Hi Guys,
Yeah, I was pretty weary at first taking off the stock cooler since I've read the article about cracking/breaking 601's. I removed the board from the case and made sure to be extra careful when unclipping and replacing the heatsink. So far so good and no damage done *phew* Trag, after taking off the stock heatsink it was pretty obvious that new thermal compound was needed. The stuff was so dried up it wasn't even funny - almost like plaster you use for spackling drywall ... yeah ...
I ended up using the heatsink that came with the 486 DX/2 that I pulled off the DOS Card since it offers quite a bit more surface area in comparison to e.g. the heatsink from a 6500 (see the "potential replacement" screenshot, it's tiny and seems to me that it might not be large enough). With the Cyrix 5x86 and it's attached heatsink, interposer and all, and the 601 with the 486's old heatsink, I have about 12-13mm clearance left between both CPUs. I wasn't able to use the stock heatsink since it's just too tall (I have considered just dropping in a fan but the height of the fins won't allow installation of the card).
I haven't been able to get too much testing done since I had to get some sleep before work, but I ran the setup without fan for a little while (half an hour or so), using both the Mac and PC side of things to see how hot it actually gets (with case closed and machine slightly raised to allow proper circulation). The Cyrix seems to be just fine, the 601 does get quite warm even with the heatsink.
Since there really isn't that much clearance between the CPUs I've tried to figure out a way to see if I could possibly add a fan sideways rather than on the heatsink in order to force airflow over the fins (like some of e.g. the Sonnet G3/G4 accelerators do). Doesn't seem to be an easy way to accomplish this.
I was able to mount a 40 x 40 x 10 fan on top of the 601 which *barely* fits. Since the CPUs are not directly stacked on top of each other, but rather slightly offset, there is some room for the fan to draw in air and to force air over the heatsink, but I have not been able to test how *hot* it actually gets yet with that setup. I ran it briefly without the DOS card and it indeed only got lukewarm (which is good) but it remains to be seen how it will perform "in the field", with DOS Card installed and case closed.
I've seen some of these heatsinks which came with e.g. the 601 addon cards, they seem to be not quite as tall as the 6100 contraption, but seem to offer quite a bit more surface space. Not sure if this will work in a 6100 considering e.g. capacitors, chips, etc which might obstruct the heatsink, but I might look into that. It would definitely not use nearly as much vertical space as the other sinks I've tried so far...
In the end, you may ask why bother with all this if there are different machines which can do exactly the same, if not faster and better? Well...
1.) The 6100 was the first PowerPC machine (sentimental value)
2.) I like the pizza-box form-factor
3.) A "VM" implemented in hardware (an x86 compatible CPU grafted to PPC architecture) is total geekery which I like
4.) I have both old Mac and DOS/Win3x titles which I can bring "under one roof" with this setup
5.) Regarding the Cyrix 5x86, it "smokes" the Intel 486 DX2/66 - when comparing 486s that is
Getting off the soap box now, so If you've made it this far, thank you for listening to my ramblings (3:20am and my brain's not working)!
~BeniD82
Yeah, I was pretty weary at first taking off the stock cooler since I've read the article about cracking/breaking 601's. I removed the board from the case and made sure to be extra careful when unclipping and replacing the heatsink. So far so good and no damage done *phew* Trag, after taking off the stock heatsink it was pretty obvious that new thermal compound was needed. The stuff was so dried up it wasn't even funny - almost like plaster you use for spackling drywall ... yeah ...
I ended up using the heatsink that came with the 486 DX/2 that I pulled off the DOS Card since it offers quite a bit more surface area in comparison to e.g. the heatsink from a 6500 (see the "potential replacement" screenshot, it's tiny and seems to me that it might not be large enough). With the Cyrix 5x86 and it's attached heatsink, interposer and all, and the 601 with the 486's old heatsink, I have about 12-13mm clearance left between both CPUs. I wasn't able to use the stock heatsink since it's just too tall (I have considered just dropping in a fan but the height of the fins won't allow installation of the card).
I haven't been able to get too much testing done since I had to get some sleep before work, but I ran the setup without fan for a little while (half an hour or so), using both the Mac and PC side of things to see how hot it actually gets (with case closed and machine slightly raised to allow proper circulation). The Cyrix seems to be just fine, the 601 does get quite warm even with the heatsink.
Since there really isn't that much clearance between the CPUs I've tried to figure out a way to see if I could possibly add a fan sideways rather than on the heatsink in order to force airflow over the fins (like some of e.g. the Sonnet G3/G4 accelerators do). Doesn't seem to be an easy way to accomplish this.
I was able to mount a 40 x 40 x 10 fan on top of the 601 which *barely* fits. Since the CPUs are not directly stacked on top of each other, but rather slightly offset, there is some room for the fan to draw in air and to force air over the heatsink, but I have not been able to test how *hot* it actually gets yet with that setup. I ran it briefly without the DOS card and it indeed only got lukewarm (which is good) but it remains to be seen how it will perform "in the field", with DOS Card installed and case closed.
I've seen some of these heatsinks which came with e.g. the 601 addon cards, they seem to be not quite as tall as the 6100 contraption, but seem to offer quite a bit more surface space. Not sure if this will work in a 6100 considering e.g. capacitors, chips, etc which might obstruct the heatsink, but I might look into that. It would definitely not use nearly as much vertical space as the other sinks I've tried so far...
In the end, you may ask why bother with all this if there are different machines which can do exactly the same, if not faster and better? Well...
1.) The 6100 was the first PowerPC machine (sentimental value)
2.) I like the pizza-box form-factor
3.) A "VM" implemented in hardware (an x86 compatible CPU grafted to PPC architecture) is total geekery which I like
4.) I have both old Mac and DOS/Win3x titles which I can bring "under one roof" with this setup
5.) Regarding the Cyrix 5x86, it "smokes" the Intel 486 DX2/66 - when comparing 486s that is
Getting off the soap box now, so If you've made it this far, thank you for listening to my ramblings (3:20am and my brain's not working)!
~BeniD82