What CPU are you running and what OS?

For old cpus temperatures around 60degC aren't something to worry about. If running DOS/Win9X the CPU is always running at full speed - you have to run DOSIDLE program to make use of HALT instructions.

I usually use standard s370/socket A coolers.

I've got some Socket 7 coolers from eBay. They look like the one StarTech sell, but a lot cheaper 😀

I have 3 SS7 boards.

Fic PA-2013 can use a Socket A cooler. Enough clearing.
Gigabyte GA-5AX can use a StarTech Fan370Pro but not enough clearing for a Socket-A cooler.
Asus P5A can only use a cooler than have the same width's as the socket it self (50x50 if I am not mistaken) because of the power connector is placed so close to the socket.

So ideally I'd be looking for a FIC PA-2013 board for proper cooling.

I wouldn't say that. What do you need a Socket A cooler for? They might be handy for a Pentium 3 Tualatin, but not for a K6. 40 something degrees is perfectly fine.

Not installed in a case obviously, but I replaced a capacitor that was interfering and swapped out the spring tensioned latch to fit this copper bottomed socket A cooler.
The original latch has the 3 holes wide attachment that does not fit in this epox board thanks to the 3 caps in the way. It's a little bit tight on the rear side, but sure
keeps the cpu cool. MMX chip in there currently, but k62's and 3's should be fine too.
The original cooler has a damn noisy fan, with a larger cooler a quieter fan can be used, but Yes of course there are other ways to achieve a quieter system as well.

I am with Phil here as well. It was nearly just an example.
It all depends on what to do and what to run.

The FIC have no problem regarding the hottest running CPU's.
In other words. The FIC is easy to find a cooler for.

Looking at the Startech.com Fan370Pro cooler.
It is possible to cut away some material, in order to fit it on an Asus P5A.
Just need a dremel cutter and a softmarker for the job.
It will be a tight fit though. Other coolers, well.

Startech does make a 50x50 instead of the 60x60 cooler.
The problem is, that it does not move half as much air as the pro.
Yet it fits better. A last resort, is to go out and find a 50x50 ballbearring fan.
That way you can reuse that old heat sink. Or you can buy one of those
fan funnels that are avaliable in order to fit a 80x80 fan on a 50x50 heat sink.

What about the different "Orb" coolers out there? Any decent ones that'll fit on socket 7 besides TT Chrome Orb?

Don't know. I remember having a orb cooler back in 1998 to 2003.
I think it was called golden orb or something. Just don't remember exactly what it was called.
I had it mounted on a GA-5AX back then.

I use a little StarTech cooler on my FIC PA-2013. Works just fine.

Socket 7 cooling is never a big issue, just remember the tiny teeny fans and heatsinks that we were using during that times. I personally use any socket 370 cooler for Intel CPUs and forget about it. A 1GHz+ rated cooler is quite an overkill for any 200-300 MHz CPU. It should be even ok for 400-500MHz K6 processors (I don't have any so I can only guess), considering that even an K6-III 400 have typical/maximum power of 12.15W / 20.2W. you can always use a socket A cooler which are gigantic for that kind of processors, if mobo has enough space around the CPU socket.

I know that socket 7 processors such as Pentium 233 MMX and similar don't need a beefy cooler. What got me thinking about cooling was that my K6-2+ running at factory 550 MHz heats up to 48C idle. I'm not a big fan of heat, used to be quite obsessed with bringing down the heat while making it as silent as possible during my Athlon XP days. TT Volcano 7 sounded like a Harrier jet taking off... it was horrible!

Right now I'm using Thermaltake Chrome Orb in combination with a inno3D Tornado GeForce 2 MX 64MB card which is about the only AGP card that will fit next to that cooler. Any cooler bigger than that won't fit because of space restrictions. I think I got the computer to be as silent as realistically possible for the moment. The lodest part is the high-pitch whine of that 40GB Maxtor drive I can hear across the room.

