Project Box-Of-Heatsinks: AKA Chernobyl. 56K *OK*

Emission

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 6, 2005
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Well, to make the long story short and sweet, I decided to upgrade my AMD based 6000+ system to an Intel 45nm system with some spare cash that I received from some hardware sales, and I decided to go all-out while I was at it. My objective for this build was to squeeze out as much performance as possible while keeping things as quite as possible, because as we know, there's nothing worse than the drone of some crappy fans in your case, especially with the door open :eek:, which I'll get into later. I'm too cheap for watercooling so this is my version of *extreme*. May not be exciting as the mutli-thousand dollar projects rolling around the Worklogs forum, but I figured it might produce some interesting looks on your faces, some laughs, and some clever commentary :). This is only the beginning, and I'm gonna need your input on some interesting ideas for what to do after I'm done with Stage I.

This will be a running summary of what I plan to do with this system, what I am currently doing and how I am doing it, and a place where suggestions can be made, because there's always something I can do to make it even cooler :D. Now for some "Before" pics, and a teaser :D.



AMD 6000+ Brisbane 3.1 GHz, Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2, the main parts that are getting the hell outta' here. Board and CPU w/ cheesy HSF pictured above.



I picked up this Dell m-Atx case from school, it was extra materials, and I was too cheap to actually buy a new case, so this worked well. However, I wasn't satisfied with how it looked, so I cut out the window and cut down a piece of acrylic to fit. I had this piece of red acrylic in my closet for ages, and finally, I came up with a use for it. End result look pretty neat, I even got a red ccfl to put behind it. I like to call it, the Dell from [H]ell.



It's not as bright in person, it's a little more subtle. Old single-core A64 LE-1660 and MSI 9600GSO OC pictured, previously upgraded from.

Now, for my teaser. You KNOW something big is going down when your HSF box is like 3x the size of your CPU box :D.



My overall plan is to make sure that said heatsinks fit nicely in said computer case, and then, cut a 140mm diameter blowhole in the top of the case to mount the 140mm fan that comes with the Orochi. Then, remove the fan at the rear of case, and leave those areas open for air intakes. I bought a 15mm thick 80x80mm fan to attack to the chipset cooler and get some air circulating in that inner-case area. Hopefully it's quiet enough, if not, I'll make a 5/7v adapter.

Now it's time to clean my desk and get busy! Be back in a few ;).
 
Well, here's a mini-status report, with some plans.

- The HSF clears the board components wonderfully, with the exception of the mounting plate making a small amount of contact with a couple of the power phase block components around the socket. It hasn't affected stability or workability at all, so I left it as-is.

- The Chipset heatsink clears the HSF with room to spare. Unfortunately, because of how the chipset heatsink mounting holes are situated, I had to angle the heatsink slightly so it would properly align with the holes, and allow me to fasten the screws. This in turn didn't leave any room for me to place the 80x15 fan that I had planned to put on the chipset, but it turns out that the chipset still stays within very reasonable temperatures without said fan, so I just said screw it and moved on.

- The GPU heatsink mounted without a hitch. It cleared the GPU board components wonderfully. The stick-on ram-sinks, however, leave something to be desired. I applied some additional AS5 to add to the adhesion and make sure that all of the really small chips we're being contacted in the power phase circuitry area. Once the AS5 hardens, these things should stay within reasonable temperatures even when overclocked. If I don't burn my hand touching them, they're fine. I'm thinking of replacing the 100x100 fans on the gpu heatsink with thicker ones from Scythe that push more air. That way I can flow more air at the same noise level and ensure that all of the board components are getting adequate ventilation.

When I went to turn the system on, I couldn't hear anything but the hard drive, which was a super relief. Turning the GPU fans up all the way makes them just barely more audible than the hard drive platter spinning, and the CPU fan is inaudible even if you put your ear to it, and it blows a decent breeze too. 500 RPM is BARELY spinning, I was a little surprised. I'm thinking of ordering a couple of the 1900 RPM 100 CFM versions of these 140mm fans from Scythe so I can have the opportunity to get some more air flowing. Put them under 5 or 7 volt adapters accordingly, and it should be inaudible and flow some decent air, one over the CPU and one mounted on the blowhole. I may run the HSF fanless eventually, but the 500RPM fan that came with it is so quiet and only uses 0.04A anyway, why not just keep it there? So that's what I did, and now for some pictures to help explain a few things.



