Hi,
I'm considering replacing the fan and heatsink on my 1GHz G4 CPU card with some sort of passive cooler. Do the mountings follow any existing standard such as the one used on P3, P4 or AMD CPUs?

I was planning to do the same thing!
But can't find any G4 cooling standards either.

Since my PegII is winging it's way around the world, I can't check, but the G3 modules definitely have the mounting clip holes for a standard VGA cooler.

If the G4 module has these (99% certain, see http://www.morphos-news.de/temp/peg2/pegasos2_g4.jpg) then you can just go out and buy a kick-ass GPU cooler.

The ThermalTake Orb series fits perfectly, and the fan on it is quite powerful (
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/chipset/menu.htm)

Great, thanks. I'll see if I can find a passive cooler though. A large copper heatsink should be enough given that the airflow inside the case is sufficient.

I have been doing some research and trying to find out exactly what heat dissipation is needed on the G4.

The heatsink size required appears to be that of a northbridge cooler.

4.5cm wide and 5cm long is the size of the current heatsink, the height cannot really exceed 5cm either as it will foul the RAM if it is. Also weight is a concern as if it is too heavy it may fall off.

So far the contender looks like this
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/zm-nb47j.htm
These are only AUD$11 retail here.

Hmm.. We have been using similar to replace those Nforce northbridge coolers that have nasty habit on breaking ..

If I were to try this on my own, I might start testing with
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/nb32j.htm

I'm quite sure it shoud be enough, and it woudl be a bit lighter and thus stress CPU card a bit less.

I just replaced the fan with a larger one, while also dropping the fan voltage from 12V to 7V. Been running stress test for few hours now, seems ok.

The reason for this hack was to reduce fan noise. I'm also planning to use passive cooling solution later (with proper case cooling!).

BTW: Please note that hacks such as this void warranty. You better know what you're doing.

Piru
THanks for the input. The question is do you think its ok to use the above Passive Heatsink solutions to cool the G4? One of the best attributes of the Pegasos is the fact it can run silent or quiet. We really need a passive cooling solution. Or at least a silent/quiet fan on the cpu!
magnetic

Here are a small serie of pictures of my new cooling device for my Peg2 (G4) =)

NB.
This sort of changes should NOT be done by peoplo who are not 100% sure of what they are doing.
Warranties won't be valid incase you screw up something... Just a little warning!

Sorry for the poor quality of some of the pictures.


01 - The CPU-card as default.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/01.jpg

02 - Removed the fan of the cooler.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/02.jpg

03 - G4-power =)
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/03.jpg

04 - A Zalman northbridge cooler and a new silent fan.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/04.jpg

05 - Cooler, thermal grease, a 12->5 volt adapter and a fan.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/05.jpg

06 - Adjusted the new holes so they fit the CPU-card and glued the screws, the glue need to cope with some heat!
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/06.jpg

07 - Last sight of the old fan before it's soldered of the card.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/07.jpg

08 - The new cooler and the new fan.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/08.jpg

09 - Same as previously, but a close up =)
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/09.jpg

10 - Now it's time to apply the thermal grease on the CPU. (less is more!) =)
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/10.jpg

11 - And the new cooler is in place =)
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/11.jpg

12 - Another angle...
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/12.jpg

13 - Yet another angle.
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/13.jpg

14 - Inside the machine, note that with the fan on the cooler the nearest mem-socket is in jeopardy! You can put the fan on the side of the cooler otherwise...
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/14.jpg

15 - Last picture...
www.onyxsoft.se/stefan/15.jpg


Some notes :

My new cooling device is working good enough to remove the fan totaly, I've just added it just-in-case the passive cooling wouldn't be enough.
But using this NB-cooler w/o the fan, the system is cooler than with my previous Peg1 with the G3.

@Develin

Coool

I did the same but without the fan...that thing gets really HOT !
I cannot trust it!
I 'm sure it's geting higher than 80C which is not safe.

Develin
Thanks for the project pics. I have to say it looks scary!Isnt there a lot of weight on the CPU card? Does the connector strain?

@Liquidbit

Hmm you tried just he heatsink? Did you have a case fan? Please be more detailed.

I know Piru is going passive and will report his findings here. Keep up the info guys its great.

magnetic

@magnetic

The cooler is pretty light weight so there is no problem here IMO. One thing that I forgot to say was that the plastic "straps" that hold the stuff to the board was rather crappy (the one that came with the NB-Cooler). So I used the one that was on the default stuff which was much better.

Quote:

I did exacly the same!
I want to say it again the proseccor gets too hot without fan.
What I'm doing right now is to put the old cooler back but with a much less noisy fan...
So I replaced the old fan which is 12V 1.08W with a 12V 0.7W.
Im sorry but i don't have any pics to show.
The zalman cooler, that blue one which Develin also has is gets so hot that you can't touch it after an hour!

@liquidbit

You didn't try to use a 12v fan with 5v on the NB-cooler if that could help anything ?

I mean, that will heavily reduce the noise (if any).

The 12V 0.7W fan seems to work perfect..
I don't hear a thing!!!
After three hours testing it is still in stable temperature.(I can touch it)

YES atlast a silent computer

Hmmmm....I'm still a bit surprised that the Germans didn't
decide to use their own fans...They are, after all, the best
available.

Also some type of mini-connector probably would have been
preferrable than to directly solder wires on the
PCB...but then again, I suppose it *is* more secure that way.

Quote:
Ok. I have installed the same Zalman ZM-NB47J heatsink as rest of the guys. I must admit that the thing gets awfully hot without a fan, at least when running cpu at 100% (dnetc).

So I decided to add 80x80mm 12V fan, and run it with 5V. The fan has quiet sleeve bearing (not ball bearing which is noisier). The fan is located so that it blows air to the heatsink and back of the cpu card.

The system is totally quiet now, the only small noise comes from the Seagate HD seeking.

I've run dnetc for over 12 hours now.

Thanks for the report Piru. I'm wondering if there is a silent vga cooling fan (like "the orb" ) that we could use?

magnetic

i dont know if something like this is possible
just take a look

PegII-G4Cooler

Wow! That looks REALLY good. There might be a problem... I think that heatpipes can only transport heat vertically, upwards. I'm not 100% sure of this but I think I read it somewhere. It also looks quite heavy. I'm planning to buy a cooler from alpha, but I can't find any specifications on the dimensions of the card.

Good idea, but convection would pretty much require a verticle path. I would agree that a heat pipe will likely only work vertically.

On the same token, assuming that the "heat pipe" is a conductor, it would still increase the surface area for the dissipation of heat. Though, I wouldn't even try it in a tower mounted system (even if it works flawlessly). think about the heat that would be generated underneath the card...

lo
is there a picture anywhere from that alpha cooler??
or a Homepage :)
i dont know if the headpipe can only transport the heat
in a vertical direction. if i look at a vga cooling
solution than it looks similar to what i have painted :)

VGA-Cooler
my solution in a tower

and a little bit more bullshit ;)

Cooling solution nr 2

red = CPU
green = CPU Card
blue = (anything blue there?) CU Cooler
black points = i think it will be a good idea to fix that big heavy thing in the holes for the northbridge cooler
black box = this can bee a optional or the orginal fan running with 5V

The alpha-cooler I had in mind is one of theese: http://www.micforg.co.jp/en/cat_lpde.html

If it fits, the UBC-60 would be my #1 choice. That's why I wanted to know the dimensions of the CPU-card.