> adding a fan?

YES, yes and yes. Watch phils videos on YT to see how.

kolderman wrote on 2021-04-07, 01:45:

> adding a fan?

YES, yes and yes. Watch phils videos on YT to see how.

Yes I've been watching his video's but I haven't seen him remove a heat sink from a voodoo 3 2000 (or any voodoo 3) and apply new thermal paste. (Or a Slot 1 Pentium III) I have seen him apply a fan, which is something I would be totally willing to do and should be easy by screwing into the heat sink.

The heatsink on the Voodoo 3 is glued on.

You can either mount a fan directly on the heatsink, mount a larger fan on a bracket, blowing down from above the card or mount a fan in the case near the edge of the board, blowing across the cards.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-07, 02:35:

The heatsink on the Voodoo 3 is glued on.

You can either mount a fan directly on the heatsink, mount a larger fan on a bracket, blowing down from above the card or mount a fan in the case near the edge of the board, blowing across the cards.

Yeah I've seen some people use dental floss to remove those kinds of heatsinks. I'm wondering if I should do that or just leave it and add something like a Noctua 60mm fan and not worry about taking off the heatsink. I guess i worry about the age of the thermal pad causing issues.

My main concern though is the Pentium III slot 1 Heat sink and how to take it off without damaging the pins. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be one with clamps on it instead of pins. 😀

Welcome to the forum! 😃
The heatsink on Voodoo3 2000 cards is glued on with some epoxy. It is not using a thermal pad and you won't be able to remove it with dental floss.
If it sits rather flush on the chip there's no reason to remove it. The epoxy doesn't age significantly. Just add a fan and you're golden.
Sometimes the heatsink is installed badly crooked with a thick layer of epoxy and an air gap. In this case you may want to wedge a screwdriver or a sturdy knife in between the chip and the heatsink and pry it off so you can remove all the epoxy and reapply the heatsink or use a bigger one. Only pry between the black plastic of the chip and the heatsink. Never pry between heatsink and the chip's substrate (the green PCB of the chip) or the card's pcb and the heatsink.
Removing the heatsink will require a bit of force and always be a little risk. Some people say putting the card in a freezer for a couple of hours helps prying off the heatsink. Others use freeze spray to pop the heatsink off. The idea is to cool the aluminium down rapidly so it shrinks far and fast enough it pops off the epoxy that shrinks less and slower. I haven't tried this and don't know about the (mechanical) effects of the rapid cooling on the silicon. There is no 100% risk free method of removing those heatsinks.
If you want to use a different heatsink keep in mind the 3dfx Voodoo3 cards use an odd hole spacing that isn't found on other cards and you'll probably have to modify an aftermarket heatsink to fit the card.

Regarding the Pentium III I have tried this thrice but only once managed to not damage the plastic stems holding the stock heatsink. I think only Intel stock coolers used the plastic stems. Many (if not all) aftermarket coolers use metal pins that interlock with a metal clamp on the back of the CPU. I think that's the cooler you're also hoping for, right? If your CPU comes with the plastic stems on the cooler I recommend keeping the current heatsink installed and only attempting to change it if you find a replacent cooler to use if things go wrong removing the original cooler.

I hope this is helpful. Have fun! 😃👍

Some variation on this Re: Pentium iii slot 1 heatsink removal using a 6-32# case screw (or similar) is a common method, although the big concern is usually the amount of force you need to apply to get the pins to actually release, and without breaking.

My wrinkle on this is to apply a single small drop of mineral or shaver oil onto each pin / hole and let it sit for a few minutes before trying. That way I've found that firm thumb pressure is usually enough - have done a few this way without any breakages.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-07, 02:35:

The heatsink on the Voodoo 3 is glued on.

You can either mount a fan directly on the heatsink, mount a larger fan on a bracket, blowing down from above the card or mount a fan in the case near the edge of the board, blowing across the cards.

