Need advice on chipset heatsink. Please.

[flauntyham]

Not to cause trouble, but I've posted this in the cooling and heatsink forum and have not received a response so I thought that I would post it here as well.

Hey peeps,

I am building a new machine using an EVGA 650i Ultra mobo. I am pairing it with an E2140 proc. I plan on mildly overclocking, but now realize that the NB chip gets quite hot even with the stock aluminum heat sink and the SB chip is completely bare. So, I am concerned about heat issues, especially since I would like to oc this thing. BTW, this is going to be my wife's pc to replace a P4 Willamette and she will be using it for general home office stuff. No gaming or hardcore video editing. I decided to pick up a Vantec cooling kit at a local computer shop for around ten bucks which would give me the option of either using the fan or one of the passive heat sinks on the SB. Here it is:

http://www.xpcgear.com/vanalalvgaan.html

Now I'm considering using the larger passive heatsink from the kit on the SB and either removing the fan from the aluminum housing and somehow attaching the fan directly to the stock NB heatsink in order to increase air circulation around the NB heatsink like this:

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/evga [...] ge_5.shtml

While the Vantec fan that I have is different, after taking the assembly apart I believe I can fasten it with a couple of screws going between the fins on the NB heatsink.

Or, just go nuts and keep the fan assembly intact and replacing the entire stock NB heatsink with the Vantec heatsink/fan setup like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8MTydQmCBI

Please note that my cooling kit is the aluminum variety, not copper.

So, my dilema is whether a smaller aluminum heatsink with a fan will work better than the much larger passive aluminum stock heatsink or if I should try an get the best of both worlds by dismantling the fan assembly, attach the fan only directly to the stock NB heatsink, and use the larger Vantec passive heatsink for the SB.

I hope you all follow my thinking here and I appreciate any insight.

 

[cfvh600]

It will already make a difference in temperatures if you have a fan blowing over the SB and NB. I'd put the fan from the Vantec kit on your stock NB heatsink, and use the larger Vantec passive heatsink for the SB.You'll probably have to attach it with thermal tape.The choice is yours though Hope this helps.

 

[dallasjoh]

Super glue the vantec fan to the top of your original NB heatsink. I did this and it worked great. Also that vantec kit comes with thermal tape. lol.

 

[flauntyham]

Thanks for the advice. I'm still wondering if I should actually take apart the fan assembly in order to mount the fanonly to the NB heatsink. I guess I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make to attach the fan with its associated heatsink because it doesn't seem that the fan would circulate air across the fins if I attched the whole assembly to the stock NB heatsink. If I do this, will the thermal tape adhere a plastic fan to the aluminum heatsink. I thought about superglue or some sort of epoxy, but I worried about temps causing problems with the glue. Thanks again.

 

[david__t]

Urm, why all of this effort for an office PC? Why not go for a rock solid Asus board with a P35 chipset, reliable voltage regulators and a heat pipe cooling solution (AI Life models like the P5KC)? I can't see why you are trying to introduce possible instability in to a machine that is probably never going to be more taxed than scanning a document or sending an email?

 

[flauntyham]

Good points, David. While I may have over-simplified the purpose of this machine a bit in my first post, you are probably right that, in the end, I am going to a lot of unnecessary trouble. Quite frankly, I am probably doing this more for fun and as someone who has caught the enthusiast/hobbyist bug than for real practical purposes. I appreciate your endorsement of the Asus mainboard, but I already purchased the EVGA board which, by the way, only cost me $75 and is extremely stable at stock speeds having passed 12 hour Prime95 testing. Also, adding a heatsink to the SB and a fan to the NB is really not a big job. I just wanted some input to be sure I wasn't missing something. Don't get me wrong, though. Ultimately, your strategy makes more sense. It's just not as fun.