Well today was, to put it mildly, a f***ing nightmare!!!
Started off with removing the heatsink, except it wouldn't come off for some reason. Both clips were unhooked but the effing thing world not come away from the CPU. Pulled and pulled and eventually 'pop' the heatsink came off, phew!! except there was no CPU in the socket when I looked down!!
After a mild heart attack I sneaked a look at the heatsink and to my relief/surprise the CPU was firmly stuck to the bottom of it by the pre-applied goo
Prised the CPU off and checked the pins, by sheer luck they were all straight and none missing, first time I've pulled a CPU out of its socket when it's clamped in
Nipped round to my mates with the CPU and heatsink as he's got some funky cleaning fluid called PROPANONE (Fancy name for acetone I think), a few dabs on a kitchen towel and a rub on the heatsink drew the goo off in no time, kitchen towel was as a black as night first rub, then after a few more rubs with a new piece of kitchen towel it was clean so no more goo left to clean off. Same for the CPU! Came home and assaulted the case!
Drilled out the case front by chain dilling lots of small holes so I had about a 11cm square hole, filed the back/front edges to get rid of burrs then drilled mounting holes for the fan and found the plastic speaker/fan cage was 5mm too wide on one side as the 120mm fan could not sit square to the case, so a hacksaw job on the plastic cage later, the fan and plastic cage were in place!
Then I knocked the phone base station off the wall and broke 2 small brackets that held the base station onto the mounting bracket, now the bloody phone tilts forward and I can't put the phone on it to charge it at night
Also got cramp in my feet from kneeling in a cramped bedroom and also in my right forefinger by gripping the hand drill so hard while trying to drill the case because the drill I used was about as sharp as butter! First time I've hand cramp in my finger too, seemed funny bending your finger straight only to see it slowly curl up and cramp again
Eventually it stayed straight enough for me to continue putting all my bits back in the case.
Managed to put the PC back together and boot it, CPU was still alive! The 120mm fan is now blowing straight into the bottom of the case with nothing in its way. Mounted 2 x 80mm exhaust fans at the rear, 2 x 80mm Silent fans on the side blowing in, used some tissue paper as a dust filter
So thats 3 fans bringing air in and 2 drawing it out, as opposed to 3 drawing air out and only 1 blowing in. The 120mm fan under the HDD doesn't count as it was just blowing in the air the 80mm intake was drawing in.
So we'll see if this has done anything significant to the temps in the case. Too knackered to do any testing now, it's late and I'm b*ll*cksed!!!
Next time someone suggest a 'simple case hack' don't be surprised if I tell you to F*** *FF
