Passively cooled Thunderbird

CPU (tb1400@1311, 1,40V) is cooled by Thermalright AX-7 and 20x15x4 cm heatsink (thermal resistance: 0,40 C/W). Processor heats up to 68 C, while the big heatsink is 51 C. MB is Asus A7V with 512MB pc133 memory, and room temperature is 24 C.

There is some Arctic Silver II between AX-7 and the big heatsink. Heatsink performance could still be improved by painting the bottom of it with silver so it wouldn't absorb heat radiance produced by memory and chipset. Upper surface should be black so that it radiates heat. Also, heatpipes should be used instead of AX7 to connect the processor core to the heatsink.


Passively cooled 300W PSU

A 0,85 C/W heatsink is connected to the PSU's small heatsinks. When I just put the heatsink on top of PSU, hot transistors warm up to 49 C. After connecting the heatsink with Arctic Silver thermal adhesive, hot PSU transistors warm up to 40 C. Other components around PSU heatsinks are about 30 C.

Better method of connecting a heatsink to PSU is adhesive tape (like 3M adhesive tapes) since sometimes PSU heatsinks are not electrically isolated.

CAUTION: if a fire is caused for some reason, and it is suspected that a modified AC device might have caused it, then insurance companies won't pay anything even if the aim of modification is to improve system reliability, cooling and fault tolerance. Having a modified PSU in your house nullifies your fire insurance.


Passively cooled GF3

GF3 (Elsa Gladiac 920) is cooled by Alpha pal 8045t and Arctic Silver thermal adhesive.


Some general pictures. Power and reset switches are located on the floor. There is a useful place for portable hard disks. HDD is inside a strong layer of sand under the MB.

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