Yes, you can change the fan. It will be easiest to use the same size as it already has, but nothing to stop you trying a different size if you are confident you could modify the fixing holes.

most of the fans are just held on by 4 screws going into the fins of the heatsink.

just order a fan the same size a nice noctua or noise blocker fan. unscrew the old fan then put the new fan on using the screws from the old fan.

Yeh that's what I was hoping for, just need to actually measure the fan to be sure 🤣

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-14, 01:31:

Yeh that's what I was hoping for, just need to actually measure the fan to be sure 🤣

i'm betting 60mm that was pretty much the standard size for s370 and amd socket a around the time. i replaced the cooler on my s370 for a 60mm noise blocker and its much better the the old 90s fan that ran at like 4000 or 5000 rpm

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-13, 23:14:

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD. I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 620 […]
Show full quote

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD.
I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 6200 on eBay to replace it) but I turned it on to see if I could hear the HDD going and oof the CPU fan is so damn loud!

Anyway I'm wondering if I'm likely to be able to replace the fan on the heatsink without having to mod it or any replacement fan? Was potentially thinking about putting in a 60mm (I think that's the current fan's size) Noctua.
If it isn't possible I'll just get a new cooler altogether.

I see what looks remarkedly similar to an Asus A7V 😜
Only 100MHz FSB though.

And yes the fan is screwed to the heatsink with those 4 black screws in the 4 corners of the fan. Re-use the screws once you mount a new fan and don't mount it while the heatsink is installed just to be sure nothing goes wrong.

PSU could be an FSP unit, I'd say 250W or 300W or so.

EDIT: Oh doh! The name of the pic clearly states it's an asus a7v so nevermind me, time for a coffee! xD

get a cheap 60 > 80mm fan adapter and use any old quiet 80mm case fan. the funnel type adapters work great.

i actually went from 80 > 92mm with a thermostatically controlled fan on my rig. fan spins at 500rpm most of the time. dead silent.

edit: on second look that appears to be an 80mm fan to me in the image. or maybe 70mm which was also common.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-06-14, 06:10:

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-13, 23:14:

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD. I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 620 […]
Show full quote

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD.
I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 6200 on eBay to replace it) but I turned it on to see if I could hear the HDD going and oof the CPU fan is so damn loud!

Anyway I'm wondering if I'm likely to be able to replace the fan on the heatsink without having to mod it or any replacement fan? Was potentially thinking about putting in a 60mm (I think that's the current fan's size) Noctua.
If it isn't possible I'll just get a new cooler altogether.

I see what looks remarkedly similar to an Asus A7V 😜
Only 100MHz FSB though.

100FSB? So that's less than what the DFI CS61-EC I already have supports right?
I have been debating which cpu/motherboard combo I should end up going with. How much of an impact does 100 vs 133 FSB have on real world performance?

stanwebber wrote on 2022-06-14, 14:31:

get a cheap 60 > 80mm fan adapter and use any old quiet 80mm case fan. the funnel type adapters work great.

i actually went from 80 > 92mm with a thermostatically controlled fan on my rig. fan spins at 500rpm most of the time. dead silent.

edit: on second look that appears to be an 80mm fan to me in the image. or maybe 70mm which was also common.

I used to use one of those adapters on a Thunderbird build back in the day. I agree, they are excellent. Probably easily available models for 3d printers too.

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-14, 15:09:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-06-14, 06:10:

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-13, 23:14:

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD. I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 620 […]
Show full quote

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD.
I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 6200 on eBay to replace it) but I turned it on to see if I could hear the HDD going and oof the CPU fan is so damn loud!

Anyway I'm wondering if I'm likely to be able to replace the fan on the heatsink without having to mod it or any replacement fan? Was potentially thinking about putting in a 60mm (I think that's the current fan's size) Noctua.
If it isn't possible I'll just get a new cooler altogether.

I see what looks remarkedly similar to an Asus A7V 😜
Only 100MHz FSB though.

100FSB? So that's less than what the DFI CS61-EC I already have supports right?
I have been debating which cpu/motherboard combo I should end up going with. How much of an impact does 100 vs 133 FSB have on real world performance?

The performance difference between A7V and A7V133 should be negligible. The issue is more with A7V133 having better CPU support.

Fair enough, well I'll probably get a clear indicator of which way to go when the replacement GPU arrives.

I'm a little confused here, I think the CPU fan is 80mm but I'm not 100% sure on the size of the fan that would fit in the rear case exhaust.
I think it might be 80mm as well?

