Installing Classic Zalman Flower cooler to a modern system

[Ruru]

I had a 9500, I threw it away a few years ago

Edit:

I spy a sad emoji..

I know I know.

Dude I have like 11 Thermalright coolers, and 3 of them I know for sure will work on LGA775.. that is why it got the boot

Sad reaction from here too. Damn I remember the hype when Zalman announced the 9500 and it was a good cooler back in 2005. I hated that I still rocked a Socket A setup and it didn't support that.

 

[freeagent]

What Thermalright coolers do you have?... you don't happen to have the legendary TRUE Copper do you?

No copper unfortunately. I do have the circa 2007 model, the newer black rev.c, Le Grand Macho RT, True Spirit 140 Power, 2x FC140, PS120SE and Evo, and a PA120SE, Aqua Elite, Frozen Edge, my old 939 one, and a few nvme sinks.

Edit:

and a GPU one..

 

[WonderSnail]

Update!

I got the cooler installed today and its finally done

The 2mm gap issue was resolved pretty easily, I discovered that the plastic spacers from the Secufirm 2+ kit differ in height, specifically the LGA1200/115x spacers (Black) are about a millimeter thicker than the ones you are supposed to use for LGA 1700 (Blue)

So I used the LGA1200 ones instead, the remaining 1mm of thickness I stuck foam stickers below the NM-SFB4 bracket and that combination makes the bracket to IHS distance the same as Noctua's coolers.
Obviously this is a hack and won't work if I was to upgrade to an AM5 system in the future or something but its perfect right now and the mounting pressure feels quite adequate, no different to how I remember installing an NH-D15 or U9S that I used to have.
Previously I mentioned that getting a 30mm thick fan might be better but after installation I think its not a good idea because its hard to reach the bracket screws with the fan in the way. With this 25mm thick fan its just out of the way to screw in the cooler without any risk of stripping. Here's the angle the screwdriver needs to go in to get to the bracket.

The screwdriver makes contact with the fan blades and the fan has to be rotated to a specific position to get the screwdriver straighter. There's no issue with tightening it though and other than this detail the install went very smoothly.
Here it is finally installed and a close up of the mounting hardware

Here it is running in all its glory:

The cooler actually works surprisingly well for something that's so old. My unscientific guess is it performs similarly to a modern higher end 120mm cooler.
Here's a quick test of temps using CPU-Z stress test. Its keeping the cpu at around ~69°c @ 140w

I want to do proper power testing and see how much power it can handle but no promises for the time being.

Anyways, this has been pretty successful, I absolutely love it, and it looks and runs amazing!
I'm gonna go stare at it some more, thanks for reading!

 

[basco]

Nice, very nice

 

[SL2]

Here's a quick test of temps using CPU-Z stress test. Its keeping the cpu at around ~69°c @ 140w

That's surprisingly good!

 

[Vario]

Nice work.

I had a Thermalright XP90C a few years ago but sold on eBay IIRC.

 

[#22]

No copper unfortunately. I do have the circa 2007 model, the newer black rev.c, Le Grand Macho RT, True Spirit 140 Power, 2x FC140, PS120SE and Evo, and a PA120SE, Aqua Elite, Frozen Edge, my old 939 one, and a few nvme sinks.

Edit:

and a GPU one..

Not even one Silver Arrow? To me the first TR cooler to have as a part of what could be considered as collection :> And probably not much behind compared to their latest additions, if any, plus coming from definitely iconic among cooling enthusiasts Silver Arrow family. Opposite to their latest cheap kings being such until TR year later makes you forget about it with next one-two degree better. And they still sell SA, at least in Poland you can buy probably ultimate IB-E Extreme Rev. B for 105$. 10+ years old SB-E Extreme was able to beat D15 and newer revision should be even better.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I was going to say. Since you had the cooler out on the bench anyway. It wouldnt be a bad idea to make some sort of shroud that wraps around the cooler to help direct and channel airflow.

