Ordered a barebones kit that is a little too bare. I'm shopping at TigerDirect and finding that all of their cpu fans are huge; maybe up to 4 inches square. My socket is only 2 inches and even the cage around only gets to 2.5+ inches. Two calls to Tiger without good results.
Am I missing something in sizing the component to the mother board?
Can anyone recommend a fan based on their familiarity with this MOBO and CPU?
Thanks for your help.

Bill

http://www.pcvonline.com/products.as...CPU+Fans&sub2=

This link shows 2 examples of fans at PCVillage (where I shop online) which you can see in the brief writeup they say they fit among others, the AM2 socket.

I have neither an AMD CPU or an ABIT board, but I can say with some certainty that CPU fans/coolers tend to follow standard sizings, per CPU socket they are designed for. The cooling unit as a whole, tends to appear much larger than the CPU & socket for which it is designed. If you look at your board, you should (unless AM2 is really weird) see four 1/4" holes around the CPU socket, forming a 2.5" or so square pattern. These holes are for mounting the CPU cooler.

Pretty much any cooler unit from a reputable manufacturer, which states that it fits a socket AM2 motherboard, will work. Once in a while, if space constraints are very tight or if other hardware like a giant video card is in the way, some minor modification is required, but as a rule, if it says "For AM2" then it should fit.

Sasha

PS - FWIW, my opinion of TigerDirect, based on experience, is that their customer service is terrible. One is lucky to get a reply from them at all, when asking for help. If you see exactly what you want on their site, then ordering seems to be relatively hassle-free, but if you want help, it's a different story. Just my 2 cents.. I'm in Canada, and have had excellent results dealing with PCVillage (Probably they ship to the states too)..

Sasha, thanks for your response.

After making some very careful calculations, I determined that there was clearance for these huge coolers. Last cpu fan I bought was years ago; a dinky little fan that sat right on top of the cpu (much less powerful).

Ordered a Cooler Master from TD that had many positive reviews.

Agreed on the TD service.

Will try the PC Village on a future purchase.

Bill

Yes, years ago, some CPUs didn't even need a fan, only a larger heat sink. The ones that required a fan had a small unit mounted on a very tiny heat sink.

IMHO, I think they may be confusing the CPU fan with the case fan. Case fans have always been around 3 to 4 inches. Some people have to be told more than once what you actually need. And if Sasha is right about TD, that's probably the case.

Cheers

Cooler Master is OK. The size of the heatsink matters to cool the processor. If you want a noiseless setup, the heatsink have to be big. The holes do not relate to the size of the heatsink. They relate to the size of the mounting hardware. Like others have said, it depends if the heatsink is compatible. I suggest Thermaltake Big Typhoon. For crowded systems, I suggest Scythe ZIPANG (SCZP-1000) which is actually better than the Big Typhoon. If your barebones setup does not come with mounting hardware or the retention bracket, you are going to have a hard time mounting any heatsink to the processor. For the mounting hardware, you will need both the back and top mounting hardware. Sure screws and nuts can be used but they can damage the board if you tighten them too much.

The following are good on-line computer stores.

http://www.newegg.com/
http://www.cyberguys.com/

I have not tried http://www.zipzoomfly.com/.

The following store has some processor mounting hardware, but they might be a little expensive.

http://www.frozencpu.com/

The size of computer fans or case fans ranges from 1 inch (25.4 mm) to 6 inches (152.2 mm).

Thanks all for the responses. This was my first post to linux.org and it has been very instructive. Betcha I'll be back when I start plugging in wireless, TV, whatever.

The cpu cooler is scheduled for delivery on May 8. We'll see how that goes.

Bill

"How the Hell did I get this old??"

I relate to that question, dragonslayer.
Tab shop, 1401, 1440, 360, NCR, Perkin-Elmer, etc, etc, etc. There are other things I like best, too, but too stubborn and frugal to lean on a packaged product.