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Module 3d.1 About Cooling and Over clocking

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About cooling
A clean cooler..

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Cooling

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All modern CPUs share a common need for cooling. Make sure to include a good cooler. It has to be matched to the size of the CPU.

It has to be attached properly, either with glue or a clamp, which fits the CPU.

It must have a substantial size heat sink - the bigger the better.

The fan must be mounted in roller bearings, to minimize noise.

The bigger the fan and heat sink, the better it is. The CPU will operate more reliably. It will have a longer life span, and it can possibly be over clocked. If you buy Intel CPUs, buy them "in a box". It is a special package, priced slightly higher than just the CPU. They always include a good fan and a three year warranty.

Pentium with fan. Photo taken with Canon Powershot 600. JPG-file 1:30, 32 KB.

What is a cooler?

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A cooler consists of two parts:

A fan that needs power supply.

A cooling element, usually made of metal ribs. The fan is placed on the top of the cooling element, which is fastened very tight to the top of the CPU:

The power supply can be connected two ways:

From the main power supply of the PC. This is the case in most PCs and all older ones.

From the motherboard. This way the rotation can be monitored by the BIOS software which then can control the temperature of the CPU. This system is implemented on many ATX-boards. Here you see the BIOS program monitoring the temperature (29 C on my board, right now):

Some coolers use peltier elements which give an extra cooling. Look at this one below where you see the white peltier-thing at the bottom. Notice the two-fold power supply:

Cleaning the cooler

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Another important thing to take care of is vacuum cleaning the fan on a regular basis. My old Pentium Pro has a very big fan on it. It began giving error messages within Windows . I really could not find out why. Until I discovered that the heating sink was extremely hot. The fan was rotating as it should, but a large amount of dust had gathered just beneath it, so the air did not cool the sink at all!

You should separate the fan from the cooling element to clean it properly. Here is the cooling element alone on the top of the CPU:

What to be learned: Check your CPU fan once a year. Perhaps you have to disconnect the CPU to clean it thoroughly. Take the CPU in your hand and hold the vacuum cleaner close to the sink.

Here you see a powerful cooling device for (over clocking) Pentium IIs. It contains three fans (the third being difficult to see, it's in the middle of the device) plus a peltier element:

Learn more

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Read Module 3e - about the latest CPUs.

Read more about the boot process and system bus in Module 2b