a use for extra cpu heat sinks

well many of you probly have more than 1 cpu HS , like i have 2 aluminum ones from amd and the fans are near silent .

well i have noticed a while back ( was just to lazy to say anything) that since they are channeled and near silent i could probly make use of them which i did.

what i did was inverth a fan on them and plugged it in so that the air that comes into my case ( non WC rig) from the front fans hit the channels where the inverted fans suck the air up and propell it to the rest of the case .
my intention was just to get better air flow but reciently i measuerd ambient in my case and it was a full 2C lower than ambient outside my case .
so i touched the HS and they where cold . so i thought about it for a sec

since there is no heat from a proc on them they are kinda chilling the propelled air from the front of the case . so i decided to put both aluminum HS next to each other and let more air channel ( they have the standard pink goopy pads at the bottom so they stick to case well in case you have to move your comp ) and not only was the air flow in the case better and ambient lower but it was noticeably diferent .

so if you have extra power and nothing to do with those stock HSF and HS try it out

I think this should be in general cooling...

bah your right. i am just addicted to WC so i have all my hot links for this forum =)

Any temperature drop you notice will be because of the changed airflow. The heatsinks will only actually cool the air if the case that they are attached to is cooler than the rest of the room (which generally isn't the case). The reason that they feel cold is because the metal is conducting heat away from your skin, which is warmer than room temp.

^ correct.
^^correct.

^This should be in general.
^^ Do a search on why TEC air cooling and TEC water cooling(for the most part) dosen't work.

Then throw out the heatsinks and get a better temp due to more airflow.

I have one thought that might explain the observed improvement in temperature:

Airflow control.

As stated by others, the heatsinks won't actually lower temps at all in the fashion heastinks normally do.

But controlling where the airflow goes is another matter! It sounds like you "lucked" into a massive improvement in the airflow pattern for your system

And THAT is a good thing: determining where air goes in a case usually involves a lot of guesswork and testing. Getting a 1c improvement just by controlling the airflow pattern is usually possible, but also usually difficult!

Note that airflow diverters could be made out of many other materials and work just as well or better.