need my only FA420 on my main system's graphics card.

So, long story short:
Is it save to run the P2 266 completely without a fan (usual P2 all-plastic enclosure - your everyday black aluminium slot1 heatsink) or would it be better (read: necessary) to have a 80mm Fan around it somewhere?

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Nov 22, 2002 9:40 am

better (read: necessary) to have a 80mm Fan around it somewhere

Probably. From CPUs ranked by noise (in http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.p ... =31&page=1) "Early P2 with less efficient core difficult to cool quietly, as power dissipation is 35-43W. With slow performance, not much incentive. 20/7/02"
That black pastic casing traps a lot of heat too...

Laetitia · Post by **Laetitia** » Fri Nov 22, 2002 10:43 am

Darklord,

My PII 266 (@300Mhz) has been running fanless for a few months without problems. The fan and associated plastic were removed to expose the heatsink, the motherboard sits in the open (no case), the ambient temperature is 80-85F (I like my place warm and cozy, plus it saves on AC bills).
The reasoning was that it is a secondary PC used as an MP3 Server + download / Kazaa client often running non stop so it would be useless if not silent. The CPU dying wouldn't be a big deal as it is essentially worthless, the important data is backed up on another PC.

Maybe you could try it and check the CPU heatsink temperature for a while?

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Sat Nov 23, 2002 4:13 pm

Thanks for the answers.

Guess I'll try running it fanless and monitor the temps, otherwise I'll just put some 80mm fan @ 5V around somewhere and feel a lot better cause this precious little CPU might just last 'that bit' longer this way

adab721 · Post by **adab721** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 8:32 pm

Why not? I had a Packard Bell 350mhz Pentium II which came stock with a huge heasink and no fan. Ran great for several years and I sold it when I upgraded to a P4 at 2.6 mhz

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:12 pm

You can monitor the tomps on a P2? I've tried asus pc probe on a system with a celeron A and only got MB temp readings.

David Mitchell · Post by **David Mitchell** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 6:19 pm

I've recently looked inside two old Gateway PII-based systems. One has a PII-233 with a noisy (at least now) 40mm fan on the heatsink, but the other has a PII-350 with a large fanless heatsink. If I recall correctly, both systems have a power supply with a bottom 92mm fan (not hard-mounted!) under a duct that partly covers the CPU and heatsink, ensuring some airflow.

VERiON · Post by **VERiON** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:18 am

I have celeron 300@450 fanless (i.e no fan attached to heatsink), but is sits under bottom fanned PSU.

It's my parent everyday pc, runnig few months already - no prob.

dago · Post by **dago** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:36 am

MikeC wrote:
better (read: necessary) to have a 80mm Fan around it somewhere
Probably. From CPUs ranked by noise (in http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.p ... =31&page=1) "Early P2 with less efficient core difficult to cool quietly, as power dissipation is 35-43W. With slow performance, not much incentive. 20/7/02"
That black pastic casing traps a lot of heat too...

From erols/chare : well, you have many P2 266 : 16.8W (stepping 6-5-2), 19.5W (6-5-0), 38.2W (Klamath).

If you're at 17W max, no problems

For me, I have a PII 400 (24.3W) running fanless with large heatsink & airflow from the PSU 80mm output fan (same period).

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:15 am

I picked up a number of old P2s from my old workplace. 233, 266, 300, 333. All of them were "fanless". Some of the heat sinks were quiet large. They all came from Dell or Micron and had either an 80mm or 92mm case or PSU fan blowing or pushing air near them. I even have a couple dual p2-266. They have a 80mm exhaust fan with a shroud to keep the air passing over the HS.

The probelm is finding a large HS like these and then replacing the old one. I know that all of the HS on the ones I got were placed on with rivets.

VERiON · Post by **VERiON** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 6:23 am

I've treated my Cel 300@450 just like Laetitia

Laetitia wrote: The fan and associated plastic were removed to expose the heatsink

and the heatsink is small (not a big fanless one) 1" (1,2 mm) high, and it is about 50*C hot is stress - and 100% stable

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:10 am

I got a 333 MHz HP and my friend got a 400 MHz Compaq, both with stock heatsinks and no fans. Case airflow? Well a bit I guess, but not much. No separate fans.

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:57 pm

I'd just glue on a really big HS and give it a try, assuming at least modest airflow nearby. Those older CPU's are much bigger, so you can cool better passively than you could with a modern CPU of the same wattage.