Tried the FOP32 (err...38 in my case) Hack, Comments on it.

[Breadfan]

I just did the FOP32 Hack as mentioned on the Overclockers site. I must say, I am very happy I did it. A few comments though.

The hack is basically about removing the global win fan off the FOP38 hs/f, which anyone who has one knows is VERY loud. I was able to put up with it, but once I saw the hack I was interested. I have a pretty new Antec case fan, which was still in my old system which currenlty isn't being used due to lack of monitors. so I took it out (something I shoulda done a while ago) and began to look at how exactly it would fit on.

By the way, its pretty impossible to do this with the hsf on the cpu, so take it off. I would've like to not have too, its a pain to put on, and I am still paranoid about damaging my Tbird.

At first look, I thought "No way is this gonna fit on." The case fan was MUCH larger than the fop38 I had. But I took the fop38 off, and found the the metal clips that hold it on can bend out enough to fit the case fan on. Worked quite well infact. The key is to put on end of the metal clip in one of the fan's screw holes, then put the middle of the clip in the groove on the heatsink, then using needle nose pliers (makes things much easier) just pull the other end up to the fan, and there you go. Make sure you keep the fan centered and that its straight.

Once done, it seems to keep my chip jsut as cool as the fop38 did, perhaps even a bit cooler, as I was getting 48C on full load and no higher, which was about what I got before. Oh, and that was a Tbird 900 running at 1000.

As for noise levels...they are MUCH down. I recommend this to anyone with an fop38 and a spare case fan, or even go spend a few bucks on one, its worth it.

Oh, and while I was in there, I pulled the chip out and penciled in my L1 bridges, worked great and was free. (I found the pencil in my house, so I really don't think I spent money on it...anyway, I can take notes with the pencil, can't do that with a conductive pen!)

So I'm happy with my fan swap, and sicne I do audio recording (sometimes mic'ing instruments such as acoustic guitar and piano), that makes me feel better sound-wise.

Mike
P.S. About my temps, I wasn't happy at all with my 45C plus temps, I plan on upgrading my cooling system soon, but after reading the post about a Tbird functioning at 79C....I felt a little bit better! Still gonna get those temps down though.
P.P.S. While I mentionng all this, anyone who doesn't yet have the global win fop38 heatsink and fan...I don't reccomend them...there are superior units out there for just as much.

 

[dimmreaper]

How many CFM is the 80mm fan you put on?

I bet it would rock with a YS-Tech 47CFM 80mm fan.

 

[Phil]

I'm using a 47cfm ys-tech on mine, I managed to do it without removing the heatsink so I don't understand your difficulty, you just take a pair of plyers to the bit of springy wire that is expose and pull it down and the fan just pops off then, I had been doing it using a fan guard with the clips on it but i needed the guard for something else so had to take it off, I must have sat there for an hour messing about with differant ways of putting it on until I just decided to stretch the clips on to the 80mm fan and it worked, going to make a proper duct on to it soon so all the air flow gets directed on to it as at the moment it is probabally about the same cooling as a delta plus extra air flow in the case and about the same volume but lower pitch so isn't as annoying

 

[dnkroz]

I have a FOP38 and was able to put up with it for three months. Then just the other week i put in a different fan, but rather than trying to fit an 80mm case fan i bought a Y.S. Tech 60mm Quiet Fan. Rated at 21 CFM, it is a _lot_ slower than the original fan, but while i was swapping the fan i also upgraded from the pre-applied Global Win thermal grease to Arctic Silver II, and this completely compensated for the reduced airflow. Regardless of whether you choose 80mm or 60mm, i highly recommend getting a new fan if you have a FOP38. As for changing the fan without removing the heatsink, i did this several times (for comparison purposes) after the initial swap, using the notched end of a key to push down the springy wires.

 

[Breadfan]

I'm honeslty not sure of the CFM rating of the case fan I used, its just the standard Antec case fan you can buy at Best Buy or CompUSA....so if anyone knows, I'm a bit curious. Its quite a bit slower than the fop38, but its bigger size seems to pretty much equal the cooling power.

Also, I could've put the fan on without removing the heatsink, but I kinda preferred to fool with it with the heatsink off of my Tbird...didn't wanna push on it too much, jsut a bit paranoid after reading all about their fragile dies. Also, I was planning on penciling my L1 bridges to unlock it, so that required the heatsink off anyway.

Still very happy with the change though, I may buy a better case fan though, and put the Antec elsewhere in the case...i'm currently not running ANY case fans which isn't cool I know...kinda warm actually, but i'm ordering some for it...right now things are running great, just kinda need to really get the cooling better before I can do much more. Ugh wish I had more time!

Mike

 

[klosters64a]

Thanks a bunch for your post, Breadfan! ~Six months of listening to a Delta 38... They have an extra feature, btw. After the fan is ~five months old, the rpm starts to waver a bit. Arrgh!
I'll try to remember: One "catcher" of the wire fan clip onto one corner hole of the 80mm. Set the middle of the wire clip into the groove on the HS. The other "catcher" into the other corner hole of the 80mm.
I checked both of my spare 80mm's. They're both "PowerColor" pos cheapo's. Sigh.

 

[dnkroz]

Breadfan (Mar 06, 2001 08:19 p.m.):
I'm honeslty not sure of the CFM rating of the case fan I used, its just the standard Antec case fan you can buy at Best Buy or CompUSA....so if anyone knows, I'm a bit curious.

