it was time to let the stock intel cooler go as the heat generated by the P4EE 3.4ghz was not getting dissipated fast enough. it was hard to find a cooler that was approximately the same size as the stock one as that is the only size that will fit in the fragbox case.
http://paulrokicki.com/albums/fragbox/index.html so in a local computer store i found this.
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1148&ID=1551 for 28$
the reviews for this cooler i seen on other sites are not that impressive but i wanted to see it for myself and under some open case testing i have found this coolers full load cooling slightly better than stock. better by about 4 deg c. idle temps were 1 deg c better at around 30c with room temp of 21c and full load using prime95 was at 52c and with stock cooler was at 56-57c at 24c room temp idle was 36c and full load 61c. the main problem here is space in the case. right now i have the powersupply fan reversed and blowing right on top of the cpu but its blowing slowly and i have a feeling that it pushes less air on to the cpu than the cooler fan pushes onto the the cpu heatsink so there is a "thirst" for fresh air right above the cpu cooler fan. unfortunately the powersupply fan is temperature controlled so it doesnt spin very fast and the powersupply is cold to the touch anywhere i touch on it. its a great powersupply btw and cheap (40$) OCZ 500w Silentstream or somethinng like that. last year i also added 3 small fans from a harddrive cooler right below the powersupply to force more cool air from outside in there.
all this testing apparently has caused a problem for me on the motherboard. since i have begun the cooler tests something is [beep]ed up on the motherboard where the computer doesnt start unless it warms up a bit. so when i first push the power on, the drives start spinning and the power led goes on and stays on but system doesnt POST and i have to leave it in this "on and dead" state for about a minute then power off the computer and then on again and now it will boot up. putting on the thermaltake cooler was a major pain in the ass. it has the same clip design like the stock cooler which everyone knows is extremely gay except this one i have to push the black clips down with a lot more force before they click in the locked position so im thinking that as i was doing this several times during my testing i have [beep]ed up the motherboard some how due to flexing it where it doesnt exactly make contact somewhere or the electrical contacts on the board are weak in some spots near the cpu socket. this unreliablilty makes me want to take the motherboard out completely and stick it in another bigger desktop case i have and i will keep this fragbox one waiting for a i7 pc i will be building in the future. here are some pics form the testing:
stock cooler upclose with the case closed so the pic kinda sux as it was taken through the plastic window.
ther rest of the pics are with new thermaltake cooler
clearance to the powersupply is .5 cm. it looks little bit more but the grill that covers the powersupply fan sticks out makes it about .5cm
