dionb wrote:

I hate noisy PCs, always have done.

I used to have a Vantec Tornado 80x80x38mm 5700rpm beast of a fan on my swiftech MCX462 and an industrial 120x120x38 fan at the top of my case during my athlon XP days... I occasionally got complaints at lan parties 🤣

during one hot summer lan party I screwed the top panel off my in-win S500 and put it between my keyboard and monitor to keep myself cool.

how times change... now I want my PCs to be silent too ^^

I don't think I have anything more than simple heatsink, thermal pad/paste, and a Radio Shack level heatsink/fan assembly designed for that procesor when it comes to my Pentium 100 and 486 DX4-100 desktops.

Everything else seems to be 100% passive cooling, ie, just the top of the chip and the air going over it from the PSU fan, even in the case of my NEC Versa 40EC Laptop - no fan, no heatsink, and somehow that thing running clock doubled at 40MHz does not even so much as produce a hot-spot under where it's located (top keyboard bezel between the memory slots, LCD, readout, and keyboard).

But that's what happens when you run pre Pentium II hardware in everything.

tails wrote:

MSI 865PE Neo 2. There's room in the case for an inlet and an outlet but those little fans are crazy loud. I'll post some photos.

I'm alas not familiar with aftermarket fans for this design.
But for the case fans there is a very cheap mod to bring down the voltage, all it takes is soldering a couple of fitting plugs on the fan wires that allow for changing the molex connections following this scheme:

I'm not a fan of that 7v trick. It's probably always OK because of other loads, but the +5v rail is just not meant to be a return path. If you want 7v, regulate down from 12v, or better yet, use PWM on a fan with a fourth pin. P.S., using PWM on a 3-pin or 2-pin fan is not a great idea either. Most PC fans have a fan controller built in to the hub, and their speed is regulated by a microprocessor. Chopping their power supply waveform is rather rude. 😉

If the 12v to 7v mod is a problem Google:
4049469099855

and try to find a cheap version of this:

Phobya - Speed Reduction Cable - 3pin Molex - 12V to 7V - Black Sleeve

(just for photo / info - not available on Amazon)
https://www.amazon.com/Phobya-Adapter-Convert … g/dp/B00943Q4C2

tails wrote:

I've got a Northwood P4 2.4 and a passively cooled Nvidia 6600. I've been running it with the side cover off because I really don't know much about how warm it's getting or what's acceptable in there. PSU would provide some exhaust but maybe it isn't enough.

A quick google to find average temps for your hardware. Idle or CPU seems to be in the 40'sc
GPU idle should be around 55C to 60C

You can use speedfan to check your temperatures and see if you have a problem or not.
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php