Intel D201GLY2 low profile fan upgrade success! [pics]

maniaxzero · 01-30-2008, 11:29 PM

I've successfully upgraded the stock heatsink in the intel d201gly2 board to a Cooler Master EEB-N41SS-01 low profile fan+heatsink unit. This is to show that an upgrade to the heatsink can be done fairly simple!

Cooler Master EEB-N41SS-01 - $6.99 plus shipping on mp3car store
Arctic Alumina Thermal Paste - $4.99 plus tax at micro center

Two reasons why anyone would wanna do this upgrade:

1. The stock heatsink's height is almost twice as high as the motherboard height. So fitting it in a small thin case can be a problem.

2. The stock heatsink is not very efficient at cooling the CPU. I found the idle temperature of the CPU to be around ~60 degrees Celsius, similar to what others reported. After the upgrade, my CPU temp. significantly dropped to 27 degrees Celsius and the highest under load being 31 degrees! THE CPU TEMPERATURE WAS CUT BY MORE THAN HALF!!!!!

Before you attempt this upgrade, I just want to warn you that the coolermaster heatsink unit IS NOT a direct fit on the intel little valley board. The coolermaster was designed to work with 4 screws while the stock intel heatsink is held down by a strong spring pin! So what i basically did was used the stock spring pin and skillfully forced it down on the coolermaster heatsink. I'm not responsible for any damages this upgrade may do, I'm just here to report that it has worked very well for me!

Stock D201GLY2 Board before upgrade

Here you can see the processor after heatsink has been removed. The spring pin holding the heatsink is very stiff, so becareful and have some patience when removing it.

A height comparison of the Coolermaster and the intel heatsink

I cleaned the old thermal grease off the processor and apply new thermal grease onto the processor. Then I took apart the coolermaster fan/heatsink assembly and forced the stock spring pin(the original one holding down the stock heatsink) down on the coolermaster heatsink. The spring is very strong so it requires ALOT of force! Be careful when doing this, you dunt wanna break any capacitors or hurt yourself! Sorry no pics for this step.

Here you can see the spring pin being forced through the coolermaster heatsink. notice how the middle fins are slightly bent?

After installation of the coolermaster and motherboard fitted in the case.

Because of this upgrade, i was able to fit the motherboard perfectly in my 1.5inch thick case!

Everything fits, my CPU temp. is under 30 Degrees.....I'm a very happy man! Hope this little picture writeup will help some of you with the height and temperature concerns of the d201gly2 board! Goodluck!

UPDATE 2/3/08: after running it this whole week....the CPU temperature actually isn't hovering around 30 degrees like i thought it would.....more like 50-55 degrees Celsius! Still an improvement over the stock heat sink but not a drastic improvement like i thought it would be! So maybe it still a good idea to add more case fans!

skuller · 01-31-2008, 01:39 AM

great how to!
thanks.

kickercivic1 · 02-01-2008, 10:03 AM

Some pics dont work??, but from reading it great job.

maniaxzero · 02-02-2008, 08:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kickercivic1

Some pics dont work??, but from reading it great job.

imageshack's servers are not the greatest. I updated the pics with mp3car host. It shouldn't have any problems now. Thanks for pointing it out!

stroths · 02-02-2008, 11:02 PM

Nicely done. I considered tacking a fan to the side of my heatsink to give it some more airflow. However, my case is doing pretty well for now since its aluminum, has fins and decent circulation from the case fan.

maniaxzero · 02-03-2008, 01:34 AM

UPDATE 2/3/08: after running it this whole week....the CPU temperature actually isn't hovering around 30 degrees like i thought it would.....more like 50-55 degrees Celsius! Still an improvement over the stock heat sink but not a drastic improvement like i thought it would be! So maybe it still a good idea to add more case fans!

ik632 · 02-04-2008, 04:46 PM

What about the other heat sink? The silentPC review said that also got very hot. Could that be heating up causing the reported temps you are seeing? I'm looking at getting a few of these and I'm OK with adding fans, just don't want to miss something.

stroths · 02-04-2008, 06:44 PM

I ended up putting a cheap P3 socket 370 heatsink & fan I picked up at my local Fry's for $7. It's not low profile, but it is almost exactly the same dimensions as the original heat sink except I get a fan included in that height. The 50mm ball bearing fan is fairly quiet and it keeps the CPU cooler. The one I got is an Evercool CF-5B-H.

