A G4 QuickSilver with an improved cooling system [update]

By linathael. Original by Yoc - 26/02/2004 20:10:13 CET - Category: Overclock

Following numerous requests related to the previous news, hereafter are more info and details regarding components and procedure:

References of the components available on internet (may vary from one country to another):
Artic Alumina paste /glue
Heatsink from a Zalman CNPS5700D-Cu (Cu means copper model)
12cm fan Papst 4412 FGL (26db)
8cm fan Papst 8412NGML (19 db) for the PSU and the heatsink (for the latest, you will have to extract the fan from its frame and glue it on the heatsink with the Artic alumina paste.
Note: the original cooling system of the QS is badly designed. The 12cm fan located on the box is indeed re-injecting part of the hot air that it has just extracted...
Some procedure details:
For the Papst fans, you will have to weld the original cables to power them.
The original fans were heat-regulated for their rotation speed, which in most of the time was not effective since they were almost immediately shifting to the high speed mode due to the bad hot air extraction system of the G4 QS; so I simply removed them. I also removed the original fan which was blowing on the original heatsink, since with the new heatsink it was simply useless.
Replace the original fan of the PSU by one of the 8cm Papst.
Gluing the other 8cm Papst to the heatsink is easy, since it takes only 6 minutes to the Artic Alumina to solidify complete while insuring a really good heat transfer capacity. The size of the heatsink is small enough to leave the access to the fixation devices processor card accessible, but due to the weight of the Copper heatsink, I will advise to avoid any vertical shock, or acceleration
Once installed this new cooling system, the sound of silence is really impressive... the heatsink remains cold, and most of the noise generated is coming from the HDs. I will advise to avoid >60GB HDs, otherwise you will get vibrations, and the whole computer box will vibrate (another original bad design), Seagate's HDs are a good choice due to their really low noise factor.
Thanks again to macbidouille.com (hardmac.com for international version) for their comments, info, tips and tricks; as the one I used to flash a PowerColor Radeon 9100 PC into a Radeon 8500 Mac!!!!