PIII Cooling

[cracked]

What are the minimum cooling requirements for a Pentium III? This PIII is the kind in the slot, not the Pin Grid Array. Thanks!

Drew

[Bob The Great]

They are tanks. Pretty much if it fits on it it should work. I'm currently usuing an overkill system (2 fans and heatsink), but I'm also usuing the little pad that came with it instead of thermal greese. I'd suggest something that has at least a fan.

As I said p-3's are tanks. I've had them fall out of slots (bad mobo), and still be good.

[eweruk]

My old boxes have a passive heatsink on the chip and a 80MM case fan blowing on it via plastic cover. It never gets hot.

[Tomteriffic]

Just make sure you get the right kind of cooler with regards to the Slot 1 type. The very early ones (and the P-2's and slotted Celerons) were the "SECC" package, while the newer ones are the SECC-2 Package. One cooler won't work on the other. The primary difference is the spacing of the holes through the processor card itself.

These guys have a fairly decent Slot 1 P-3 cooler, although I added some higher-output fans to mine.

CoolerGuys

[Bob The Great]

Good point! I had that exact problem when I bought my heatsink. Told the guy I had a P3, and he showed me his heatsinks. I picked out this amazing looking chrome deal! Then had to return it for my current 2 fan black one O well.

[thekemp]

the p3 is a rock solid cpu ive forgot to plug the fan in and it run for days with just the heatsink. most desktops that have them are passively cooled like ibm dell hp even the slot coppermines have been known to be passivly cooled.

[Brangwen]

"Agreed!"

My Pee-Three is great! I check the temp (once a year if I happen to be near the BIOS! One can tell it's my wife's machine: the BIOS date is 1999! I keep threatening to flash it ...): it runs between 90-100F with stock HSF. And it's enclosed in a computer armoir with wood not far from back and sides. Not a tower case. Very sturdy. I think the fan died once and an alarm sounded. No damage. Again, I just used the HSF assembly that came in the packing box with the CPU. (600E Coppermine - the "great" OC chip!)

Good luck.

Brangwen

[EvilRick]

[H]ardOCP has a review of the Tennmax. That's the one I have currently on a PIII550 (120MHzX5.5) Runs great.

I didn't do all thre exrtra cutting and stuff they did.

[Tomteriffic]

Speaking of 600 E's, I'm about to slam one into the el cheapo case from CompGeeks that was dicussed elsewhere, and put on the cooler I linked to earlier in this thread. This one runs at a guaranteed 800 in this particular motherboard Beyond that, who knows?