That would be 34.4CFM & 30dBA for the 4-pin, and 35CFM & 32.5dBA for the 3-pin, according to antec-inc.com. I think Y.S. Tech makes ones with lower dBA and higher CFM, but i don't have one.

P.S. i read recently that a 10dBA increase in amplitude makes us perceive the sound as twice as loud. thats when i decided to move from the 40+ dBA Delta to the 28 dBA Y.S. Tech.

 

[Sohryu Asuka Langley]

hmm i was going to get a FOP38 (its the ONLY thing i can get thats worth buying..only 5USD more then a crap gorb here)

is the sound REALLY a issue? i mean.. compared to what? how loud is it exactly? i got a switch on my case that turns off my case fans.. i dunno how loud they are but i have a 60mm fan on the back that is LOUD.. and i mean LOUD... make a high pitched whine... the 2 on the front (120mm) make nice mellow low buzz...

how loud is it exactly? i got an air con on so i dont think it would be an issue (cant hear my comp)

 

[waldaize]

hell yeah!

But boy does it cool my rig.

However after 3 months i'm sick of it and going to watercooling with a peltier.

 

[Remington]

The noise really isn't that bad.

It sounds like an average vacuum cleaner, but works GREAT!

 

[batboy]

Those Delta fans sound like a C-135 preparing for take off. As soon as I read that 80mm fan hack for the FOP, I knew I had to try it. I have a Sunon ordered that is advertised as 36 CFM, which is only 2 CFM less, but about 14 db quieter. Wow! That's almost 2 octaves.

 

[Phil]

I really need to get a temp probe or something so I can measure the differance of a delta and my 47cfm ys-tech, does any one know weather connecting one of those senfu things to the connectors on the celeron for the thermal diode will be able to read them correctly.

oh and octaves have nothing to do with volume they are to do with tone.

 

[batboy]

Phil, I stand corrected.

 

[Nagorak]

Sohryu Asuka Langley (Mar 07, 2001 01:42 a.m.):
hmm i was going to get a FOP38 (its the ONLY thing i can get thats worth buying..only 5USD more then a crap gorb here)

is the sound REALLY a issue? i mean.. compared to what? how loud is it exactly? i got a switch on my case that turns off my case fans.. i dunno how loud they are but i have a 60mm fan on the back that is LOUD.. and i mean LOUD... make a high pitched whine... the 2 on the front (120mm) make nice mellow low buzz...

how loud is it exactly? i got an air con on so i dont think it would be an issue (cant hear my comp)

It is my view that 60 mm fans are the most godforsaken fan ever created. 40 or 50 mm fans are relatively quiet due to their small size, and 80 mms are relatively quiet due to their larger size, but 60 mms are just loud as hell from their diminutive size and loud spinning fan. They suck!

 

[Sohryu Asuka Langley]

so 60mm fan s suck when it comes to output noise? i know that my old p2 fan ran @ 17V for as long as i can remember... and no noise differnece in that too.

 

[Breadfan]

The FOP was much louder than I had expected, but I was content. however, after trying the case fan hack, I would never go back since my cooling power is basically the same.

Also, thanks dnkroz for the cfm ratings for my fan...thats nice to know. The antec fans are easy to find at best buy or compusa, and range about $8 to $10....not the best deal, but no online ordering hassles.

more thoughts on the volume of the fop38....you can live with the noise, its high pitched and annoying, but you learn to tune it out. I do audio recording though, and have yet to record any acoustic or mic'ed stuff onto my system, but I figured that anything I did would have some nice FOP38 background noise...

In conclusion, the fop38 is loud but tolerable. If you turn your system off with the fop38 you get that strange feeling of "wow, its really quiet in here." But thats proof that you can tune the noise out...so it depends on how much something like that could bother you, or the work your doing.

Mike

 

[Sohryu Asuka Langley]

ah cool.. yeah.. ive just noticed that my system ls ouder then the air con.... oh well.. must be that 60mm fan i got quite fine with the noise but might mack a duct to the case side and have a big fan there.

 

[Nagorak]

Larger fans push more air at lower RPMs and make less noise. There's nothing really wrong with 60 mms, it's just that they are used on all of the heatsinks, so they get souped up running at their max RPM and make a lot of noise. I suppose if all heatsinks used 80mm fans, I'd say the same thing about them ;-)

Personally, the FOP32's YSTech fan was too much for me to handle. I lived with it for a month or two, but once I got rid of it, I was much happier. I can only imagine the pure hell of the FOP38's delta fan. But hey, if you guys can handle it, good for you. In my case, however, I found it too annoying. And, although fine when I was playing games (which would drown it out), whenever I tried to do anything else that required concentration it was very obnoxious.

 

[Zombie]

Thanks to Mike's post, I've saved some cash from not having to buy a screaming delta black label, and not having to contend with the noise. I read the post, shut down right after, snapped the stock fan off of my FOP-32, (after having to re-paste the cpu and reseat the heatsink because of that crappy clip) and strapped a Sunon 80mm fan @ 42 cfm on there, and Shazam! (insert Gomer Pyle voice) Tbird 1gig @ 1.2 (test rig) is at a cool 25c. And just to think my wife was commenting to me earlier in the week, "man, you are on that overclockers website all the time." So I just smiled...."good observation."