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Can I use regular fan for heatsink?

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computerman211

Registered
Joined
Jun 19, 2003
I'm wondering if I can use a regular case fan on top of my sk-7 heatsink. It doesn't have connections to the motherboard for the cpu fan. If I connect this straight to the psu unit and leave the Cpu outlet alone on the motherboard, will this cause damage?
 
no, it wont damage anything, but some motherboards are designed not to boot without a fan plugged into the cpu header, you may have to plug a fan in there to get to bios and disable this feature, others will boot but yell at you with beeps that you cpu fan isnt working, again, this can be disabled in bios.
 
Thanks for the replys. Yeah, I was thinking of getting the smart fan II, but I have a spare Sunon 40cfm 80 mm fan.
 
that 40cfm one would be good for a moderate overclock with reasonable noise/performance ratio, the smartfan2 wouldnt benefit your overclock at similar noise levels, so unless you want a really loud whine with your overclock i would stick with the sunon
 
Actually, I'm building a computer for somebody else, and I was trying to cut down their costs. They have a xp 2100+, with a sk-7 heatsink and the above mentioned fan. That would suffice right?
 
Personally, if I wasn't overclocking, I would have stuck with the stock cooling. I had the newer stock hsf that comes with the bartons. It has thin fins and is much better than the older style ones. I got my 2500+ over 2ghz without any heat problems at all. 2.2 was a little hot but it worked fine. Another personal note; I keep my smartfan II at full blast, but I'm actually used to the whine, and I think I would have trouble sleeping without it :p another thing is I usually have a window fan running, and I can't hear the smartfan above it.
 
that 40cfm fan would be overkill for a stock system, or even a minor overclock, so yes, it would more than suffice, i got my 2100 up to 2.4ghz with a 50cfm fan
 
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