I can see quite a substantial gap. A shroud would further improve your airflow by another 5-10'c I reckon. If you've got any old hot chocolate or powdered milk containers made out of cardboard, It could be a fun experiment to cut one of them up to see how far you could drop your temps. It will definitely help with the static pressure of your fan as well making sure the air is being pulled in from the front of the cooler rather than through the gap middle



If you find it does work really well. you could get the ones that come in a plastic container and cut it to size. Usually the container is bare plastic but its wrapped in some other plastic wrapper with all the nutritional stuff printed on there.

Its not clear plastic but its not full opaque either so some of the light from the LED should still shine through without a problem. The shroud will act like a light diffuser.


Just an random thought anyway. I am forever thinking of ways to mod or improve my computer with everyday household goods. Similar to the empty pringles can to boost/extend your wifi signal hack from back in the day.

 

[BlaezaLite]

Looking at that cooler, I laughed! But it's still holding up! Maybe this design could make a comeback???

 

[WonderSnail]

I was going to say. Since you had the cooler out on the bench anyway. It wouldnt be a bad idea to make some sort of shroud that wraps around the cooler to help direct and channel airflow.

Yeah that's a great idea, this design is definitely inefficient with air going everywhere.
The cooler's packaging actually came with a plastic shroud that some people leave installed on the heatsink, it still has holes in it but better than leaving it open I guess.

Sadly I can't install it because it screws in at the bottom and I can't get a screwdriver there. So I might entertain your idea in the future for fun, I could even explore 3D printing a shroud

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Yeah that's a great idea, this design is definitely inefficient with air going everywhere.
The cooler's packaging actually came with a plastic shroud that some people leave installed on the heatsink, it still has holes in it but better than leaving it open I guess.
View attachment 358467
Sadly I can't install it because it screws in at the bottom and I can't get a screwdriver there. So I might entertain your idea in the future for fun, I could even explore 3D printing a shroud

That is pretty cool!. I didnt know there was an original part. At least it saves you the effort of having to make one. Definitely worth trying out if its in your possession. I would tape up the holes on the side to improve static pressure.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Yep coming in to say, Awesome moding. Brings a lot of people back to the future. Past. You know what I mean. For a while, Zalman was the go to cooler. For GPUs too. Good stuff. More pictures!

 

[eidairaman1]

Sad reaction from here too. Damn I remember the hype when Zalman announced the 9500 and it was a good cooler back in 2005. I hated that I still rocked a Socket A setup and it didn't support that.

I was on skt A until 2014

 

[WonderSnail]

Yep coming in to say, Awesome moding. Brings a lot of people back to the future. Past. You know what I mean. For a while, Zalman was the go to cooler. For GPUs too. Good stuff. More pictures!

one more bonus picture just for you, I took this strangely hypnotic pic when I just got the replacement fan

 

[kenkickr]

Awesome job on the mod.

 

[Vario]

one more bonus picture just for you, I took this strangely hypnotic pic when I just got the replacement fan
View attachment 358474

Very pretty HSF. Classic Zalman. I am amazed at the performance relative to how few heat pipes and fin area it has.

 

[Executor32]

Looks great! I personally went with a Phanteks SK140 RGB fan when I moved my CNPS9900MAX-B (identical to yours except that all the copper is nickel-plated, so it's a dark silver color, and the fan mount is different like you mentioned) to my current i7-9700K build and swapped out the failing stock fan:

The fan mount on mine only has two screws, but my process was otherwise the same: cut off the outer frame to leave just the hub and fan, then drill holes for the screws using the original fan's hub as a guide. I didn't have a small enough drill bit, though, so I instead poked the holes into it with a red-hot needle I'd heated on the stove. Luckily, I was able to reuse the same mounting hardware I'd had in my previous i7-2600K build, since Intel didn't change up the mounting screw layout until 10th gen. Cools my 9700K like a champ, though, idle temps are usually around 40°C and it tops out around 85°C during a full CPU+GPU torture test.

