It's on there but only every 6 months, I just moved it to every 3
months. My son has a 3.2GHz P4 Prescott chip and the retail box cooler
was a big joke, especially when he loaded the machine up with video
applications. So he got a full copper Zalman - the biggest he could
find - and runs it without any noise reduction. And he has to clean it
often or his CPU will start heating up.
It can't be THAT hot in TX right now!
Get a room air cleaner... you won't have to dust off
yourself as often, either.
On many of the stamped-out sheeting types of heatsinks, you
can reduce the amount of dust (rate of accumulation) by
taking very fine grit sandpaper and sanding down the leading
stamped edge (facing fan if a pusher fan). I'd go with the
room air cleaner first, but it all adds up.
I would like to get one of those hood assemblies that look like the
top of a square air cleaner off an car with a carburettor. It screws
onto the top of the fan and a duct runs to the back of the case where
it routes the air flow from outside.
Assuming your heatsink fan is blowing into the 'sink, that
is a bad idea. It will draw the heated PSU exhaust back
into the system creating a so-called "short loop" that
recirculates the heated air. If you need airflow changes,
get a higher flow rate into the bottom front of the case.
It will cool all parts better including CPU, while the short
loop robs other parts of some airflow. You can't just flip
the fan over with same (otherwise) results if the heatsink
isn't designed with that in mind, the gains from the duct
would be offset by the losses from flipped fan... and in
most of Intel's sinks you can't even flip the fan as it's
integrated into a frame-holder.
I would put a fan filter in front
of the inlet so I could easily clean the dust off periodically from
the outside.
Put the filter in the room, cleans everything.
If that's not enough, put a filter on the case front intake,
at least it then cleans as much as possible in the case
(with a front intake fan to reduce any air intake though
non-filtered cracks, holes, seams, etc.
Not only would the air going to the CPU be dirt-free but it would also
be cooler than the air inside the case.
See above, plus merely having a filter dense enough to be
very effective will substantially cut down on airflow rate
unless the filter area is MUCH larger than the fan intake
area, plus the duct alone (without filter installed) also
cuts down on airflow rate. Axial fans are poor at
maintaining pressure in a ducted scenario. Squirrel cage
fans do this better, but are usually quite a bit noisier
without any need currently, as mentioned above it can't be
THAT hot in TX right now.
In fact I wonder why more case
manufacturers don't providing this because I can't be the only one
whose heat sink clogs with dust.
1) Cost more than not having it.
2) Aftermarket sales of accesssory filter panel = more
profit
3) Most people don't need it, would just clean the 'sink
every few months _if_ that often, and over life of system
that's not THAT many cleaning cycles when considering the
extra effort to install and test the filtered-duct, AND that
the filter panel on the duct has to be cleaned too... maybe
even more frequently than without the filter as not all dust
gets stuck in the heatsink without a filter, a substantial %
is exhausted out of the sink... while such particles would
probably be trapped in the filter.
IMO, if you have the heatsink intake filtered you should
FIRST filter the whole case, else the heatsink filter gets
clogged that much quicker and you have to open up the case
to swap that filter in any normal arrangement unless you had
the undesirable short-loop intaking the heated PSU exhaust
as mentioned above.
But then look how long it took for
the automotive industry to adopt the 12 volt battery (ever try to
start a car that sat outside overnight in 20F weather with a 6 volt
battery?).
I dunno what to say, systems here that have sat over a year
inbetween heatsink cleanings (overclocked Athlon XPs... not
exactly cool running) aren't running as hot as yours was.
Granted, they aren't primary use systems anymore so it's not
24/7 operation of fans which reduces dust accumulation but
on the other hand I suspect a larger reason is they had
better than stock heatsinks on them... a good heatsink
allows lower fan RPM, with the obvious reduction in airflow
as a result, not only does that account for lower dust
accumlation directly, but the lower the velocity of the air
the more dust particles settle out from gravity instead of
making it up to the 'sink. Plus, very quiet and long lived
fans are nice too... it would be unusual if any of these
fans fail within a decade.
