I am pretty sure many of you AMD lovers out there are using the Abit KT7 Socket A boards right? And I'm also purdy dang sure that you overclock your Durons or T-Birds with it! I know I did! While I still prefer the Alpha heatsinks over anything else anytime for cooling, I was very eager to try those cool HP Agilent ArctiCoolers that were brought into this part of the world by the good guys of Overclockers Arena. In fact, I got a couple of these slick looking coolers the very same day I got my KT7 and my Duron 700! I think the whole overclocking community in Singapore got it somewhere around the same time I did. I tell ya, it was creating such a stir over here at the time!

I got home and quickly unpacked all the stuff that I got and started to assemble them. Of course, a 2B mechanical pencil was already at hand and within minutes, my locked Duron was unlocked! :) I decided to use the ArctiCooler for cooling and also do a review of it too. But I was disppointed to see that the clip design on the cooler was preventing it to lock into the Socket A slug. Apparently, it was the curved part of the clip that's stopping me from getting the cooler on the chip! Damn! Tried as hard as I could, but nuthing works! The bottom part of the cooler was even scratching my Duron.

Thinking that it could be the design of the Socket A that's stopping me, I decided to try it on my P!!! 600E on the Abit BX133 board. And to my surprise, on the BX133 board, it was even worse! There's a row of tiny resistors or capacitors that's also preventing the curved part of the clip to lock into the slug! And the bottom of the cooler also scratched my FCPGA 600E! Arrgghh! I was getting pretty frustrated by this time. I decided to see what others have done so far and visited the local hardware site forum, HardwareZone, and ask around or see if anyone has successfully got theirs to fit.

Some got theirs to fit, but not the KT7 and the BX133, but on some other mobos. There are others who broke the cooler clip while others simply tried too hard and got a new keychain! Woah! This thing is scary! First it was the Gorbage that killed the CPU, now the ArctiCooler? Hhmm...I decided to cool things off a little and studied the clip design a little. On both the boards that I tried it on, it was the curved part of the clip that was preventing the proper sitting of the cooler onto the Sockets. If I can somehow remove that part without sacrificing the clip strength, I could get the cooler to fit!

So you can regard this article as a combo of a mod and installation guide but before we actually go into it, the usual disclaimer. :)

Disclaimer : Modifying the ArctiCooler will definitely void yer warranty and VH or OC Arena would not be responsible if you screw it up! :) Uuhh.....blame yerself! That's it!

The Agilent ArctiCooler from Overclockers Arena

Looks schweet doesn't it?

Cool looking fan...:)

As you can see from the diagrams below, the original clip has these curved part. According to Agilent's Installation Guide, these so-called latch tabs is used when you're going to remove the cooler from the socket.

The whole Socket A setup with the ArctiCooler

Ideal conditions

Not so ideal anymore eh? :)

A little mod sure goes a long way...:)

But the problem is I can't even get the damn thing in! So, I thought, if I can somehow cut that part away, I could be able to fit the coolers into the sockets. Some kind souls in the HardwareZone forum has done it too it seems and has posted their solutions there too. They used a hand file to remove off a little of that part and got theirs to fit their mobos. I prefer the faster way! And there's no other faster and easier way than the Dremel! :) So here we go guys! Gentlemen, start yer Dremel!

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