Can you post photos of the heatsinks you are working with? It might help give us a better idea of how to attach a fan.

I've done some creative attaching of fans to heatsinks including friction mounting with rubber grommets, friction mounting with screws, and plastic zip ties. As long as the mounting is relatively secure, it should be fine.

Here are a couple examples of things I've done.

Glued screws directly to the fan and then mounted with rubber grommets:

Attaching a fan via zip ties:

Wedging a fan in between screws attached to an existing metal shroud (the screw spacing was designed for 70mm fans, but I wedged an 80mm fan in place instead):

Thank you so much for the ideas, the second picture looks like a nice solution. I don't have all the heatsinks in yet. I ordered one from Germany last night that is a Titan brand. It is a 60x60mm copper heatsink/fan combo. The second picture looks like the solution I can go with when the heatsink arrives. Thank you!

I am glad have a working 486. My first computer was a 486 and it was so much fun. Sound blaster 16 with ASP, Microsoft sidewinder gamepad and flight stick. Star Wars Xwing, Wing Commander, Wolfenstein, Prince of Persia, gold box D&D games. So many happy memories. Even the talking parrot that came with the Sound blaster software.

Here is a picture of the heatsink/fan I just ordered.

Can you tell me what kind of screws you like to use? I can go pick some up at a hardware store.

dbellue1 wrote on 2024-10-19, 17:29:

Here is a picture of the heatsink/fan I just ordered.

That looks like a typical Startech aftermarket heatsink. I have the same heatsinks and attach 60mm Noctua fans using the existing screws and pre-drilled holes on the heatsink.

The only thing you might need to do is cut down the existing screws, as they might be slightly too long for the Noctua fan. I do that using a Dremel.

dbellue1 wrote on 2024-10-19, 17:33:

Can you tell me what kind of screws you like to use? I can go pick some up at a hardware store.

I always use the included screws. If they're too long, I cut them down using a Dremel. Unfortunately I don't know the specific screw types used on these heatsinks.

That looks awesome. I have a Noctua 60mm fan ready to go and when the heatsink arrives I will attempt this. Thank you so much. This is a picture of the heatsinks I have now. Looks like 50mm fans were the standard.

I also have a 40mm 12V Noctua fan on the way. Are the thermals on a Pentium 233 mmx enough to use a 60mm fan? I could attach the 40mm fan to the 50mm heatsink.

Pentium MMX processors don't generate a lot of heat, so even a 40mm fan will be fine.

Thank you for the information.

Thank you for the ideas for my project. Here is a picture of my solution, pre-test. I went and got #6x3/4 inch machine screws and 4.8mm rubber grommets. Here is a picture of my project. I hope this helps anyone else who wants to put quiet Noctua fans on their socket 7 or socket 370 cpu's. Thank you again.

This is amazingly quiet. I have wanted to use this computer for so long but the fan noise was distracting. I hope this machine last awhile. I have noticed on the mother board, Intel AN430TX, there are only 2 small caps. I was concerned about caps bursting or bulging over time. I have never soldered anything before. I will post here if I have a system failure.
Should I post this under a different title so anyone with a socket 7 or socket 370 can see and use this?