You might be obsessing about a non-issue. K6 II+ is a mobile CPU class, so their wattage is even lower: For example, for your 550, typical/maximum are: 14.2 Watt / 18 Watt and Operating temperature max is 85 degrees. So, 48 degrees sounds very ok to me.

I personally almost never used anything but stock coolers. With my modernish PCs, temperatures generally around 40-50 degrees and I never lost anything to heat excess.

I think I need to accept the fact that less temperature means longer useful life but to what end? My first PC from 1992 was a 386SX-16, and I was seriously using it for FORTRAN number crunching, so it was common for it to run it days long till a numerical analysis program to complete. It's tiny soldered CPU was so hot under normal load, if you press your finger on it more than a couple of seconds, it would blister (happened to me) so its normal working temp is definitely more then 55 degrees (to cause a blister). The same board/and CPU is still working today.

I have both my GA-5AX and my PA-2013 up and running in two machines.
It's just to show that a good beefy cooler can be used on the Fic board.
My reason for that big cooler, is to have something with really low noise.
Yeah... It's really overkill. Yet I have some good cooling if I was to get another K6-III-400.
For a simple K6-II-300. The 50x50mm startech is good enough.
If you plan on getting a new cooler for an Asus P5A, then only 50x50mm fan's will fit.

Gigabyte GA-5AX with Startech Fan370pro (60x60mm)

Fic PA-2013 with a beefy cooler.

And a final option for low noise, could possible be this (mentioned it before)

It's green, yeah!... Ohhh... Ugly, yes. (You just don't see it with the case closed)

I have not found any other seller's on the net, other than US based sellers.
And there is files for a 3D-Printer out there, if you need to print you'r own.

Half-Saint wrote:

What about the different "Orb" coolers out there? Any decent ones that'll fit on socket 7 besides TT Chrome Orb?

I wonder if the Socket 370 or Socket A Golden Orb would fit? Those are really nice in my experience. Maybe see if a smaller HSF from a Duron or early T-Bird would fit 😀

I have a bin full of coolers that i saved up and for socket 7 it is not hard to find ones that fit.
A lot of socket 370/socket A coolers fit on these boards.

For k6-3+ (overclocked) i use a socket A cooler on a p5a, it is not very big but a good quality alu heatsink with copper insert.
I also use a normal k6-3 450 (a hotter cpu) with a coolermaster socket 7 cooler which looks a lot like the startech cooler. Never had a problem with it.

Back in the days a lot of people didn't even use good cooling or even cooling paste so with e descent cooler and paste heat will not be a problem for sure.

Early athlons died from bad cooling so you were right to be careful with those, but they get a whole lot hotter.

I have been using 1U socket A server fan/heatsinks such as MASSCOOL 5R057B3 and StarTech FAN3701U on my P5A-B. They are very loud but they are the only two coolers I can find that fit on the board and keep K6-3+ calm at 600MHz.

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add some extra information that may be of use to someone somewhere down the line:
Here is a little thread I made, with a line-up of a LOT of CPU HSFs that started from s3 all the way to sA.

I made a quick edit and reuploaded that pic here (I also re-uploaded the pic that photobucket broke it's link to, for your convenience).

The 2 marked HSFs to the left are some of the easiest to find HSFs that are as beefy as can get without blocking anything on the board, as I was faced with this exact same problem years ago.
These are s370 Celeron/Coppermine HSFs and when looking from the top, these basically have the same dimensions as the CPU socket (a bit rectangular). The only thing I replaced were the stock Intel fan and often the mounting clip in exchange for one that is more convenient to use (I think people who actually worked with these particular stock Intel HSFs know what I mean).

As these HSFs do not exceed the dimensions of the CPU HSF (and because basically any CPU that fits ss7 won't actually need a sA-class cooling solution), these will never get blocked by components mounted on the motherboard 😀
It's worth having a look at, especially if one already has a substantial parts bin.

I used a modified Athlon cooler which I sawed of the bottom half to fit the caps next to the cpu. now that same cooler does a great job inside my Pentium 1, it had a 80mm fan on it (always max 5 degrees above room temperature).