Bending Akasa EVO 120

[lesticx]

Hi,
I'm building inside a case which is very low profile, but there's plenty of room sideways.

I haven't yet been able to find a cpu cooler I'd want, now I'm considering getting the Akasa evo-120, and then bending it so that it's flat.
Would this be possible?

Here's a review of the cooler:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... cleID=2069

[Parappaman]

That's dumb, just do yourself a favor and get a Scythe Big Shuriken.

[lesticx]

That's dumb, just do yourself a favor and get a Scythe Big Shuriken.

I would.. but it's too high.. There's around 45mm of space heightwise.

[lodestar]

Zalman's VF2000 which can be used as a GPU or CPU cooler would just about fit the bill heightwise, http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/Pro ... sp?idx=339.

The major issue is the need for a fan. If you are able to go passive (65W or less TDP) then you could consider the Titan TTC-NK95H/S at 40mm high http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebP ... ce=froogle.

[ces]

1. I remember seeing someone take a downdraft cooler and bending it into a tower cooler.

I think doing that is very dangerous, especially because you don't know what kind of heat pipe technology the cooler uses and how susceptible the heatpipes are to bending.

I believe most or all of them have some kind of wicking system inside. You don't know what the wicking material is, how susceptible it will be to damage, or even how long it will take for such damage to become apparent.

2. You can try it and see what happens. It might be a fair guess that it won't hurt and it might help, if you heat it up before you do this. I would think that if you stayed under 70C that would be a safe temperature. Maybe you could try boiling it and then bending it.

3. I would first test it performance as is in open air, then do it again after the bending just to see if their is evidence of damage. Then do it a third time three months later to see if anything has changed.

4. You don't say what case you have. Why don't you just cut a blow hole above the CPU and fit in a top down cooler.

Put a pretty or exotic looking fan on that cooler (black and white nexus or the Enermax Magna batwing fan, or the black and white dimpled "golf ball" fan, or maybe the Scythe GT fan, or what the heck the allegedly military grade Akasa Apache fan in all its camouflaged glory, or the 55mm thick 1000rpm clear feser fan).

Top that off with a FilterRight filter (pick a color that matches the case or the fan).

It will perform better for sure. If you pick the right fan it may even be quieter than your proposed solution.

What exactly is the case you are trying to shoe horn this into?

[lesticx]

Thanks, good points.

I'm building it inside a slim aluminium briefcase. The major thing is, that I want some portability. I've got an e8400 cpu, so it'll be 65w, and I'm going to undervolt that.

Hmm, that titan cooler might fit without a fan on top. Possibly I could add a small fan on the side of it the get some more airflow.

Any reviews / experience on that? I tried google, but couldn't find any.

[lodestar]

There is an italian review of the Titan TTC-NK95H/S http://www.italiamodding.it/dissipatori ... k95hs.html. Their results were obtained with the optional 100mm PWM fan, which unfortunately is of 25mm thickness so doesn't help you. This is a part (automated) translation: "....As you can see from the graph the TTC-NK95/HS doesn’t work bad also the temperatures in the overclocked range are acceptable. Finally, it is noted that the TTC-NK95/HS of TITAN is a good product for all those with limited space, especially in terms of height, which is also pretty quiet....".

[ces]

Thanks, good points. I'm building it inside a slim aluminium briefcase. Hmm, that titan cooler might fit without a fan on top. Possibly I could add a small fan on the side of it the get some more airflow.

Aluminum case, huh?

1. You need some heatsinks like these:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article937-page4.html

or these

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article678-page3.html

2. See if you can buy them as replacement parts. Experiment with bending them to fit your case.

You don't need no stinkin fans. You have a built in heat sink that is larger than that of most stationary PCs (well maybe not exactly, but sort of)

3. On second thought maybe that might not work so well. The case surface may not be able to spread the heat far enough and quickly enough.

[lesticx]

Ces,

that's a really really good idea, but I seriously doubt it would work.. at least not as such. Possibly by attaching some larger heatsinks on the case. Also 65w is a lot to cool passively, that would probably work with a 20-30w cpu..
And the case isn't completely aluminium. The sides are, but the top and bottom panels are made of some cardboard-like material that has a very thin sheet of metal on top.

Would be an interesting experiment though.

[quest_for_silence]

I would.. but it's too high.. There's around 45mm of space heightwise.

