SPCR

Does anyone have any experience cooling a socket-p processor with something other than those tiny fans? Would it be possible to use a larger fan, placed close to the processor heat sink, or is it necessary to have the fan mounted to the heatsink?

I don't have firsthand experience with this, but I think your suggestion would work just fine. Most tiny fans have very low airflow, so a big lazy fan an inch or two away would probably work. Give it a try and watch the temperatures carefully for a while, and let us know what happens. Don't worry too much about processor damage; the chip will throttle before it hits a dangerous temperature, and would crash before permanent damage occurred.

Oops, hit quote instead of edit. Ignore this post.

Socket P and Socket M are fairly similar TDP-wise (and architecture-wise, the only major difference between these two flavors of Core2Duo is the Socket P can hit 800MHz FSB). I've had luck passively cooling with larger P4 heatsinks (e.g. Scythe Ninja, Thermalright XP-90) and actively cooling with the wimpy heatsink most MoDT boards are shipped with plus a larger fan (80 or 92mm). You should be fine provided the air is blowing on the heatsink and isn't too diffuse.

-D

derekva wrote:I've had luck passively cooling with larger P4 heatsinks (e.g. Scythe Ninja, Thermalright XP-90)

How did you mount them? I've wondered if the holes happened to be spaced the same but thought it unlikely.

derekva wrote:Socket P and Socket M are fairly similar TDP-wise (and architecture-wise, the only major difference between these two flavors of Core2Duo is the Socket P can hit 800MHz FSB).

You can also buy Socket P chips built with the 45nm process which definitely consume less power. Intel’s TDP figures are generally not that useful these days for determining power consumption.