Now I just need to find a similar solution for the other heat sink.

There are some larger capacitors on either side of the processor, so you have to be careful to get a heatsink that will fit.

galvitron · 02-04-2008, 06:58 PM

Do you have the model number of that second one you tried? I have that first cooler master heatsink/fan...maybe I can upgrade mine...

maniaxzero · 02-10-2008, 02:25 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by ik632

What about the other heat sink? The silentPC review said that also got very hot. Could that be heating up causing the reported temps you are seeing? I'm looking at getting a few of these and I'm OK with adding fans, just don't want to miss something.

i didnt bother with the northbridge heatsink. It does get fairly hot but i've got everything working well in my car now so i'm not gonna bother taking it out again to mess with it.

hadalgo · 02-10-2008, 11:42 AM

nice work man..

I have a quick question... I know intel states that it only supports up to 1gb of ram.. wonder what happens if you put in more?? wonder what would happen if you put in a 2gb chip???

I am going to purchase one of these babies here today, was wondering if spending the extra 5 bucks for 2gb would work with it or not

HiJackZX1 · 02-14-2008, 03:50 AM

Most of the time the PC will only use what it was made to use. So if you get 2 GB, and the board only supports 1 GB, then thats all it will use (1GB). I think this because I was going to buy a MoBo and it read uses two 2gb RAM, but only 3.25gb usable.

maniaxzero.... I have a case similar to yours, but mine has 2 PCI slots (cant tell if yours does, and mine has all the ventilation holes on the side. I then have on one side 2 fans that pull air in, and on the other side, 2 fans that blow air out. I redid the insides though, my MoBo is in the same place, but were your M2-ATX is, I have my 2.5 hard drive, and were your hard drive is, I have my OPUS 320, which takes up so much space!!!! I have never ran the PC, since I decided to replace the MoBo and havent recieved it yet... but Im sure I went over kill with the cooling.... Were is your PC anyways? In the cabin, glovebox, trunk?

stroths · 02-14-2008, 06:44 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

Most of the time the PC will only use what it was made to use. So if you get 2 GB, and the board only supports 1 GB, then thats all it will use (1GB). I think this because I was going to buy a MoBo and it read uses two 2gb RAM, but only 3.25gb usable.

The 3.25gb usable is likely an OS limitation. I ran into this last year when I upgraded my office PC to 4GB, but only 3.5gb displayed in Windows. You have to run a 64bit OS to use anything over 3.5gb. 32bit OS's will only show/use 3.25gb or 3.5gb max depending on settings.

ik632 · 02-14-2008, 09:56 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by stroths

The 3.25gb usable is likely an OS limitation. I ran into this last year when I upgraded my office PC to 4GB, but only 3.5gb displayed in Windows. You have to run a 64bit OS to use anything over 3.5gb. 32bit OS's will only show/use 3.25gb or 3.5gb max depending on settings.

We run into this all the time here at work (we sell a CAD type software for processing scan data to create digital models) and users often upgrade to more than 4gig of ram in their workstations and complain that Windows XP32 won't use more than 2gb per running instance. There's a boot.ini hack which will allow Win32 to use up to 3gb per application, but it causes memory addressing issues for most applications.

As far as the 1gb support goes, most board manufacturers only do this because they can certify that the board will only support up to that size chip. So depending on the specific configuration of the memory chip a 2gb stick may work.

I had an old Asus A7N8X Deluxe that when originally released only supported up to 512mb sticks. With bios revisions they increased it to 1gb sticks. That board never got to 2gb sticks because it was retired before those were released to market. I'd give it some time and the board may support it.

HiJackZX1 · 02-14-2008, 11:10 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by stroths

The 3.25gb usable is likely an OS limitation. I ran into this last year when I upgraded my office PC to 4GB, but only 3.5gb displayed in Windows. You have to run a 64bit OS to use anything over 3.5gb. 32bit OS's will only show/use 3.25gb or 3.5gb max depending on settings.

Are we sure about the OS being the limitation? So that means the manufactuer would assume your going to use Windows. What about linux, etc, would those have the limits also? So what happens if he puts a 2 GB RAM in a board that specifies 1 GB?

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