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In the Forums... |
Posted: March 16, 2001 Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen Testing the Theory He also wrote me saying I should not believe his conclusions even though he claims that he is a holder of over 40 patents and should find out for myself. Here’s a snip from the first email: Hello, I was reading your review today on the AMD 850MHz Duron and saw that you said that you had turned the cpu cooling fan backwards to suck air away, instead of forcing air onto the cpu. I would NOT EVER, NEVER, NEVER recommend this to anyone. If you have ever studied the physics of air flow you would instantly realize that cooling is related to total air flow across the heatsink fins. If you were to measure the actual air flow that you were getting with the reversed fan versus the actual air flow that you would get with the fan in its proper position, you would find out very quickly that pressurized air flow has much higher air flow across the fin surfaces than does suction air flow. In very critical air flow situations like overclocking cpu's, doing what you have done would cause the cpu to meltdown. Therefore, I would not every recommend this to your readers due to the possibility that someone would copy you and destroy their cpu. Consider yourself educated. I would either correct your article or put in a warning about possible cpu damage if people copy this novice trick. Brent Wiscombe Mesa, AZ The following test will attempt to see whether Brent's claim is indeed correct. I decided to take the Vantec FCE-6254OD (pictured in the last picture with the Alpha) and pitch it against the Alpha PAL6035. The Vantec has wider base than the Alpha and its fan forces air downwards on the heatsink. According to Brent, this is the best method. The Alpha has a copper embedded plate but the Alpha is also pretty old now and it’s definitely showing signs of age. The fan on the Alpha pulls air away. This situation according to Brent would cook the test CPU in a matter of seconds. I also reversed the air flow on both heatsinks to see what would happen. Test System AMD Thunderbird Athlon 1.2GHz Asus A7V133 with 1004 BIOS Environmnt: Not enclosed. Motherboard temperature: 29C Ambient Temperature: 20C Alpha PAL6035 with Delta 38CFM, 7000RPM -- Pulling air away from the heatsink Alpha PAL6035 with Delta 38CFM, 7000RPM -- Pushing air down onto the heatsink Vantec FCE-6254OD with Delta 38CFM, 7000RPM -- Pulling air away from the heatsink Vantec FCE-6254OD with Delta 38CFM, 7000RPM -- Pushing air down onto the heatsink Heatsink compound: Arctic Silver 2 Windows 2000 Professional SP1 -- idle load |
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