Cooling old Socket 370 in new SLK3700BQE ?

LazyBoy · Post by **LazyBoy** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 9:11 am

I'm moving an old Dell mobo to an SLK3700BQE. Yes, I know about the Dell PSU wiring issues. It's going to have 3 HDs to start and more as I grow the RAID. Also, it'll have 2 tv tuner cards with hw encoding and minimal or no video cards.

In the Dell case, the socket 370 933 MHz PIII has a stock aluminum heatsink and a right angle duct to a case fan.

I'm looking for CPU/overall cooling suggestions. What CPU coolers are good for the Socket 370? (I'm looking for bang-for-the-buck, not silence-at-all-costs.) If I get a larger/better heatsink, do I still need the case fan to draw air over the HDs or does the PSU fan cover that? At what point do I need to add a front fan?

OR, am I hanging on to the mobo too long? As it stands I'm going to drop $20 on a PSU converter cable, $30 on a 4 port PCI SATA card (upgrading from the 2 port card I have), and $$ on cooling. Is there a cheap 4 port SATA mobo/CPU combo I should be looking at? I don't need a lot of horsepower for this.

Thanks!
LB

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 11:33 pm

Welcome to SPCR

I'd say you are close to spending too much to upgrade but if your budget for moving case + silencing is less than $50 it is OK i suppose. I'm not including your SATA card, but including your power converter (which I'm thinking can be had for less).

I would recommend Zalman CNPS6000 which can be had on clearance, with a replacement 92mm or 120mm fan because the original Zalman fans are not so quiet. the reason I am recommending this is the CNPS6000 will work on Socket A using a clip only, and this probably won't have clearance issues with the Dell board. Plus you can use any sized fan with this HSF. It comes in Cu and AlCu versions, if you can score this HSF for $15-20 it will be more than enough.

http://www.directron.com/cnps6000.html

The other decent clip-on HSF is the Thermalright SLK-900A which uses a three-prong clip. Not sure if that has clearance issues, but looking at some pictures might help.

If you have mounting holes, this will allow more cooling options, depending on clearance issues with the stuff near the Socket 370.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:08 pm

Any decent Socket A heatsink should work for you. There have been various ones recommended in the past, including the ones that Jabba listed. I'm a little cautious at recommending the Zalman 6000, which I have and it worked alright, though I was unimpressed with it.

There are used to be a lot of Socket-A coolers that were fairly inexpensive. One that comes to mind is Speeze/Mass cool's [url=http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/vi ... 023&DEPA=9]Falconrock[/url. There are others around though if you do some searching on this site.

LazyBoy · Post by **LazyBoy** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 3:38 pm

Thanks jabba & sthayashi,

Let me follow up with a couple of newbie questions.

Your suggested HSFs both have fans above the HS. This style isn't just for cases with the hole in the side, right?

Since this style is so popular compaired to fans-on-the-side, I'm guessing that I don't need to worry about sending the hot air towards the rear exhaust fan, especially with my little old P-III, right?

I'm probably overthinking this.

Thanks again,
LB