Are socket A heatsinks still sold anywhere?

1boredguy · Post by **1boredguy** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:04 pm

Hi,

I want to turn my old Athlon XP 2600 box into a silent box.

I can't find any passive socket A heatsinks. Does anyone know where to find one?

OR at least a very quiet heatsink with just 1 fan.

Thanks

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:32 pm

Does the motherboard have the 4 thru-mounting holes? What model is it?

The hard part will really be availability...

hey! you changed that! I see that!

Kremmit · Post by **Kremmit** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:20 pm

I don't think there was ever a good passive solution for Socket A. I'm typing this on my own Socket A system, the best HS I could ever find for it was & is a Thermalright SI-97A. Runs very cool and very quiet with a 120mm Scythe fan at 5V ducted directly to the HS. Good luck finding one, though- they were getting pretty scarce when I bought mine several years ago. Might get lucky and find one on eBay, or maybe somebody here has an old one to get rid of.

You might consider trying to hack a current-gen HS on there. Steal the mounting hardware off whatever cooler you've got right now and graft it onto an HR-01+ or something. I think you'd have to dremel a little notch into the topside of the HS base, which doesn't seem like it'd be so tough.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:44 pm

Yeah passive is pushing it, but there were plenty of nice heatsinks you could run quietly. The Zalman 7000 (doublecheck which particular model for socket-A, I think the 'B' model) worked but only with thru-board mounting.

Swiftech MCX462+ also needed thru-board, but the MCX462-V did not. Quite a few other heatsinks out there, probably need to scour ebay and try to find something.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:50 pm

For something new, this one at Newegg looks like maybe it would be okay:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835200017
Pretty basic but 92mm fan and maybe quieter.

Also for helping keep temps lower when not under load, try S2kCtl, it helps a lot (like in the realm of 10-15C cooler idle temps).

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:52 pm

I also had to tackle this problem not too long ago. Completely passive might take some work, but a semi-passive set up with a nearby fan is definitely possible. I use a Thermalright SI-97 in my mini-server seen here. Granted, I'm using an undervolted low-voltage mobile cpu, but Athlon XPs aren't horribly power hungry, at least compared to some of today's beasts.

Try looking for a Thermalright SI-97(a) or the Scythe Katana, which comes in aluminum or all-copper. Only the original Katana is Socket A compatibile. They dropped socket A compatibility with the Katana 2 and 3. I've also recently found out that the Thermaltake Sonic Tower is also supposedly socket A compatible. I haven't tried it myself though.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:45 am

Definitely the most cost effective method is going to be a Zalman CNPS-7000B, with a fan-mod. You can get very decent temps with a relative low speed (<1000rpm) 92mm fan. The included Zalman one is buzzy. There are even guides around here on how to do the fan mod.

Thermalrights or any other decent HSF are almost impossible to find and even if you do find them, they are prohibitively expensive.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:59 am

I've given up on doing any further cooling mods to my SktA system. Any good coolers still in production are hard to find, and as jhhoffma said, quite expensive for what you get. I'd rather put my money and effort into newer and even more power efficient systems. But if you can find an older SktA cooler for a few dollars or less, it's worth having a go.

There was something about Socket A that made it very special. Wonder if anyone else thinks the same? They were simple, good value systems, especially on the nForce2 platforms that came out in 2003-4. Allowed me to afford a "modern" computer at the time. Still using it right now as I type

. Ah, but life does go on.

kater · Post by **kater** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:59 pm

Agree with guys above - decent and/or good cooler for socket A can be expensive, really. And hard to find - auctions are the way to go.

I'd also add Tt Big Typhoon to the list - big, 6 pipes, good mounting system (remember to use a copper shim to save the cpu die), and you can slap any 12cm fan on it.

Heatpiped Thermalrights are hard to find and if they surface the prices are prohibitive.

coweater58 · Post by **coweater58** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:13 pm

The only ones that i could find are

Thermaltake
http://www.thermaltakestore.com/clp0114 ... o0114.html

Zalman
http://www.xoxide.com/zalman-7000b-cu-l ... ooler.html

aerocool
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1391/ ... 4s50#blank

Gigabyte
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835128010

Probably can't run any of them passive and they all need 4 thru-mounting holes i think, but the thermaltake at 7v's is pretty silent.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:56 pm

eBay, netauctions and such are your best bets.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 4:14 pm

From coweater58's post, the Aerocool mounts normally, and it looks like the Gigabyte does too. I actually have the Aerocool, just don't know if I have the mounting hardware for socket-A any more.

It really needs a fan on it to be effective, but you could run it pretty slow and still do okay. The included fan isn't too bad at all actually.