So, I purchase a Fabled Swiftech MC-462A heatsink and a
Gigabyte GA-7DXR motherboard that everyone keeps raving
about and find, oops.. They don't fit together, there's
a capacitor blocking the lower left corner of the heatsink
where the notch is.
I guess apparently Gigabyte didn't adhere to the "Keepout"
Zone that is defined in the ATX standard or that Swiftech
didn't make the notches high enough. You'd think someone
at Asus or Gigabyte would realize that heatsinks like this
exist! Anyway....
Rather than take back this $115 (CDN) heatsink I decided to
go at it with a wheel grinder. Carefully I ground the notch
off the side, so now there's only three screws holding the
fan on. (It looks a lot like the modification they did on
Swiftechs site to get it to work with an Asus A7V.)
So far, the heatsink keeps my Athlon 1.4 Ghz CPU at 41 C
at idle with an open case. (Wow!) As well, I haven't noticed
any sort of excessive vibration from the fan as a result of
mounting it only with three screws.
Even though Swiftech says that the warranty on the heatsink
is void as a result, who here has experienced heatsink failure?
I can understand if the fan fails though.. but if Swiftechdid their research, the fan should have a long MTBF figure.
So far, the only thing that bugs me about this heatsink is the
fan noise. It's quite noticable. I'd rather use a 80mm to 92mm
shroud with a slower speed fan. Has anyone had any luck doing
this? (Especially with this heatsink?)
I have to admit though that it's much better than listening to
the evil Delta Black Label fans I've been hearing so much about.
Anyway, just some FYI and all that.
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