[dotyer]

Since I hooked up my water cooler my PWM temperature has gone through the roof. Basically, the 5 or 6 mosfets have a simple passive heatsink on them, and when I took away their airflow with the stock CPU HSF they began hitting temps of 90+ degrees at stock (they were close to 70 when the stock CPU HSF was installed). I can't just go out and buy a cooler for it since it is a specific heatsink and has capacitors that would be in the way of most mounting systems. So, I've been asking all around about solutions too this. Here's what my options are:

- Cut the fins off of the heatsink and epoxy a waterblock to it. (Really don't want to mess with the water cooler at all)

- Cut the fins off of the heatsink and epoxy a nice Northbridge cooler to it such as...


- Make completely custom heatsink made out of copper that is similar to the original, but taller and have an exhaust fan on the side of it. (My favorite )

I've been posting my problems here and there, but I really need to fix this PWM heat problem ASAP, as it is keeping me from finishing up my project. : So, if anyone has any idea, especially on how or where to get a custom heatsink made I would really appreciate the help.

[Immortal_Hero]

Remove the HS from there and mod the one you have above to fit. Then put a fan over to give some air flow.

BTW this is by no means EXTREME COOLING...

[dotyer]

Yeah, I didn't realize I put this in Extreme Cooling until well after I posted it.


Anyways, does anyone know of any companies that would make custom heatsink?

[Ad Rock]

Originally Posted by dotyer

Yeah, I didn't realize I put this in Extreme Cooling until well after I posted it.


Anyways, does anyone know of any companies that would make custom heatsink?

A custom heatsink would cost you more than buying a new motherboard that already has built-in PWM cooling.

A simple solution would be to check on ebay for the optional ASUS fan that comes with P5B-Deluxe's that is designed to cool the PWM area on those boards when they are used with watercooling/phase. It should provide enough airflow for the PWM area and might even attach to your current heatsink with little modifications.

Going custom is only an option when you can make the heatsink yourself from a larger one, having a company do it for you will cost a lot more than it is worth.

[Pf.Farnsworth]

Cut up your copper HS and buy a tiny fan for it. Or if you want something nicer search around online for small copper heat sinks, you might find something well suited for what you need, I have seen a few here and there.

[dotyer]

This whole thing wouldn't be such a big deal if the stock heatsink was made of copper instead of that cheap aluminum. I found that optional ASUS fan you were talking about. It looks pretty good. I have a regular 60mm fan in the mail. I'm going to use that and see how much the temperatures change. If they change a reasonable amount then I'll just get that ASUS fan and rig it on top of my existing heatsink. If that doesn't work then maybe I'll hack off all the fins and epoxy that copper NB heatsink to it.

[Strida]

In all honesty aluminum vs copper on those things isn't going to make much of a difference. I'd guesstimate 5C tops. Just throw a fan on it and that will drop the temps the best.

[4od]

i would suggest buying a few of the heatsinks that are meant to cool vid card RAM

such as these

just an example, there are cheaper ones available for around or under 10$ US


also, how would you remove the current ones?

another, cheaper, probably more effective metho would be to attach a small (40-60mm) fan to the side of the case right above the mobo, blowing down on PWMs, or find some alternate method to have them blowing over the pwms

a copper heatsink, custom machined by a company would probably cost between 50 and 60 dollars

[dotyer]

Originally Posted by 4od

i would suggest buying a few of the heatsinks that are meant to cool vid card RAM

such as these

I thought about doing that, but the current heatsink covers all the mosfets and has a pretty large surface area. I'm sure the BGA heatsinks would work, but I'd rather not have to epoxy something right to the mosfets if thats what you meant.

Originally Posted by 4od

also, how would you remove the current ones?

The current heatsink is held on with two plastic pins like most northbridge chips.

Originally Posted by 4od

another, cheaper, probably more effective metho would be to attach a small (40-60mm) fan to the side of the case right above the mobo, blowing down on PWMs, or find some alternate method to have them blowing over the pwms

I ordered a 60mm fan. My first attempt is going to doing exactly that. I'm just going to mount the fan and see how much of a difference some airflow does to the temps. If I'm lucky, that will be enough, but I seriously doubt that it will solve the issue once I re-overclock up to 4GHz. (Pentium D, the poor man's dual core )

Originally Posted by 4od

a copper heatsink, custom machined by a company would probably cost between 50 and 60 dollars

That's too bad. If it was around $30 I wouldn't have a problem with it. I go to college at a Technology school that has us Computer Engineers in the same building as the Mechanical Engineers. I'm currently trying to get my advisor to get me in contact with someone that could possibly make one for me for just the cost of materials.

[dotyer]

Holy Flaming Disco Balls!

I couldn't wait any longer for fan that's supposedly on its way in the mail. I got a 60mm fan off a friend of mine that works downtown.

My PWMs idle temp went from 55C to 38C. Maybe if I redo the thermal paste and direct the airflow a little better I might not need to go to "extreme" measures. I'd still feel better if the heatsink was made of copper and had thinner fins. Oh well.

[greenmaji]

You used to be able to grab some passive copper 1U server heatsinks off ebay for cheap, modifying those for this purpose whouldn't be tough and the perfomance would be

online stores seem to have new ones for fairly cheap as well, but not as cheap as the stock ones.