Replacement heatsink for N95 mini PC

[RobertMoore]

Firstly I wasn't sure where to post this question, hopefully this is the right place.

I've had one of the small "Nipogi" N95 powered mini PCs that Amazon sell for a couple of years. It cools the CPU with a 40mm 5v PWM blower fan on what looks like a non-standard connector (it is not, for example, the same as a Raspberry pi) which has failed. I've tried replacing it with a fixed speed fans from Amazon and eBay but they all fail within a few weeks.

Any suggestions for how to fix it please?

I'm not bothered about fitting it back in the case, so there's something quite attractive about trying to shoehorn something like a Pentium 4 heatsink on there to use passively without a fan, but I can't see an easy way to mount it (and there's not much space). It only needs to shift 15W. Another option I've considered it to mount the whole thing to a 120mm fan.

If I do have to use a fan getting speed control back would be nice.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Photos would be good!

I had a Beelink M808 box with a 5W Atom CPU in it (Bay Trail Z3735f IIRC) and it had a little heatsink about 35mm square.

I cut a hole out of the plastic case and rested a 40mm case fan on with blu tac. It was a 12V fan and ran absolutely silently on 5V from USB. Given it was originally a passive heatsink inside a closed case, all I needed to do was move the warm air off the metal really. Worked brilliantly for a couple of years.

As you say it's all about the mounting mechanism. In terms of replacement fans maybe something designed for 7V or 12V would do better. You do have to ask though, why is it killing fans?

 

[RobertMoore]

Ok, here's the old fan:

and the existing cooler. The current fan is a fixed speed that I've hooked into a header intended for a 2.5 inch drive, the real fan header is one the edge of the board just below the fan.

I think the fans are dying because they're cheap and are running 24/7. The original lasted a year.

My current favourite plan is a 40mm x 30mm heatsink (which should be almost good enough by itself, if my mental arithmetic is correct), to solder a raspberry pi pwm fan onto the old fan's connector and stick it all together with rubber bands.

 

[RobertMoore]

Just in case a search finds this, a simple heatsink wasn't up to the job and the Raspberry Pi fan was too weak and barely moved any air.

Currently using the old heatsink sans fan and a spare 140mm case fan powered by USB which seems to be working well.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

these blower types of fans are common, i think they go with names like 5010 radial blower fan etc, can get good quality ones for cheapo, stuff like delta or sunon maglev etc