RichardH
Standard Member
Well, I buckled in the end, partially because I needed a new cooler for another machine anyway, so I got a Zalman 6000 CuAl from Extreme Cooling who seemed to be the cheapest taking postage into account. I have noticed, however, that Aria have recently been doing the 6000Cu for £25 inc VAT in their deal of the day - postage is a little more, but if you're getting bits anyway, might be worth a look - they also seem to have some decent looking cheap black cases too (towers only).
Anyway, back to the Zalman. Nice package, cooler a lot smaller than I expected - I guess all those closeups of the pretty fins had given me a false sense of perspective. Fits fine on my ECS K7S6A board, even with a fairly large stick of 256 DDR ram in the slot closest to the CPU. No problem clearing the capacitors on the other side, either.
Fitting the cooler was OK - a bit of a struggle to get the first part of the clip in place - would have been easier if the board was out of the case. Handy little tool they supply to get the second (tensioned) side in place - easy. Feels firm enough. I used Arctic Alumina thermal paste rather than the supplied stuff.
The fan bracket and fan seem OK - the main gripe I have is with the Fan Mate speed controller into which the cooling fan plugs. It comes with a fairly short tail to connect to the mobo fan power connector, and no means of mounting it anywhere solid, so it is hard to avoid it flopping around the place. I have tiewrapped it to a chunk of cables for the moment, but a little unsatisfactory. Would have been nice if the tail had been long enough so the FanMate could attach to the fan bracket - a logical place, surely.
Fired up, the fan is very quiet when in lowest (1500 RPM) position. Turn the revs up, however, and the noise soon mounts. Because of the way the fan is poitioned, I think I'll have to rethink airflow in my case - I did have a rear fan exhausting air from the case, but that did nothing to help temperatures. I have reversed the fan for the moment, so it is bringing cool air in to near the Zalman fan position, but I'm still unconvinced. I'm getting about 39 degrees C at idle (Athlon 1600+). Ideally, I need a duct to bring air directly above the Zalman fan position, I think.
I am currently considering replacing the fan in the power supply with a Papst (thanks Gary Lightfoot for the idea and hints) - had been wondering which fan to get - the low flow 12Db or the higher flow 19Db one. I think I'll go for the higher flow one, as it may help draw air from the Zalman cooler and away out of the case.
If anyone's interested, I'll take some pics and post them so you can see what I'm gibbering about.
All in all, not bad, and certainly quieter than the Volcano 9+ I was using before.
Anyway, back to the Zalman. Nice package, cooler a lot smaller than I expected - I guess all those closeups of the pretty fins had given me a false sense of perspective. Fits fine on my ECS K7S6A board, even with a fairly large stick of 256 DDR ram in the slot closest to the CPU. No problem clearing the capacitors on the other side, either.
Fitting the cooler was OK - a bit of a struggle to get the first part of the clip in place - would have been easier if the board was out of the case. Handy little tool they supply to get the second (tensioned) side in place - easy. Feels firm enough. I used Arctic Alumina thermal paste rather than the supplied stuff.
The fan bracket and fan seem OK - the main gripe I have is with the Fan Mate speed controller into which the cooling fan plugs. It comes with a fairly short tail to connect to the mobo fan power connector, and no means of mounting it anywhere solid, so it is hard to avoid it flopping around the place. I have tiewrapped it to a chunk of cables for the moment, but a little unsatisfactory. Would have been nice if the tail had been long enough so the FanMate could attach to the fan bracket - a logical place, surely.
Fired up, the fan is very quiet when in lowest (1500 RPM) position. Turn the revs up, however, and the noise soon mounts. Because of the way the fan is poitioned, I think I'll have to rethink airflow in my case - I did have a rear fan exhausting air from the case, but that did nothing to help temperatures. I have reversed the fan for the moment, so it is bringing cool air in to near the Zalman fan position, but I'm still unconvinced. I'm getting about 39 degrees C at idle (Athlon 1600+). Ideally, I need a duct to bring air directly above the Zalman fan position, I think.
I am currently considering replacing the fan in the power supply with a Papst (thanks Gary Lightfoot for the idea and hints) - had been wondering which fan to get - the low flow 12Db or the higher flow 19Db one. I think I'll go for the higher flow one, as it may help draw air from the Zalman cooler and away out of the case.
If anyone's interested, I'll take some pics and post them so you can see what I'm gibbering about.
All in all, not bad, and certainly quieter than the Volcano 9+ I was using before.