Could be different from voodoo 3 to voodoo 3. Compac didn't use glue they used some kind of hard white tape stuff similar to what I found underneath my 6800gt it dissolves with wd40. Maybe it is glue but it certainly is not epoxy which is what I normally think of as glue.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-04-07, 04:22:

Welcome to the forum! 😃 The heatsink on Voodoo3 2000 cards is glued on with some epoxy. It is not using a thermal pad and you wo […]
Show full quote

Welcome to the forum! 😃
The heatsink on Voodoo3 2000 cards is glued on with some epoxy. It is not using a thermal pad and you won't be able to remove it with dental floss.
If it sits rather flush on the chip there's no reason to remove it. The epoxy doesn't age significantly. Just add a fan and you're golden.
Sometimes the heatsink is installed badly crooked with a thick layer of epoxy and an air gap. In this case you may want to wedge a screwdriver or a sturdy knife in between the chip and the heatsink and pry it off so you can remove all the epoxy and reapply the heatsink or use a bigger one. Only pry between the black plastic of the chip and the heatsink. Never pry between heatsink and the chip's substrate (the green PCB of the chip) or the card's pcb and the heatsink.
Removing the heatsink will require a bit of force and always be a little risk. Some people say putting the card in a freezer for a couple of hours helps prying off the heatsink. Others use freeze spray to pop the heatsink off. The idea is to cool the aluminum down rapidly so it shrinks far and fast enough it pops off the epoxy that shrinks less and slower. I haven't tried this and don't know about the (mechanical) effects of the rapid cooling on the silicon. There is no 100% risk free method of removing those heatsinks.
If you want to use a different heatsink keep in mind the 3dfx Voodoo3 cards use an odd hole spacing that isn't found on other cards and you'll probably have to modify an aftermarket heatsink to fit the card.

Regarding the Pentium III I have tried this thrice but only once managed to not damage the plastic stems holding the stock heatsink. I think only Intel stock coolers used the plastic stems. Many (if not all) aftermarket coolers use metal pins that interlock with a metal clamp on the back of the CPU. I think that's the cooler you're also hoping for, right? If your CPU comes with the plastic stems on the cooler I recommend keeping the current heatsink installed and only attempting to change it if you find a replacement cooler to use if things go wrong removing the original cooler.

I hope this is helpful. Have fun! 😃👍

GPU: Thank you so much!!! You pretty much answered my concerns perfectly. My concerns about the GPU are now addressed and I will add a fan to the heatsink without worrying about the chip or thermal paste or pad wear (as there is none). I don't plan to OC it but I just want to keep it cool so it lasts. I don't know the real condition of the card other than it supposedly scored 3404 on a 3dMark 2000 test and is an SDR SDRAM variation. This makes me happy though, I can buy a 40mm Noctua fan for 18-20 CAD from amazon or Memoryexpress.ca.

CPU: This is great advice. Thanks!

I find the simplest way to remove a Voodoo 3 2000 heatsink is to freeze the card for a few hours first, then the prying process is far easier and much less stressful to the card.

I then re-applied with Arctic Epoxy. Both of my Voodoo 3 2000s were incredibly poorly fitted with their heatsinks, both had a good 2-3mm of the epoxy at one side or the other (heatsink visibly at an angle), plus a lovely air bubble (around 1cm in diameter) in the center. STBs quality control wasn’t all that IMO.

As for the PIII, they are far simpler to do than PIIs or Slot A Athlons, usually just a case of sliding the retention clip and removing the heatsink.

This is the CPU, mobo and GPU as (advertised anyway). Looks like s 3rd party heatsink for the CPU so I could be in luck.

Definitely appears to have metal retention pins. That retention plate should happily slide to the left, releasing the heatsink.

paradigital wrote on 2021-04-07, 04:59:

Definitely appears to have metal retention pins. That retention plate should happily slide to the left, releasing the heatsink.

YAY!

Mobo: Epox EP-61BXA-M Motherboard 440bx based
CPU: Pentium III 600MHz CPU
RAM: 512MB 133mhz SDRAM.
Audio: Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370 card. (I made sure to get one with the ensoniq chip on it and not the Creative one)

I'm so stoked for this project. Unfortunately its going to take at least a month and a half for the parts to arrive 🙁

As the paradigital says, move the buckle to the left and take off and then push on the pins, the radiator falls off. There's aluminum foil on the core. On Voodoo you can screw a small chipset fan directly onto the radiator, without removing and powered by 5V from the molex is both quiet and efficient.