Intel Q9550 stock HSF: height 45 mm, weight 260 g
Thermolab TLI-U Nano Silencer: height 39 mm, weight 210 g
Silverstone NT07: height 36 mm, weight 300 g

There are also server products, such as the 1U passive heatsinks from Cooler Master.

As low profile quiet fans, there are surely the San Ace 80mm (height 15mm I guess), and the Scythe Kaze Jyu 100 and 120mm (height 12mm).

Regards,
Luca

[ces]

Intel Q9550 stock HSF: height 45 mm, weight 260 g
Thermolab TLI-U Nano Silencer: height 39 mm, weight 210 g
Silverstone NT07: height 36 mm, weight 300 g

But they are not any good.

[quest_for_silence]

But they are not any good.

But just in your personal opinion.

Regards,
Luca

[ces]

But they are not any good.

But just in your personal opinion. Regards, Luca

Well sort of. But I do recollect an SPCR review in which the Nano Silencer and the Silverstone NT07 did not acquit themselves well.

And the Intel stock cooler, well that is an opinion on which I have a lot of company.

[Parappaman]

Arctic Freezer LP might suit you. If not, there's the Zalman VF2000 lodestar mentioned before, it's a bit overpriced but you might reuse it in the future as a GPU cooler. Don't even think going passive on such cramped space with such a powerful CPU!

Stock coolers are not that bad really. The low profile copper core one is actually pretty efficient and I think one of the best performing ones within that space limits. Their fans are bad though... maybe swapping it for one of Scythe's 100 or 120mm slim fans will yeld some amazing results.

[quest_for_silence]

But I do recollect an SPCR review in which the Nano Silencer and the Silverstone NT07 did not acquit themselves well.

And the Intel stock cooler, well that is an opinion on which I have a lot of company.

The unforgettable point is that, despite any opinion, all those three coolers are still among the best available options to date in his scenario (along with the already quoted Zalman VF2000, if it will fit and if it should be reasonably quiet, even with SpeedFan or similar control).

However, if there is any better candidate, I mean it's welcome.

Regards,
Luca

[lesticx]

I recollect the same review, and i'm really not too happy about using a stock cooler or that nano.. for one they're noisy, and their cooling performance isn't that good. I don't really want to have a cpu going around 70C, even though it might be an ok temperature.

VF2000 might be the best for this scenario.
An idea I've been playing around is trying to fit an Accelero S1 rev2 to cool the cpu (possibly with a slim fan). Oh I know it's a vga cooler, and I know the hole spacings are a bit different (75.5mm vs 75mm of lga775 I think) but it's an interesting idea.
Would this be in anyway possible?

[quest_for_silence]

I recollect the same review, and i'm really not too happy about using a stock cooler or that nano.. for one they're noisy, and their cooling performance isn't that good. I don't really want to have a cpu going around 70C, even though it might be an ok temperature.

Well, in order to avoid that, maybe you shouldn't have thought to cramp a 65W chip in such a small room: I have a 45W chip coupled with the Scythe Big Shuriken in a more spacious case (Antec Minuet) and those temperatures you are afraid of are fairly common when the CPU is under pressure (at least, if you want a darn quiet PC). Another older 45w chip, 4850E X2, I've paired with the NT07 modded with a Scythe SFF: a pretty decent combination for cooling potential, while being very quiet.

However, about Thermolabs (Nano but also the Micro), you may also simply swap their fans with some 12mm Scythes.

VF2000 might be the best for this scenario.

Might be: it have to fit your board and, as far as I know by my experience with Zalman fans, it might be not to easy to quiet.

An idea I've been playing around is trying to fit an Accelero S1 rev2 to cool the cpu (possibly with a slim fan). Oh I know it's a vga cooler, and I know the hole spacings are a bit different (75.5mm vs 75mm of lga775 I think) but it's an interesting idea.
Would this be in anyway possible?

You can only try: it should have a far worse problem than VF2000 as for mobo compatibility, and it's 33mm high (paired with Scythe 12mm fans it's right on the boundary of the acceptable height). I mean it's however too large to be placed horizontally on a motherboard (and you can't even bend it, due to your height limitation).