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-14, 20:43:

I'm a little confused here, I think the CPU fan is 80mm but I'm not 100% sure on the size of the fan that would fit in the rear case exhaust.
I think it might be 80mm as well?

Probably 80mm yes, could also be 92mm.
Tho in some cases, pun not intended, they used non standard formats.
Also that fan "grille" is of the "let noise escape but trap heat" variant.
Some light modding and a wire fan guard makes a huge difference.

rear case & psu fan are both 80mm.

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-13, 23:14:

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD. I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 620 […]
Show full quote

So I picked up a system today by swapping it for a modern laptop HDD.
I already knew the GPU was toast (bought a super cheap 6200 on eBay to replace it) but I turned it on to see if I could hear the HDD going and oof the CPU fan is so damn loud!

Anyway I'm wondering if I'm likely to be able to replace the fan on the heatsink without having to mod it or any replacement fan? Was potentially thinking about putting in a 60mm (I think that's the current fan's size) Noctua.
If it isn't possible I'll just get a new cooler altogether.

another option:

Re: Stealth way to make fans quieter.

Funnels are a great way to reduce noise and keep airflow. seconded.

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-14, 20:43:

I'm a little confused here, I think the CPU fan is 80mm but I'm not 100% sure on the size of the fan that would fit in the rear case exhaust.
I think it might be 80mm as well?

In Dutch we have a saying: "Meten is weten" which literally translates to "measuring is knowing".
For holes of 8cm fan mounts in PC cases, the distance between them (the mounting holes in the case that is) is slightly over 7cm (yes I just measured it). Diagonally the distance between 2 mounting holes for a 8cm fan mount is 10cm (funfact 😋).
For older PC cases, the case fan sizes used are 6cm (very rarely and only the oldest ones typically used 6cm case fans), 8cm, 9,2cm (92mm that is) and 12cm. 14cm is more a thing of relatively more modern cases.
I don't think I ever seen 7cm case fans, but fans of that size were used for some CPU coolers for instance.

8cm and 12cm are the most widely used sizes in our cases. 12cm case fan mounting spots sometimes have an extra set of 4 holes for 9,2cm fans, but usually a 12cm fan will be the better pick.
Sometimes 9,2cm fan mounting holes also have 4 more mounting holes for 8cm fans but I've seen less of those compared to the 12cm/9,2cm combo. Expect to see lots of combos like these.

Yeh you just confirmed that the rear exhaust is 80mm, I was silly and measured diagonally at first and it was 100mm 😜

Just measured the CPU fan and yeh it's actually 60mm oops.
Btw I'm not sure what voltage the fans need, is it 12v or 5v?

EDIT: Read the manual of the motherboard, it's 12v (or at least it labels that when describing the pins)
Yeh, putting a 5v on would've been a mistake 🤣

Saidian wrote on 2022-06-15, 12:23:

Just measured the CPU fan and yeh it's actually 60mm oops. Btw I'm not sure what voltage the fans need, is it 12v or 5v? […]
Show full quote

Just measured the CPU fan and yeh it's actually 60mm oops.
Btw I'm not sure what voltage the fans need, is it 12v or 5v?

EDIT: Read the manual of the motherboard, it's 12v (or at least it labels that when describing the pins)
Yeh, putting a 5v on would've been a mistake 🤣

Should be 12v. Some will work at 7v but usually at 5v fans will not work properly/reliably anymore.

For CPU fans, iirc 5cm was often used on s370 and early sA HSFs iirc (I did not measure this this time 😋). 6cm was common (again, iirc) during sA though some sA HSFs had larger fans. 7cm I saw often on AMD stock HSFs for s754 and s939 coolers. Intel stock HSFs use a different type of fan and are usually harder to replace without replacing the whole assembly. Also Intel changed mounting mechanisms more often than AMD during this era.
4cm may have been used, but if, then it must've been really early stuff like some Pentiums or 486s or so? Also some early graphics cards used regular fans on simple heatsinks. The more elaborate HSFs for graphics cards only started appearing later (GF3 and GF4 era with GF5 and up using more and more intricate cooling solutions with often not easily replaceable fans).

EDIT: About the fan sizes of early CPU HSFs, I could perhaps do a more expanded writeup at some later time. Right now I'm in the middle of redoing basically my entire home so everything is someplace else or inaccessible for the short time being and I'm glad I can finally have some time off the coming few days after having slept like 10 hours last night because of sheer fatigue. And next coming days we'll get very high temps (up to 30c or so is predicted) and moving furniture around in the house when it's that hot kinda sucks 😋
At most for today I'll be replacing the CPU HSF of my current rig just so it doesn't become so loud anymore -_-