VOGONS


First post, by athlon-power

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So, I've finally came to a point to where I feel comfortable posting this as a sold build. Right now, it's formatting the HDD in FAT32 in preparation to run Windows 98, so I figured it would be a good time to showcase this build some.

Here's the specs to those who are interested:

- Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
- Intel Pentium III Katmai @ 500MHz
- 192MB PC133 (underclocked to PC100 by the mobo)
- ASUS AGP-3800M (DVI); I have no idea what all that jargin is, but it's basically a nVidia Vanta TNT2 M64 with 32MB of SDRAM video memory
- AOpen Cobra AW744L II Sound Card (Basically a Yamaha YMF744 PCI Card)
- A Samsung 48 Speed IDE CD-ROM Drive
- Standard 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive

I'm not sure who exactly made the case, but it's quite solid and I like it a lot. Funnily enough, there is a sticker on the back that said that it originally held a Pentium 233MHz system with 16MB of RAM and a 3.2GB HDD. It came from some (probably local) SI called "ImaGEN by Telrad". Haven't googled those names yet.

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Reply 2 of 13, by athlon-power

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Errius wrote:

Those PIII Katmais run hot IIRC. You may want to point a fan at that heat sink.

O w.

I've not had problems with it so far, to be honest, and that rear fan moves a lot more air than you'd think. That heat sink honestly seems to do a decent job, though I should probably replace the thermal paste fairly soon.

Also, I physically don't have room to fit a fan in there, so even if I wanted to, I really couldn't.

[EDIT]
This is a dual-fan chassis though, so I might just try and dig for a fan to go behind the front panel to increase airflow with.

Where am I?

Reply 3 of 13, by SW-SSG

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Case and PSU fans like those installed in your setup tend to do very little for passive CPU heatsinks. You want a fan pointing directly at the heatsink, especially for a Katmai like that. Perhaps not a problem in the short term, given you haven't had issues with it yet, but something to look into.

Looks like a nice PC, though. A while ago I had a very similar setup going, right down to the same motherboard, sound card, and Katmai P-III (albeit 600MHz, with 50mm fan on its heatsink) running Win98SE and it was very stable.

Reply 5 of 13, by FFXIhealer

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I remember having a friend back in college who had a rather hot AMD K6-2+, just a bit slower than my Pentium II at the time. He drastically increased his cooling by using some styrofoam tubing and duct tape. He completely sealed the fan shroud in the front of the case sucking in cold air and had the tube go up and point right at the CPU cooler itself. He never had any thermal issues after that.

Think outside the box sometimes.

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Reply 6 of 13, by athlon-power

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Problem: I want to change the thermal paste on that Katmai as I am now somewhat paranoid.

I can't take the CPU out of the socket, there was some clips that it said to install if the CPU used a passive cooler, to help support the slot. It seems to be doing its job- a little too well. There seems to be parts of it that you push in, and I thought that pushing those in would help, but the thing didn't budge. At least the push-in parts didn't stick or anything.

I also want to see if I can zip-tie a small fan to it, but again, I have to have the thing out of the case to do that.

Where am I?

Reply 7 of 13, by Errius

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Removing that heatsink will be difficult. It's also easy to break the black plastic frame that holds it in place. I would just leave it.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 8 of 13, by athlon-power

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Errius wrote:

Removing that heatsink will be difficult. It's also easy to break the black plastic frame that holds it in place. I would just leave it.

I do plan on getting a 600mhz upgrade eventually, though, one with active cooling. If I can't remove the thing, I can't do all that much.

The worst part is that I ended up doing this to myself, as the motherboard didn't come with them pee-attatched. I attached them to the motherboard myself before installing the CPU.

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Reply 9 of 13, by Errius

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I bought several of these many years ago (for a lot less than $20):

https://www.staples.ca/en/global-win-system-c … 81_1-CA_1_20001

I like them because the metal frame (not visible in picture) is pliable and easy to twist, so you can point them directly at the CPU or memory.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 10 of 13, by athlon-power

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Eureka! I removed the PIII without damage to those clips. You just have to pull them back slightly.

Actually reading the motherboard manual generally helps, so that was more of a messup on my part.

Also, I have several larger fans similar to that so I might look into it. I think I even have one with a metal fame, or at least, I can mount one to it.

[EDIT]

I do have an active-cooled Pentium III 600E Coppermine, but the fan failed on it a while back, so I removed a few heatsink fans to mount a new, slightly larger fan to it. I've always been worried that it doesn't cool right, even though the thermal paste and all that is applied. I never feel too much heat coming from the heatsink, so I get paranoid as to if the heat is actually going into the heatsink itself. The processor also has a sort of odd chemical smell to it, so I wouldn't want to use it. Would it be a good idea to swap coolers or something? Here's some pictures:

Also, how do I get the heatsink off of the 500mhz one? (the one with the silver heatsink)

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Reply 11 of 13, by Errius

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Removing that heatsink will be difficult and I don't advise it. I you really want to do it, you will need to push the black pins out from below using a screwdriver or similar tool.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 12 of 13, by SW-SSG

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athlon-power wrote:

... I've always been worried that it doesn't cool right, even though the thermal paste and all that is applied. I never feel too much heat coming from the heatsink, so I get paranoid as to if the heat is actually going into the heatsink itself. The processor also has a sort of odd chemical smell to it, so I wouldn't want to use it. ...

That's a burly-looking fan. Does the heatsink part feel loose at all? Coppermines run noticeably cooler than Katmais at the same speed, so it may be just that the HSF as a whole is working well.

Not sure what to advise about the smell, though. I'll assume it's not cigarette fumes.

Note that you may need to update the BIOS on your MB before it will work properly with Coppermine chips.

Reply 13 of 13, by athlon-power

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The heatsink was secured over the Coppermine properly, so I think it was just doing an alright job. Should I put the active-cooling heatsink on the PIII 500?

[EDIT]

Just got done cleaning the heatsink and CPU, had a bunch of old, dry thermal grease on it. I sweated bullets the entire time because I don't have proper equipment; only rubbing alcohol and paper towels, which I've read before that you are most certainly not supposed to use when cleaning an exposed die, but it seems to be working alright now that I got some new Arctic Silver stuff on it, and remounted the heatsink.

Funnily enough, I did this a couple of days ago with my old Dell Latitude C600, with a 750MHz CPU in it. They look almost identical, now that I think back on it.

I had to take apart pretty much to access the CPU cooling thingamajig. That was something I hopefully won't have to do again for a long time.

[EDIT II]

Under closer investigation, it turns out that the PIII 600MHz does not smell of chemical itself, it's the fan that I had on the heatsink. I think it's dead, so I'll wait to get a new cooler before I use the PIII600, so there's that solved.

Also, I put in two fans in that case, there's a normal fan in the front, but the fan that's in the back, next to the processor, well, it's a bit different. It's very, very loud, but it also moves air insanely fast, it's somewhat like a jet stream coming out of the back of the PC. That fan used to cool a tiny case (a SFF desktop) with an Athlon X2 3800+ in it, and a tiny heatsink on that Athlon X2. It was the only fan in the case, so it's designed out of the box to cool something like that.

This is my last update for now, I'll try and stop bothering you guys so much. Thanks for the input, though! Knowing that the Katmai runs hotter made me do a few things that were probably better for it at the end of the day. I'm thinking about buying an active cooler built for one like that in the hopes that it will allow me to remove that really loud rear fan and have a quieter system.

Where am I?