Poor Mans Guide to CPU Cooling, DIY Part #2

Following my initial thread on improving cooling in my old computer, I decided to make some improvements.

Realizing that the 120mm Fan was performing much better the stock cooler provided by AMD, the initial test I had simply zip tied the fan just above the stock heat-sink to see temp differences (as shown below)

However to improve this setup I decided to remove the fan and the stock heat-sink and build a DIY fan with the knowledge that the cooling would improve, Here is a summary of the process:\

  1. I found a 92mm heat-sink in my box of spare parts, this would be the new one I used to replace the stock AMD heatsink. I removed the 120mm fan from its kinda rough zip tied arrangement and started from scratch to build a CPU Cooler. See parts below:

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  2. I got the zip ties and carefully started to wire together the 120mm fan to the 92mm heatsink, this task required a lot of patience and about 30minutes of time.


  3. Installing the new DIY CPU Cooler was a bit of a mission the initial issue I had was that the clip which locked the heat-sink onto the motherboard was wobbly and would not fit tight, so I ended up having to remove the CPU Cooler again and found another clip which I had to re-attach to and then placed it on the motherboard. After a few adjustments it was a good fit.

  4. Temps improved significantly.

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I hope this DIY guide to CPU Cooling and building your own air cooler was helpful.

1 Like

I think someone saw how Linus installs server heatsinks...

It was a bit of fun doing this and has improved my cooling for this old rig compared to the stock cooler. Not to mention it did not cost a cent!

Fair enough. I just crammed a 120mm fan into a case that is supposed to support zero fans, its old and very small, so I also have partaken in ghetto ass cooling. I dropped the cpu temps on that box by 15c just from getting that one fan in there.

pretty much what I am doing at the moment, my noctua fan wasn't running all the time (still no clue why) so I just set a bigger case fan on top of the heatsink lol. Works great tbh.