First time I see that. Funny to say the least.

Not seen this on P55C before, but this kind of heatsink (albeit shorter) was pretty common on various SuperSparc CPUs, things like this:

There's not even a fan, is there? Doesn't look like one designed for a Pentium.

firage wrote:

There's not even a fan, is there? Doesn't look like one designed for a Pentium.

Nope, no fan. It's a "Micron" heatsink.

I remember having seen a couple HSFs that needed to be 'screwed in', similar to what yours does. I know I should have 2 similar ones, one for s3 and another for s5/s7. Both of those are smaller then yours. but I'd need to go find them, not sure where I kept those. The heatsink bracket whateverthingy needs to be clipped onto the CPU and then the heatsink screwed into it. or something like that.
The ones that clipped onto the CPU were more common during the 486 era and it got out of use when heatsinks started appearing that clipped to the CPU socket itself.

Mines look much different from yours though. I do remember the 2 I had were most likely by the same manufacturer but I don't remember who made those.

I remember seeing these on eBay years back, Micron had their own line of PCs and this was the sort of cooler they used.

I have the exact same heatsink and I like it. It's ideal for passively cooling a low-end pentium chip.

I once saw one of those (except in black) cooling a P100. It seemed to work fine (there was an ~80mm fan blowing at it from the front of the case, IIRC).

Just try not to "screw it in" too tight, or the plastic retainers will eventually give and the whole thing will pop off the CPU. 😵

These were common in Micron pentium computers. I have 2. They are OKAY, but more novelty than useful.

I have an old CPU with a screw-in heatsink somewhat like that. Not as long though! That's an interesting idea. Can't be a secure enough mounting method for modern CPUs though...

It will be as secure as the mount or bracket.

I have seen them a couple of times on the internet, during the last couple of years. They look amazing.
Back in 1995, I bought a Dx2-66 system, with a heatsink/fan, were the heatsink also screwed in like that.

Efficient or not, it's definitely one of the cooler looking heatsinks I've seen so far 😀