Regards,
Luca

[Piet]

I just wanted to say that bending heatpipes is actually fairly easy. You just need to be gentle with them, keep in mind that they're hollow.
I've done it to an old big typhoon heatsink (also removed 33% of its fins to make it work passively) and it still works just fine.
I don't know how much room you have in this case and what your motherboard looks like, but I imagine you might run into problems with memory and heatsinks on the motherboard if you plan on mounting an accelero on the cpu. Those issues aside, if you just make your own bracket to fit the cpu mounting holes I'm sure an accelero would do great on a cpu.

[ces]

I just wanted to say that bending heatpipes is actually fairly easy. You just need to be gentle with them, keep in mind that they're hollow.

Most or all of them will have some kind of porous liner, which may or may not be brittle.

You might want to be cautious translating someone's success bending the heatpipe of one brand or model to your likely success with another brand or model. I think it is almost certain that the internal designs (and fragility) of these heatpipes vary from brand to brand and even model to model.

[Piet]

I'm not so sure they'd vary that much between manufacturers. Given how many heatpipe coolers there are out there, I'd imagine most manufacturers just use the cheapest heatpipes they can get.
Of course you're right in saying I can't guarantee the OP won't break his heatsink, but I'm not the only one who has bent his heatpipes without any problems. So I felt posting my experiences could be valuable, since no one had mentioned anything other than assumptions regarding the bending question.

[ces]

So I felt posting my experiences could be valuable, since no one had mentioned anything other than assumptions regarding the bending question.

I agree that posting your experiences is good. I hope you didn't take what I said as being directed at you. I was just cautioning people.

Here is an article showing the different types of heat pipes. Looks like the most expensive type is the one most likely to respond poorly to being bent by an enduser,

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... cleID=2466

This might also explain the sometimes substantial differences in costs between heatsinks that don't look like they have much difference in manufacturing cost.

[blubberhoofd]

Nice to see others running into the same problems and comming up with the same solutions

I've been usign a modified(bent) Thermaltake Sonic Tower for a few years, it's performance has been on par compared to an unmodified version.

[Piet]

So I felt posting my experiences could be valuable, since no one had mentioned anything other than assumptions regarding the bending question.

I agree that posting your experiences is good. I hope you didn't take what I said as being directed at you. I was just cautioning people.

Here is an article showing the different types of heat pipes. Looks like the most expensive type is the one most likely to respond poorly to being bent by an enduser,

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... cleID=2466

This might also explain the sometimes substantial differences in costs between heatsinks that don't look like they have much difference in manufacturing cost.

Thanks for that article I'd not seen that before. Makes me wonder how much the performance is affected by those different wicks and how much the expensive pipes get used. Would be nice if manufacturers start providing that information t.b.h.

[lesticx]

Wow, a lot of replies This is getting really interesting. There's a local shop here selling the accelero S1 for around 20 euros, I think I'll just give it a go.. if it's not gonna work, at most I've lost 20 euros, or then I can still use it as a vga cooler.. lets see how this goes

[AuraAllan]

Wow, a lot of replies This is getting really interesting. There's a local shop here selling the accelero S1 for around 20 euros, I think I'll just give it a go.. if it's not gonna work, at most I've lost 20 euros, or then I can still use it as a vga cooler.. lets see how this goes

Have you seen this thread?

[lesticx]

Have you seen this thread?

I have, thanks! Unfortunately nobody has posted any results on whether the bending had any effect on cooling performance.. Would be interesting to see a comparison, sg like unbent vs bent accelero..

[ces]

Wow, a lot of replies This is getting really interesting. There's a local shop here selling the accelero S1 for around 20 euros, I think I'll just give it a go.. if it's not gonna work, at most I've lost 20 euros, or then I can still use it as a vga cooler.. lets see how this goes

The worst that likely happens is that the portion of it after then bend stops working so well. The portion up to the bend would like continue working just fine.

[lesticx]

Bah, I gave up after getting the accelero. Realized I would have to make a bracket for it, it's just gonna get too difficult..

I put in an order for Freezer 7 LP, it should fit and be silent. Should be enough to cool an E8400, esp. with some undervolting.

[quest_for_silence]

I put in an order for Freezer 7 LP

If the height clearance is ~45mm, I guess it won't fit.

If it will actually fit, then the Scythe Big Shuriken, or the Nexus LOW7000 would have been a far better choice either. IMO, obviously.

Regards,
Luca

[lesticx]

Yeah, I changed the case to a slightly bigger one. Now theres exactly 56mm clearance, which is just enough for freezer 7 lp, but not enought for big shuriken..