Dimension 9150 stock Heatsink
100
points posted to Dimension products by proto
12/07/07
So I was taking apart my Dell to clean it out, and for the first time in 4 years I actually removed the entire heatsink and cleaned it out.
What do I find? Well, I was expecting a pretty mediocre heatsink, nothing special. To my surprise, it's actually made quite well, and looks like a pretty decent heatsink. Along the lines of a smaller Thermalright styled hs. Altought I couldn't tell whether it was an Intel hs or a Dell proprietary.
Well, it seems the heatsink needs to be clipped and screwed in to the Dell 'air-duct'. Considering the stock CPU fan is rather week(and I mean week, like the kind of fan someone would use in a 'silent' PC), this air duct does nothing more than restrict the heat dissipation. Which, of course, is what a hs is all about right? Not only this, but the thermal paste that was used is so degraded that it's really not doing much anymore.
Here's my idea.
1. Replace Stock fan. Easy
2. Remove Air Duct. Easy.
3. Fabricate or buy brackets to install the heatsink without the air duct.
4. Should I really do this now, anyway? I mean, my Asus Maximus is coming for Christmas...and the Q9450's(which I'm buying one :D) comes out Jan 20th. I mean, I'll have a new system by Feb, so this probably isn't worth it. But could be a fun little mod to increase airflow and heat dissipation in the case. My 7950GT runs idle around 48, and load around 55/56. Not acceptable in my opinion for a GPU.
jackie_c
kara_k
dawn_l