Recommended Heat Sinks for RAM

[Yelpy]

So I replaced the 4GB of RAM that came with my Mac Pro 1,1 with 16GB of RAM only problem is they didn't come with heat sinks. Been looking in to this and wanna buy some heat sinks. Does anyone recommend any from experience?

I'm thinking something like this maybe?: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...HCCG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324247887&sr=8-2

Cheers!

 

[Ccrew]

They're effective to a point, but the ones in your link are pretty much the bottom of the food chain. I'd go copper personally.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5...eader_MA-DDRC1.html?tl=g40c18s236&id=NeArHX2p

Or these:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...Copper_RAM_Sink_Set_AK-171.html?tl=g40c18s236

 

[Yelpy]

Rockin' cheers brother I've ordered 8 of the copper flavour hopefully that makes everything better!

 

[BigJohno]

Whats the point?

 

[Yelpy]

The RAM seems to be running at 70 - 80 degrees when, from what I can gather, it should be running at only half that. The original 4GB RAM had heatsinks on them so I presume that will help calm them down.

 

[biohead]

Will they fit the FB-dimms in the Pro?

Doesn't the 1,1 use the Fully Buffered stuff - with the raised up AMB chip in the middle? I don't know if that chip will prevent the rest of the sink making contact with the RAM chips themselves?

 

[Yelpy]

I actually think you're right. And furthermore, being the complete idiot I am, I just checked and turns out there are heatsinks already on the RAM I bought... woopsie! I'll be canceling that order.

Ok so now I'm totally confuse as to why the RAM is getting so hot!?! :-/

 

[wonderspark]

Is that 70-80 Fahrenheit or Celsius? Mine are 133F which is what, about 56C.

 

[Yelpy]

Hummm this is what I got in OS X 10.6.8...

 

[funwithdesign]

I actually think you're right. And furthermore, being the complete idiot I am, I just checked and turns out there are heatsinks already on the RAM I bought... woopsie! I'll be canceling that order.

Ok so now I'm totally confuse as to why the RAM is getting so hot!?! :-/

If your heatsinks look like the ones you ordered then that is probably why. The original heatsinks are gargantuan things that cool better in the cramped quarters of the 2006-08 mac pros.

 

[Yelpy]

Yea I've noticed the old RAM had big kick ass sinks on em, wonder if they're for sale somewhere?!?! ...I was checking around and read somewhere that 160 degrees Fahrenheit or 70 degrees Celsius is actually an ok/normal heat for the RAM to run at. I'm kinda confused now, maybe my RAM isn't running too hot afterall.

Anyone more of an expert on this and wanna chime in on this?

 

[biohead]

FB-DIMMs naturally run a fair bit hotter than standard DIMMs due to the AMB chip on each stick.

Those temperatures are nothing out of the ordinary really. If you still have the old sticks you could unclip the sinks and swap them over?

 

[Yelpy]

Yea I think ur right I think Im making a fuss over nothing, just when i saw the temperatures first I was surprised but yea seems norm. As for the old heatsinks, think it would be messy taking them off anyway i only have 4 of em and id need 8. Sure it's cool (pardon the pun) think Im good as is. Cheers for your help!

 

[ScottishCaptain]

Ok so now I'm totally confuse as to why the RAM is getting so hot!?! :-/

Because you don't have the Apple spec heatsinks on them.

Yea I've noticed the old RAM had big kick ass sinks on em, wonder if they're for sale somewhere?!?!

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=157

P/N SZ-MAXSINK02. $20 for two DIMMs.

Those temperatures are nothing out of the ordinary really. If you still have the old sticks you could unclip the sinks and swap them over?

Those temperatures ARE out of the ordinary, actually.

70-80*C is "up there". Will it work? Probably, but I have personally witnessed issues with stability under heavy load (some of the cheaper FBDIMM RAM like the Kingston ValueRAM stuff will flake out and crash the computer or the application or both- it's random really).

The lifetime of the RAM may be impacted as a result of this. Not to mention the fact that the Mac Pro will run louder then normal as the front and rear fans will spool up in an attempt to keep the FBDIMM temperature around 70-80*C, because anything higher then that is really unhealthy for the memory.

The reason why Apple stuck such a big honkin' heatsink on their FBDIMM RAM was precisely so that it would dissipate heat more efficiently- thus, they could run the Mac Pro fans at a lower speed and the FBDIMMs would stay plenty cool (normal operating temperature is between 40 and 70*C).

If you don't mind the additional noise from the Mac Pro and nothing is crashing- then I guess you can run a Mac Pro like that. It's not recommended though- there's a reason why Apple used different heatsinks and this would be it. The absolute worst thing that can possibly happen here is that one of the FBDIMMs will eventually flake out and cause the system to crash or kernel panic, in which case that DIMM would require replacement. But there should be relatively no risk of actually damaging the Mac Pro (or memory carrier).

So it's up to the op if he wants to run his workstation like that or not, and run the risk of slim consequences.

-SC

 

[Yelpy]

Cheers man that's really helpful. Humm will have to give that one a thinking through. The Mac doesn't really make any noise though except in windows when Im running games and the gfx card kicks in. I'll keep an eye on it, thanks for the link though.