Tower cooler in Silverstone TJ-06?

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:30 am

Hi everyone!

Long time reader, first time poster... This site has helped med a lot in building my (almost) silent computer. My hat off to all of you, thank you!

So on to my question. Currently I have a thermalright xp-120 in my silverstone tj-06 case. This has turned out to be a really bad idea. First because the fins were not in line with the air flow of the "tunnel". I fixed this by making my own (very crude, yet functional) heatsink mount from aluminium and plexiglass.

However, this is not enough to be able to run the processor (a64 3500+) under stress with just the exhaust fan at low speed, which was what i had hoped to do. I tried using a low speed fan on both the exhaust and cpu, which works ok but is not optimal by any means.

It seems to me that a problem with the xp-120 is that it is something like 1/4th the height of the wind tunnel, making most of the air flow just passing above the heatsink. I have made a funnel-like contraption out of plexiglass to try and force more air through the heatsink, but it's not working very well.

So, I'm in the process of changing heatsink. Options include silverstone nt01 (which is design for this case, so it should work fine), scythe ninja or the upcoming zalman. Other tower type coolers should work nicely too.

Does anyone have experience with tower coolers in this case? Any conflicts with the tunnel etc?

Best regards / Erik Språng.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:21 am

I've had some experience with an NT01 heatsink, although not in a Silverstone case. (Link). For me in my configuration, it works well......but was extremely difficult to fit.

When SPCR used that heatsink/case configuration in their review....IMHO it didn't fare so good. To get that heatsink to work well/cool, it must be ducted tightly.

I don't see it working well in your proposed setup.

Oh...WELCOME TO SPCR.

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 2:34 pm

Bluefront, thanks for your reply!

I see what you mean. The nt01 was mostly included in the list because it's pretty much guaranteed to fit in the the tj-06, and at least it should work better than the xp-120 I have now. The tunnel in this case is nowhere near as efficient as a "real" duct, so my idea is to use something like a scythe ninja with a 120mm fan or the zalman 9500 if it turns out to be any good (and no case fans in the tunnel), and only use the tunnel to keep the air flow somewhat under control and not mix the warm/cool air up too badly.

However, I'm a little concerned that a ninja won't fit in there. I've also lined the interior of the tunnel with acoustipack, which could probably be more effective if the fan is in the middle of the tunnel. On the other hand it makes it even tighter in there...

/ushac

SST Guy · Post by **SST Guy** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 7:58 pm

In order to use NT01 in the TJ06, you should look carefully at the guide we provided on NT01's product page:

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-nt01v2.0.htm

Our other cooler, NT02 is also a great fit with TJ06 should you find your motherboard incompatible with the NT01/TJ06 combination. We had a demo system that required NT02 instead of NT01 in the TJ06 at Computex

http://www.silverstonetek.com/2005compu ... show-1.htm

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:55 am

SST Guy, thank you so much for that information! Looks like my Asus A8V-E Deluxe motherbord is "type b" so i can't use nt01 with the wind tunnel on. I'll try doing some measurements and checking dimensions of various heatsink too see which fits. If I screw up I guess I'll just have to do some more wind tunnel modding

/ushac

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 1:56 am

Still looking for viable options. Has anyone tried tt sonic tower in tj-06? Any other suggestions on tower heatsinks?

/ushac

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:32 am

Heh....As much trouble as I had fitting the NT-01, I have a bunch of trouble believing anything about that heatsink posted by a dealer/vendor. I helped out somebody on this forum a while ago with similar problems. The NT-01 does not fit a std intel retention frame. The frame itself pushes on the heatpipes, causing an improper fit to the CPU....and severe overheating. You can see the problem in the photos. Check this out.

Far as I know, Silverstone never published anything about this significiant design error.....and left poor bastards like me to figure out what was happening by myself.

Have you seen this one? Very similar to the NT-01 with slightly less of an off-set. Maybe it fits properly......

ushac · Post by **ushac** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:00 am

Hmm, that one seems interesting. Wonder if I can find a reseller in Sweden... As for the mounts, it's very strange they have released a product with that kind of problems. I'm not all that concerned though. Sure it's nice if it works right away but if it doesn't I'll just try and make something myself. Risky, perhaps stupid, but fun

/ushac