Space constrained Heatsink conversion.

As most people here know I'm building a REALLY SMALL gaming computer. I currently have every part I need except for the helpful Handle which I will be getting this week.

My current dilemna involved my limited heatsink options do to the small amount of vertical space available. I traded in the classifieds for two large heatsinks, but it's been a long time since I've been around 60mm fans. The whine of such a small fan instantly started to bother me so I started seeking other options.

After having no luck finding another heatsink that is both similarly sized and quiter, I decided to attack the problem differently.

Essentially I'm hacking off a small portion of the heatsink. They I'll bolt on an 80mm fan grill. This will allow me to use a larger, more efficient (noise-wise), and it will help to cool the surround area of the CPU better.

Then I hit a snag. Ooops! 80mm fans regularly come in 25mm. Which is way too tall for my case to handle without having to cut a hole in exactly the right spot on the side of the case.
I did some research trying to find low profile 80mm fans and eventually found only a few options.
The 80x80x15mm fans I coud find were pricy ($16). That was discouraging.

After 30 minutes of searching I found a hard drive cooler that uses an 80x80x10mm fan that's really cool looking and the only site that has it available sold it to me for $8.50 shipped.

Problem solved and it won't look ghetto. Now I can continue with my previous plans for the window.

(I'll post pics once the heatsink is done)

Here's the hard drive cooler. (11 blades! sweet!)

hmm, thats a cool project u got going there. I have a chieftec matrix full tower server case, however, to my suprise, there is little room for my mobo and heatsink. Let us know how your project turns out. Maybe u can post some pics when u r done??

TheNewGuy said:

Maybe u can post some pics when u r done??

Click to expand...

WILL do. I'm going to have a heap load of pictures taken of this case anyways.

A smaller 80mm fan.

I came across this in another post and thought it might help.

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/sandenpetace.html

Re: A smaller 80mm fan.

country_3030 said:

I came across this in another post and thought it might help.

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/sandenpetace.html

Click to expand...

That's the kind of price I was trying to avoid.
And oddly that fan seems to be rated LOWER in terms of CFM performance than the fan I just bought for under $9.

Edit: (26.5CFM/30Dba versus 20.1CFM/21Dba)

Thanks anyways.

Woohoo! That was so much fun I did it a second time! (I need to replace my sister's annoying Chrome Orb). These are SOOOOO much quieter with 80mm fans on-top and they look much cooler.

I'll post a scan in a second...