The CPU HSF and Chipset HSF mounted. This will give you a good idea of just how tall this monster is. The RAM has to be installed first, obviously. You can also see the slight quirkyness of the chipset mount. The large heatpipe doesn't leave too much room for putting that second nut on, I used a thumb-tighten type of nut on the other side so I could tighten it down easier, the kit came with these and regular nuts.



The GPU HSF mounted. I wasn't convinced that it was all that large until I actually mounted it. It has a little bit of play due to the type of mounting done, but it isn't much of an issue. I try to handle the card by the PCB to avoid moving the heatsink around in its place.



Motherboard mounted inside the case. This should give you some perspective on just how large it is. That top left mounting hole was a b*tch to get to, I had to plug all of the power cables in before I mounted the board, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get my hands in there.



Everything mounted. I put the CPU fan on for shits and giggles since this setup doesn't actually require it. I wanted to hear how quiet it was and see how much air it moved. Pleasantly surprised :).



Well, I managed to make the CPU HSF clear everything............ other than the door. The metal sticks out a few millimeters, and with the fan on, it's obviously sticking out the side. So this is where my new plans come in.



Please excuse the poor *cough*made-in-mspaint*cough* illustration. It represents what I would like to do to alleviate the fitment problems. I'm going to grab another virgin door off of one of the other chassis at school and cut it up as shown. I'll stick to the heatsink clearance hole for now, and what I would like to do is cut out some tabs that will be bent in such a way as to elevate the fan and clear the HSF, so I can actually slide the door on. I was considering using 120mm Scythe "SlipStream" fans instead. They seem to offer a better cfm/db ratio than these 140mm units. I'll buy one for the CPU and one for the Blowhole. The locations will be the same. Looks like I spent several hours making that windowed door for nothing, ahh well.

To add some aesthetic appeal, I was considering cutting some angled slots towards the bottom, also for some fresh air in the GPU department. With your input, hopefully I can revise these designs to be cooler looking and better functioning :D.

Hope you're enjoying everything so far! Stay tuned!

<teaser>
CPU @ 3.75 GHz, 1.325v in bios, 1.296v CPU-Z.
Orthos load @ 47-49C, will drop 2-3C once AS5 settles.
16.66s super-pi mod 1.5
Totally inaudible.
</teaser>
 
holy mother of God!

that has to be the most immense air cooler I've ever seen.
 
You can not have that thing mounted horizantaly unless your crazy. That will tear your mobo apart unless you support that thing.
 
My question is such a large heat sink even needed? Wouldn't the small contact area of the die on the heat sink make most of that contact surface useless? Or would it really dissipate heat that well as to make it worthwhile? I hope that makes sense.
 
@ Sheldron: I think it's the second largest, if not the largest next to the Thermalright IFX-14.

@ kevinjp: That's one of the supported mounting methods according to the instruction manual. The included retention hardware is *very* secure and doesn't allow for any play, or "loose-ness". The only time I would be worried is during transport. I was thinking of securing it to the case door during transportation, since I'll be able to have something to attach it to. I was also worried, but it's quite stable considering it's size and weight. The motherboard is attached tightly via 5 retention screws, and the heatsink has its own reinforced backplate that adheres to the motherboard. It would take a really hard knock with a mallet right on the heatsink to actually move it around, let alone rip it off.

@ ADDICT76: The purpose of the IHS on a CPU is to spread the heat around a large area, so that a heatsink can more effectively remove heat from the CPU. Intel IHS's are soldered on, meaning they have very good thermal contact with the die. This heatsink can easily dissipate the heat of the overclocked E5200 and keep it under 50C, even without a fan. It was after all designed to be used without a fan :). Also, the heatsink contacts the IHS, not the die.

Funny enough though, people used to "de-lid" their AMD CPUs to get a couple degrees drop in temperate. They're effectively decreasing the surface area upon which to dissipate heat, but apparently it worked better than the original solution :).
 
That cooler is insane, but why not just go with a TRUE?

A TRUE is more expensive, and it would take a louder fan on the TRUE to get equal results. They never have any TRUE in stock at newegg, and it doesn't come with a fan. Not only that, but this base has a mirror finish, if you're into that sort of thing. The machining marks are barely visible, which is excellent.



I think a TRUE would have been awkwardly tall, not only that, but it wouldn't have been able to clear the chipset heatsink like the Orochi does. The Orochi looks cooler anyway ;).
 
that heatsink could cool anything, planes, trains, nuclear reactors etc
 
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