Project System Quiet Down

I have a "old" computer that has a AMD Thunderbird 1.13GHZ CPU. I was using a heat sink that has a 60x60 fan. It runs at over 4800rpm and is very noisy. I decide to quiet it down.

There are so called "silent" heat sinks available. But since this is an old CPU, I can only get it through mail order, which cost quite a bit shipping and handling. So I decided to replaced the fan with a bigger one.

So I went out and bought a 80x80 to 60x60mm fan adaptor. Removed the old fan and put the adapter and an old but much quiet 80x80 case fan. Now my computer is much quiet, from screaming to humming. Note, you still need a powerful 80x80 fan to push the air though the heat sink. But since it is bigger, it can run at a lower RPM to keep the same amount of air through.

A note here. When I was replacing the fan, I found a lot of dirt stack in the heat sink. My CPU was at a 47C. After clean up the dirt, my CPU is at 41C even with the old fan. With the new bigger one, it is down to 39C.