ABit KT7A or ASUS A7V133 - Based On Orb

dukeofcrydee

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May 9, 2001
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I have an ABit KT7A in my main PC and was kinda annoyed when I had to dremmel away part of my Chrome Orb heat sink in order for it to fit onto the CPU.

Now I plan on making another computer and I want to use the Orb again. Thing is, I don't want to dremmel again. So to make a long story longer, does the ASUS A7V133 MB have the same problem?
 

peteb

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Dfficult to say really, there is a capacitor on the top left corner but it doesn't (quite) interfere with an MC462, which is a big heatsink.

I'd ditch the Orb personally. From people's reports they are a cheap POS that can be much bettered by similar priced coolers with less risk to your cpu...

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dukeofcrydee

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Wow. What you say about the orb goes TOTALLY against everything i've read or experienced. Before I bought the orb I read a couple of reviews for it and they gave glowing reviews. And since i've had it i've had my Athlon T-Bird 800 running heat free 24/7....I hardly shut it off.

I think maybe you're referring to it for OC'd computers? If so then I can understand. Maybe the Orb isn't good enough to handle OC'ing. I don't OC so I don't know.

Thanks for the reply though, I appreciate it. I actually answered my question last night. I completely forgot that 2cooltek.com has something called the Small Orb which was made to solve the ABit problem. I'll be getting that for my Duron machine.
 

peteb

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seemed a while back there were a lot of people cumbling and breaking their cpus with Orbs, have a trawl through the heatsink section.

The ORB is probably okay for normal use - but is generally far inferior to equivalent fans. Some people seem to swear blind by them though!

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Pettytheft

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I've had some decent succsess with overclocking and my super orb. It was a b!tch to put on but it keeps me pretty cool. Now I wouldn't buy one again if I had the choice (It's pretty damn loud) but I got mine for only $12. It's still better than a stock hsf. But I'm only cooling a overclocked duron750, not some superhot Tbird.

If you take a truth and follow it blindly, it will become a Falsehood and you a Fanatic.
 

dukeofcrydee

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Yes I will give you that. You can damage the CPU if you are not careful. But all the reviews I read said that and if you are indeed careful you won't harm the CPU. But then again Socket CPUs aren't exactly sturdy anyways.

As far as the Orb being okay for normal use. What do you mean by normal use? I use my computer 24/7...I never shut it off. It's in a small room and even when hot I see now drastic temp increases that might make me worried. I do anything from play games, run Photoshop with about 8 other applications at the same time, or video capture on a constant basis. I doubt that's normal usage.

As far as equivalent fans...I'm not even going to begin to lie and say I know everything about cooling. Honestly I don't even know what the Orb's competition is. The reason why I went with the Orb was from word of mouth, reviews, & price and I haven't had a single hiccup.

Fact is the Orb really is a good cooling unit for the Athlon and is very inexpensive. If someone's clumsy or overclocking I'd not recommend it though. :)
 

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