 

[davidm71]

I dusted off my old 9900MAX cooler to use on old parts. Couldn't find the mounting screws its been so long but Zalman graciously sent me spare parts to make it works. Had to pay shipping though. Turned out I was able to find almost everything I needed after just its been so long but Zalman sent me a spare LED fan for some reason. Thinking if it could be mounted for push pull be great. Ideas on how to mount a 120mm fan to one of the spirals? Anyhow go to find a horizontal case for it as I remember it works best horizontal. Maybe an open test bench kind of thing. Thanks

 

[WonderSnail]

I dusted off my old 9900MAX cooler to use on old parts. Couldn't find the mounting screws its been so long but Zalman graciously sent me spare parts to make it works. Had to pay shipping though. Turned out I was able to find almost everything I needed after just its been so long but Zalman sent me a spare LED fan for some reason. Thinking if it could be mounted for push pull be great. Ideas on how to mount a 120mm fan to one of the spirals? Anyhow go to find a horizontal case for it as I remember it works best horizontal. Maybe an open test bench kind of thing. Thanks

It might be possible if you could get one of the plastic fan donuts that they used on the original 9900 like mine has:

I'm not sure 100% if it will work if mounted on the other spiral though since its not a symmetrical shape.
Maybe if you had a 3D printer you could design your own to fit perfectly?

 

[mesmeric]

This has inspired me to do the same with my old 9900a that I couldn't bear to part with in hope of this exact scenario!

Obviously this is a hack and won't work if I was to upgrade to an AM5 system in the future or something but its perfect right now

What additional work/parts do you forsee would be needed for an AM5 socket?

 

[WonderSnail]

This has inspired me to do the same with my old 9900a that I couldn't bear to part with in hope of this exact scenario!



What additional work/parts do you forsee would be needed for an AM5 socket?

The process is pretty much the same for AM5

The main thing to keep in mind is that the Noctua Secufirm and NM-SFB4 bracket expects a cooler base plate thickness of ~14mm,
my cooler the CNPS 9900 non-A was only 12mm in thickness so I needed to compensate by adding 2mm of thickness to the spacers in order to get the correct mounting pressure.

In your case you have a CNPS 9900A which used a newer revised base plate (to identify, the revised version mounts the fan to the base plate via a metal bracket rather than to the heatsink using plastic donut)
I believe the revised version has a slightly thicker base plate and possibly a different sized nub so you will need to check sizing and compensate if required.

If your baseplate is the same 14mm thick as a standard noctua cooler, no extra work is required you can just use the AM5 spacers directly.
If your baseplate is thicker than 14mm then you can maybe sand down the AM5 spacers to get the right height
if you baseplate is still thinner then you can do the same as me and sub in thicker spacers, add washers on top of the spacers or add foam to the bracket.

have fun and post some pics when you finish

 

[S-TKUC]

It's pretty impressive how easily a 15-year-old cooler can cool a modern CPU!

Previously I mentioned that getting a 30mm thick fan might be better but after installation I think its not a good idea because its hard to reach the bracket screws with the fan in the way. With this 25mm thick fan its just out of the way to screw in the cooler without any risk of stripping. Here's the angle the screwdriver needs to go in to get to the bracket.

It's annoying that the screws used to secure the CPU cooler are hexalobular.

Hexagon socket head cap screws would make installation even easier, but I don't see these types of screws very often in the PC world.
*Maybe this is to avoid tightening the screws too much...

If I can find compatible screws, it should be possible to install a 30mm fan even with the shroud that came with the cooler still attached.
I just noticed that the holes in the shroud that came with the cooler are for passing a screwdriver through, right?

 

[WonderSnail]

I just noticed that the holes in the shroud that came with the cooler are for passing a screwdriver through, right?

The shroud is just for protecting the cooler during shipping. Since the original mounting system screwed directly above the socket holes, a screwdriver would never needed to have gone in between the two heatsink towers to install it, so the holes don't pass through.