How am I supposed to fit a fan to a Scythe Ninja ?

[Zim]

To anyone who has first-hand experience of this heatsink...

I recently bought a Scythe Ninja and although I got it fitted quite easily without a fan, things got nasty when I tried to fit a 120mm fan. At first I thought it was specific to my motherboard, but I have since looked at a lot of different 939 motherboards and I'll be damned if I can figure out how I would fit it on any of them.

With the most common configuration (example), the cpu socket is between the back plate and the memory slots. Ideally I would want the fan on the memory slots side of the CPU, blowing through the Ninja and out the back of the case. However, placement of the fan is obstructed by dimms in any of the slots. With a certain amount of trouble I can mount the fan higher, but then I miss supplying airflow to the base of the Ninja where there are "normal" vertical fins and temps go up.

I could go on and critique every possible position for the Ninja with this motherboard layout, as well as others, but I won't bore you. Suffice to say I don't understand how I am expected to use a fan with this thing.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

My motherboard has a similar layout, with memory in the way. I still mounted it there, just above the base. No airflow over the bottom part, but I still get decent temperatures. This may be why I'm not getting better temps, though. The only way I can see it working is if you can mount the fan on the other side to pull air through, but that may be just as bad or worse.

I may just sell mine to someone and buy something better suited for this layout, like a Zalman 7700 AlCu.

 

[RalfHutter]

You'll just have to offset it above the DIMMs. That's the biggest reason I'm sort of luke-warm about the Ninja. I like to have some active cooling on the Vreg section, and with the Ninja you don't get much, if any.

Here's a pic of a Ninja in one of my systems.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: RalfHutter
You'll just have to offset it above the DIMMs. That's the biggest reason I'm sort of luke-warm about the Ninja. I like to have some active cooling on the Vreg section, and with the Ninja you don't get much, if any.

The problem is, you aren't getting any cooling at the base, and I think it's important to get airflow down there because that's where the most heat is.

I have come to the surprising conclusion that the Ninja is not suitable for Socket 939 boards. There is only one 939 board I have found that can (probably) fully accomodate it, and that's the DFI Ultra-D. Most of the reviews I have read for the Ninja use Pentium based systems.

 

[Sunrise089]

I am very happy with my Ninja on my S939 board (Epox 9NPA+). Right now my PC has been running Prime for 10hrs and my CPU temp is 46 degrees. Seems pretty good considering the chip is OC'd from 1.8ghz to 2.6.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
I am very happy with my Ninja on my S939 board (Epox 9NPA+). Right now my PC has been running Prime for 10hrs and my CPU temp is 46 degrees. Seems pretty good considering the chip is OC'd from 1.8ghz to 2.6.

Assuming THIS is your board, you have the same problem as me if you want to fit a 120mm fan on the same side as your memory dimms.

 

[Sunrise089]

I guess I could, but I am perfectly happy mounting the fan between the chipset and the processor. Scyth's directions show mounting it there or where you want to mount it as both being valid.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
I guess I could, but I am perfectly happy mounting the fan between the chipset and the processor. Scyth's directions show mounting it there or where you want to mount it as both being valid.

In my case, the fan hits the ends of the dimms if I try that. Besides, you aren't getting cooling thru the base fins. I just don't like mounting something like this if I can't do the job right.

 

[Sunrise089]

How does the side the fan is mounted on affect whether or not it cools the base fins?

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
How does the side the fan is mounted on affect whether or not it cools the base fins?

You must mount the fan at the memory dimms side (or the opposing side) in order to have air flow throw the base fins. Even so, the memory dimms force you to place the fan above the base fins, so they don't get any air flow anyway.

 

[Sunrise089]

Ok, I guess so, but my temps of 38 idle/ 46 load at a 45% OC don't seem so bad. (and hopefully that will be a 50% OC soon)