use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

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cloneman
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use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by cloneman » Sat Sep 19, 2015 10:37 pm

I'm having trouble finding stock of northbridge coolers, specifically those with heatpipes, like the thermalright, noctua, etc.

My goal is to make this old Mac Mini Fanless; it uses a 25W laptop CPU with a small stock heatsink so I think it's feasable with a large, heatpipe powered Northbridge cooler, if the mounting holes fit. There are 4 holes however; will it have enough pressure with the typical 2-pushpin Northbridge cooler? It also doesn't have a heatspreader. I won't be using the cover/case.

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quest_for_silence
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Re: use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Sep 20, 2015 12:04 am

cloneman wrote:will it have enough pressure with the typical 2-pushpin Northbridge cooler? It also doesn't have a heatspreader.

You need a spacer or a thick chipset thermal pad, in order to do not damage the die.

Providing that, I guess that something like a two-heatpipes heatsink could do the job (like the discontinued Thermalright HR-05 SLI/IFX: I used it for cooling an overclocked G45 chipset, which is rated around 24-26W IIRC), but it wouldn't be stable (you can't move around the case without checking everytime if it's correctly seated). With anything smaller (even like the HR-05 IFX, not SLI), your mileage may vary, given that 25W are at any rate "a lot" of thermal power for small heatsinks. Take also note that, more probably that not, you will need to actively cooling it.

BTW, it's a BGA479 chip, so the mounting holes could be close to those needed by any Intel PGA478 (P4) cooler, like the Scythe Shuriken Rev. B (though I can't say whether it fits for sure: I guess it should, given there's still some cooler for both those mounting holes).
Last edited by quest_for_silence on Sun Sep 20, 2015 2:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

quest_for_silence
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Re: use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Sep 20, 2015 2:22 am

cloneman wrote:I'm having trouble finding stock of northbridge coolers, specifically those with heatpipes, like the thermalright, noctua, etc.
Check whether the apparent availability is actual or not:


You might also look for the Coolink ChipChilla.

cloneman
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Joined: Sat May 21, 2005 9:48 am

Re: use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by cloneman » Tue Nov 17, 2015 10:16 pm

I ended up going with the only NB heatsink I could find. It's not big enough to be _comfortably_ fanless (reaches ~85C under load). http://www.moddiy.com/products/PC-Coole ... oler-.html

Realized afterwards I should have just gotten a GPU cooler, that probably would have fit assuming clearance.

I might end up using the NB cooler for the actual nvidia 9400 northbridge which runs hot due to its diminutive heatsink.




Progess:
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cloneman
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Re: use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by cloneman » Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:44 am

Update:

Replaced the tiny tower cooler with a Cooler Master T2 for real sustained fanless operation.
Stress test now: 70C
Gotta take this off my bucketlist now.

Before
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After
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Notice I added a Zalman NB cooler for the Nvidia 9400 chipset.

Vicotnik
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Re: use Northbridge cooler as a cpu cooler in 2009 Mac Mini?

Post by Vicotnik » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:12 am

Very nice! :) Thanks for the update.

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