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Old School Cooling!

  • Thread starter Deleted member 12930
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 12930

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Hey guys, I have recently obtained an older Compaq machine. This things a beast. A 750MHZ Slot 1 Athlon is powering it.

I'm wanting to turn this into a spare machine to use for surfing the web, instant messaging, and just freeing up my main machine from some tasks.

The only problem is it sounds like a jet plane. I'm going to lower the voltage on the power supply fan. And also on the CPU fan. (those are the only two fans in the machine). It's been a long time for me, are Slot 1's okay to run with little airflow? I was considering running it without a fan at all, but don't want to fry it.

Any and all info that can be given would be much appreciated. Thanks :)

edit: I mean Slot A. (right?)
 
The ball bearings in the fan sound to be gone. That or the harddrive is going (in the last stretch of a drives life it will howel). I would unplug the hard drive, turn it on, if loudness stil lthere, replace the fan.
 
the hard drive is fine. i've already proven it's the fans. and those are good as well - they're just really loud.
 
In all reality those fans are there and at that speed for a reason - even old computers run hot. Instead of lowering voltages which will slow the fans down and make things hotter, I would look into some better fans that might be quieter.
 
If you're good or even average at soldering, turn the power supply off, wait a few days (to drain energy from the capacitors) and solder in new fans. I usually use Panaflo fans for PSU replacements, since they last forever, and are a lot quieter. Plus, Panaflos come in high, medium, and low with different CFM/noise ratings so you get a spectrum of choices.

You could probably change both of these fans and then add another Panaflo fan for front air intake and it would still be quieter.

P.S. Check here for high-quality heatsink/fan units for your CPU. Most of the Slot 1 units listed will fit the AMD Athlon Slot A (also referred to as the K7). I would not run the CPU without a heatsink/fan if I were you.

http://www.1coolpc.com/slotcoolers.htm
 
I just fixed my Slot A heatsink , it had two little ~50mm fans whos bearings had gone bad. I replaced them with a 80mm fan, now it cools better than before. You might want to try that.
 
I slapped a 92mm fan on my roommates old athlon. Even running at 7v, the processor was cool, and the thing was damn near silent. Sure, having half the fan hanging off the heatsink looked bad, but who cares? ;)
 
Those old Athlons ran hot. I would not run it without the fans.
 
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