Hi kids...I'm baaaack!
Too bad about Photobucket, eh?
Guess I was a little too greedy trying to run my log in two different forums.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Dead pics aside, progress has been slow and painful but ultimately, I have prevailed.
CPU cooling was the big issue and I was determined to make this Sprocket's coolest case (in all senses of the word).
The Aerocool was an interesting diversion, but ultimately not suitable for this project*.
Believe me, I tried, but in the end I was not able to provide the necessary airflow in an elegant and neatly packaged manner.
Perhaps on a board that was set up in the normal way it would work fine, but for my upside down layout it just wasn't working out. Space was an issue and overcoming the problem would have required making some radical modifications to the case...a move I was unwilling to persue in the event it didn't pan out.
So, what to do...?
I had previously decided that the Torin blower was going to be the focal point of the cooling solution.
It not only possesses superior airflow properties, but also has a weirdness factor that appeals to me. The blower was one of the main reasons that I laid out the mobo the way I did ( cable management being the other).
Unfortunately however, the Torin is bulkier than I had imagined ( yes, I knew the dimensions when I bought it, but it wasn't till I physically had it in my hands that I could really appreciate it's size....), and squeezing it into the case was a problem.
Looking through my (rapidly growing) pile of parts I came upon a stock AMD HS.
The good one, copper base, aluminum fins.
Hmmm....
A bit of time fabbing up a bracket for the blower ( it's waaay too big to hang off the sink itself, so this bracket mounts to the casefloor), and the combo was installed.
Wow!
Instant results.
Only one small problem...the blower was about 1/4" outside the chassis due to the height of the heatsink.
Well, an hour on the beltsander and some touch up filing reduced the sink to 35mm high (1 3/8") and now the combo fit within the confines of the case.
Beautiful.
The bracket also provided a handy place to mount a fan to actively cool the RAM.
How convenient.
Ran Prime95 overnight ( yes...no errors! and the CPU temp maxxed out at 37C ( case temp was 19C).
Decided to see if I could up my vCore and FSB some more ( a move I have previously resisted due to heat concerns), so this morning I made a few BIOS changes and am now up to 2.31GHz and temp hasn't changed...still 37C.
Excellent!
I am one happy camper.
Now I'm going to look around for an all copper ( preferably skivved fins) socket A heatsink that is but 35mm tall and see if it makes any difference.
If anyone knows of such a creature I'd appreciate the info.
As you were.
*I am now sitting on three aftermarket sinks...the Zalman 700cu, the Aerocool DeepImpact HT-102 and the Thermatake SilentTower, if anyone has an interest in any/all of them, PM me.
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