Twin Fans for a Retail Celeron

What you need:

  1. Needle nose pliers
  2. Retail celeron heat sink
  3. Cable ties (also known a zip ties) small enough to fit through the holes of a 5 cm heat sink fan (the ones I have are 3.5 mm wide, called “Miniature, 18 lb., max. diameter 2 in.”)
  4. Two 5 cm fans (I got my fans by ordering an Elan Vital celeron heat sink from buysoftware.com for $7.44 apiece + $.99 shipping. Good 3-pin fans, and you can use the extra heat sink to make a sandwich. There is also a PPGA version for $6.00 + shipping).
  • First, remove the fan/cover from the retail heat sink. To do this, squeeze in the overhanging tabs on the end of the cover and pull apart slowly, one end at a time.
  • Then, take 8 zip ties, and cut off the square locking end. Save them.
  • Now the tricky part- fold over about 6 mm of the end of a zip tie (the end you just cut the square off of), forming a “V” (use pliers to help form it). This “V” is to fit into the slot that goes down the inside top and bottom edge of the heat sink. Insert the folded end into the slot, with the short end towards the outside, the long end to the inside. If the short end fits right, it will snap into place, if not, you might need to trim it a little. The short end fits into the slot, and is held in by the overhanging lip on the slot’s top, with the long end extending out to put the heat sink on (see figure 1).
  • Put 8 of these zip ties in place, positioned so the holes of the 2 fans will fit over them.
  • Put the fans on, and then use the square locking ends of the zip ties to hold them in place (it helps to use pliers to pull them down tight).


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