Fanless \ Noiseless computer #1

   The case’s covers can be simply removed. Each of them is held in place with six little magnets. The motherboard and the CPU, NB and VRM heat blocks are screwed to the base plate. Heat from the video processor is removed with the help of a simple heatpipe-based structure and passed to the heatsink wall. The DVD drive and the PSU (originally an ordinary fanned unit) are screwed to the side walls as well. The rear of the case is another large heatsink which cools two hard drives encased in a soundproof box. I’m going to tell you about this device in my next article.

    A few words about the side heatsinks \ walls. I've already mentioned what's needed to achieve a good cooling performance: a thick base and a broad fin surface area. Luckily, apropriate sinks were found at the same flea market, where we had bought the base plate.

   All the adjoining surfaces of the plate and the side sinks were sanded and lapped in. It took us one hour of machine work and a whole day of handicraft.

   Here we can clearly see the structure of my heatpipe-based cooling system. Six pipes  are used to cool the processor (position №1), two –  for the hot 945 chipset north bridge (pos. №2), one – for the south bridge (pos. №3) and one – for the unidentified CD480107 microchip (pos. №4). I must say the damn chip had caused me a hell of a lot of trouble. The computer kept freezing for an unknown reason untill I finally pinpointed the culprit.