Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II CL-C0034 Copper Fan & Heatsink

Pros: The heatsink is rather large allowing for good cooling. The fan fits nice and tight and keeps my Northbridge chip temperature at about 40 degrees Celsius under load. I am also using Artic Silver Ceramique thermal compound which also helps with the cooling.

Cons: The heatsink is so large that you may run into problems fitting it in if you are using a double thick video card or SLI. The heatsink is actually touching one of the capacitors on my video card. The heatsink can be rotated though to help with this issue. Also, there is no mention in the instructions on how tight to tighten the heatsink to the MB. I recommend tightening it until it is firm on the MB. You should not be able to move it in any direction. Do not tighten too much or you will crack the motherboard and/or die on the chipset.

Overall Review: For those of you replacing the notorious failing chipset fan on the ASUS A8N-Sli Deluxe… You will have to remove your motherboard. When it is off, turn the board around and locate the two black plastic pieces holding the current chipset fan/heatsink. Take a pair of pliers and press the tabs in and push it through the motherboard. There is no need to chop these off. Do the same for the other one. Not take a blow dryer and heat the bottom of the motherboard under the chipset to loosen the thermal paste; otherwise, you run the risk of ripping the chipset off the motherboard. Once the heatsink is removed, follow the directions that came with the new fan.

Pros: I found this very easy to install. I've installed 2 of these on two different mobos, and in both instances the hsf has worked perfectly. On neither board has the fan been loud. Very quiet, actually. It works quite well, and it looks very cool.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Yes, you need to install it outside the case, but it's easy, it really is. Just plan for it. And it's not like I build systems day in and day out. I'm an enthusiast like most folks here, and compared to some heat sink installations, it was a snap. BTW, before removing the original nb hsf, I let the system run for a while, then removed the original while it was warm. In both instances, the hsf came right off.

Pros: Looks cool...

Cons: On older boards it would be sufficient,but on new board that run very hot it's just not going to work.I have a P5N32-E SLI and it did very little to cool the NB(southbridge get even hotter on this board).I had to change it out for someting better.

Overall Review: I now prefer Thermalright NB and SB coolers.Slap an 80mm fan on it and it keeps the temps under 40C under load!!! average is 35C.

Pros: Good replacement for the failing chipset fan on the ASUS A8N-Sli Deluxe. The large heatsink allows for good cooling.

Cons: There is no mention in the instructions on how tight to tighten the heatsink to the MB, so be careful or you can crack the chip or MB. You will have to remove some motherboards to install this fan/heatsink. The fan is not loud, but you can hear it.

Overall Review: The bearings on the fan failed in almost exactly a year. I keep my PC on 24/7, so you can expect this to be the life expectancy of this product. The fan is constantly making noises, so I can't wait for the replacement to come in. Hopefully, this one will work better. I purchased the product on 11/24/2006 and it started to fail on 11/14/2007. Come to think of it, the fan may have been failing earlier than that. I remember hearing fan bearing noises that lasted only a few seconds. I thought it was a case fan and never gave it much thought since it only happened a few times. Now that I finally traced it back to the Thearmaltake Heatsink, it is possible that it failed much sooner than that.

Pros: It has a cool blue LED light when the computer is on. It helped cool my north bridge fan. Worked great for the first month.

Cons: It ended up fitting on my motherboard with no problems, but it took forever to hook up. After a month, the fan started making a loud noise like it was grinding even though the fan still spins.

Overall Review: I bought this fan because my motherboard's stock fan started to make a grinding noise so I wanted something more quiet. Now this product is doing the exact same thing and I'll probably be buying a different one again soon.

Pros: More Quiet than the CPU ticking sound so I don't see what everyone is complaining about though they say it gets louder over time. The blue light in the fan is pretty bright and goes well with my case. I noticed 3-4 C drop on idle from the stock heatsink/pipe. I currently have the NB voltage up at 1.4 and it stays below 32C. E6600 OCed to 3.08 with VCore Voltage at 1.325. Just beginning to push them both now that I have adequate NB cooling.

Cons: Like everyone else says, it is a bear to install. Had to pull the whole MB out. Took me a little over an hour to get it in and back up and running.

Overall Review: Installed in a P5N32-E SLI Plus on the NB and it fit even with a massive CPU fan and a XFX Geforce 9750 what with it's giant passive cooling fins. I wasn't able to get it to fit quite square but it's still alright. If you want to put one on the SB of this motherboard you won't be able to use the second PCI-E slot so look elsewhere if you need it.

Pros: Outstanding cooling, took a too toasty Intel chipset from 60-70C to roughly 32C without breaking a sweat, it's barely even warm to the touch now. Quality build with solid copper construction, very flexible mounting options and easy to install IF you follow the instructions!

Cons: Don't bother with the included thermal paste, go get something silver based. Other than that, I have found no "real" cons, see other thoughts.

Overall Review: Don't forget to remove the thin and CLEAR plastic sticker film on the bottom, I very nearly missed it due to poor lighting in my work area and there is NO mention of it in the instructions. The only other thought is that this product is very tall (2.75" or 70mm, the height is also in the specs), it might interfere with some card installations, make sure you know where your Northbridge is in relation to other parts that may need to be over the top of it.

Pros: Slightly reduces NB temperatures. Installation is very flexible - no problems installing with a HUGE oversize CPU heatsink.

Cons: Did not see much reduction of NB temperatures.

Overall Review: This is for a Gigabyte DS3 rev 1.33 motherboard which has a very respectable aluminum heatsink on the NB chipset (about 1.5" X 1.5" X 1" tall with lots of surface area). I lapped the Thermaltake and used Artic Silver, but still the NB temperatures remain where they were with the default heatsink. Also, now I have an extra point of potential failure since the Thermaltake uses a fan. The fan however is very quiet (can't even hear it). The installation requires removal of the motherboard, but that's to be expected.