Slapping a fan onto a CPU

[rjd324]

Hello,


Let's say I want to use active cooling to keep an 060 cool. What should I use between the fan and the CPU?


It has been a long, long time since I used arctic silver and I cannot remember if it would have a strong enough hold to keep the fan from falling off of the CPU.


Regards,

[Hedeon]

A fan does not benefit from arctic silver. I guess you mean a heat sink (plus fan attached to the heat sink)?

[rjd324]

Yeah, that. Will that paste be okay?

[matjam]

I think you can get away with double sided thermal adhesive tape.

Paste won't be ok unless you have some mechanism to stop the heatsink from moving around.

My 060 card came with a fan screwed directly into the heatsink. It was too noisy so I removed it. I may look for another that is quieter.

[rjd324]

So you are running the 060 with no active cooling. How is that working for you? What clock?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by rjd324

So you are running the 060 with no active cooling. How is that working for you? What clock?

None of mine have any heatsinks on them at all. Rev 1 and rev 6 060s at 50MHz.

And it has worked for me for over 20 years now. The rev 1s do run quite hot, but still manageable.

Remember that 486s didn't absolutely require heatsinks either, before the DX4s came along. After those it's been the norm for CPUs to require one, but the 060 is an old chip.. :-)

[matjam]

Originally Posted by rjd324

So you are running the 060 with no active cooling. How is that working for you? What clock?

50Mhz, with just a passive heatsink. Works fine.

Something like this noctua fan would probably work, screwed directly onto the fins, if you want active cooling - if you are overclocking.

[Jope]

Agreed, overclocked cpus do need a heatsink+fan. If yours is in a desktop or tower, a 486 heatsink/fan combo will fit over an 040/060 somewhat.

[rjd324]

Jope, you think a blizzard ppc w 060 rev 6 needs any cooling if its in a tower?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by rjd324

Jope, you think a blizzard ppc w 060 rev 6 needs any cooling if its in a tower?

The PPC will absolutely need one, but the 060 won't necessarily need it if you run it at 50-66Hz.

[rjd324]

Originally Posted by Jope

The PPC will absolutely need one, but the 060 won't necessarily need it if you run it at 50-66Hz.

Thanks for the response. The PPC does already come with the "black box" over it. Are you saying that you totally must add additional active cooling, or is it fine at stock? I mean, the stock PPC has the a fan already, none on the 68060 of course. But, as you said, not a problem if you are staying around 60MHz.

Just double checking, since I do not want to melt anything to the ground.

[Hercules]

Pointless installing a fan onto a 68060. The 68060 runs at 3.3v as apposed to a 68040 which runs at 5v and generates more heat. You can overclock the 68060 if your wish by changing the oscillator crystal on the board, but then you have to watch out for motherboard timings throwing things out of sync, and the overclocking of a 68060 is miniscule. To summarise 68060 doesn't need a fan, and don't experiment with overclocking. These cards are like gold dust and not worth the risk.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Hercules

Pointless installing a fan onto a 68060. The 68060 runs at 3.3v as apposed to a 68040 which runs at 5v and generates more heat.

Indeed, the '060 doesn't normally need a fan as stock. But overclocking is commonplace, even intended on most modern boards.

You can overclock the 68060 if your wish by changing the oscillator crystal on the board

Indeed, as has been done for decades.

but then you have to watch out for motherboard timings throwing things out of sync

Nope. Most accelerators are asynchronous anyway, and even in some cases where they're sometimes not (e.g. the A3000 & 4000), there's the option to run them asynchronously. You won't throw motherboard timings out of sync that weren't in sync in the first place.

and the overclocking of a 68060 is miniscule.

Define "miniscule"? Certain revisions of '060 on certain boards can achieve a 110% overclock. More than doubling the stock speed would reasonably be considered miniscule by most people. And my old rev. 1 has been happily running at 60MHz and above (so at least 20% overclock) for more than 20 years now, with the help of a small fan and heatsink.

To summarise 68060 doesn't need a fan, and don't experiment with overclocking. These cards are like gold dust and not worth the risk.

Modern cards are actually *designed* to be overclocked. There's a long and established history of successfully overclocking these CPUs. CPUs other than the crazily hyped rev. 6 are still easily enough available, but I've yet to hear of anyone killing one due to overclocking. They crash and become unstable long before any damage is done.

[rjd324]

Right, thanks for the info all. I can just leave the PPC cpu with the "black box" and standard fan that comes with the blizzard card and not need to worry about it?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by rjd324

Right, thanks for the info all. I can just leave the PPC cpu with the "black box" and standard fan that comes with the blizzard card and not need to worry about it?

Yes, and the "black box" cooler + fan must always be there when you run the board, else the PPC will cook.

[Hercules]

Originally Posted by Jope

Yes, and the "black box" cooler + fan must always be there when you run the board, else the PPC will cook.

+1

Keep everything stock unless their is fan noise and the fan need replacing.

[Hercules]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Modern cards are actually *designed* to be overclocked. There's a long and established history of successfully overclocking these CPUs. CPUs other than the crazily hyped rev. 6 are still easily enough available, but I've yet to hear of anyone killing one due to overclocking. They crash and become unstable long before any damage is done.

Why would you even want to overclock one of these precious cards? Moreso when they cannot be picked up easily these days without paying silly money via ebay auction. If it 'coz you can it does not make sense. Motorola 680x0 and PPC cards are hardly desribed as "modern" as you write in your first sentence. End of.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Hercules

Motorola 680x0 and PPC cards are hardly desribed as "modern" as you write in your first sentence. End of.

Ah, I see. You're talking specifically about the PPC accelerators. I was talking in more general terms of '060 accelerators, since you seemed to be too, and that's how most of the thread was to start with. So re-read what I said in that context if it didn't make sense to you.

But anyway, since the '060 and the PPC can be overclocked separately, it's easy to overclock just the '060, which is a long established mod. And, because the design is asynchronous (as I explained already), there's no need to worry about messing up motherboard timing or anything like that. Since there are also '040 versions of these boards, they're designed for a higher thermal load than a stock '060, and thus an overclocked '060 with active cooling won't be a problem either.

[tFt]

I moved my Apollo1260/66Mhz from Tower to desktop case, it came with this heatsink+fan solution mentioned above, the fan makes it too big to fit under the keyboard.
But as JOPE and others say above, you don't really need a fan for 060, but wouldn't it be better to have a slim heatsink slapped on there than nothing? Or does it have little/no cooling help at all?
Anyone have a good suggestion for slim heatsinks that one could stick onto the 060? Preferably ones of those that come with glue-tape on it, so you don't have to mess with this paste thing I remember using on PC back in the day.

[sneeker]

Im using little bga heatsinks ontop of my 040 in my desktop 1200 with a blower fan blowing across them, Its also still got its stock heatspreader thing that elbox fitted,


Being an 040 it probably wont overclock much in my case, I think I tried going from 33 to 40 years ago and it didnt work so its been at 33 ever since.