Intel Celeron 433 Cooling

[JingleDjango]

Hello,

I'm doing some maintenance on a piece of studio gear, a digital fx processor from c.2000. The machine runs too loud to leave in our control room and we don't have a machine room in our current space where we could isolate it. This is basically an NLX form factor PC with some custom DSP and I/O expansion cards. The PSU is an ATX standard part, despite the NLX motherboard. The CPU is a Celeron 433.

So I decided to upgrade the power supply (ATX 250W, chassis fan (80mm) and CPU cooler (aluminum heatsink, 60mm fan) so that everything runs quieter.

Here's my question:

Here you see the top of the celeron. The die looks as expected but there's this rough texture plate covering the rest of the PCB. I haven't seen that on any other images online of this Celeron series. When I removed the heatsink, this pad was basically slathered with thermal grease. I guess this is to provide some additional thermal contact with the sink?

I cleaned the heatsink and the CPU top with lab swabs and isopropyl. How best to apply thermal compound when I replace the heatsink? A little dot on the die and maybe a circle around that metal backplate?

Another thing:

Above is a photo of the bottom of the stock heatsink. You can see that the surface making contact with the CPU die is not very flat/polished. My plan initially was to replace the 60mm fan only, but now I'm wondering if it would be very helpful to replace the heatsink as well. This box will be mounted in a warm 19" rack with lots of other equipment and it's essential that it be quiet but also well cooled.

Thank you for your input.
-Egon

 

[James Mason]

It running loud was entirely the fans, those are the only things that make noise.

I doubt you can find any replacement heatsinks for that thing though, as I don't see how you'd secure them to the motherboard.

But there are better types of thermal paste as well that can provide a larger cooling effect.

http://overclocking.guide/thermal-paste-roundup-2015-47-products-tested-with-air-cooling-and-liquid-nitrogen-ln2/

 

[JingleDjango]

Thanks for your reply,

The HDD also makes noise. Socket 370 cooler kits are available still, on eBay and Amazon.

 

[James Mason]

HDD making noise is because of a dying HDD, a 17 year old HDD making noise sound reasonable.

I'm not sure how you secure those coolers to the motherboard though, I only see 1 open screw hole.

So i'm wondering if you have a custom heatsink that was designed for this specific piece of audio equipment.