Installing Classic Zalman Flower cooler to a modern system

[WonderSnail]

Hey Guys

Recently I managed to get a hold of a 15 year old Zalman CNPS 9900 LED CPU Cooler that I thought was so cool (and still do to this day) and am going to try install it to my PC

Why I think its cool:
-Its full copper! (nobody does this anymore)
-it has a really unique looping heatpipe design that looks really clean from above and is quite the manufacturing marvel
-the clear fan with blue LEDs make it look like some futuristic reactor when its running
-Zalman had smaller coolers which got nicknamed 'Flower' coolers, this one being their largest cooler of that time was dubbed the 'Super Flower'

Back when the cooler was new it supported Intel LGA775, 1366 and AMD 754, 939, 940, AM2/+ Sockets. Obviously these are ancient and I can't use those to mount it to my LGA 1700 PC (plus I didn't actually get any mounting hardware with the cooler anyway)

So after doing a little napkin math, my ultimate plan is to do some modifications so that it can work with Noctua's Secufirm 2+ system which should give it a long lasting life for future upgrades.
The kit in question is the Noctua NM-M1-MP78 which contains the most critical part - the NM-SFB4 78mm pitch bracket that's usually only provided with Noctua's coolers but is included by itself in this kit.

My system specs:
System Specs:
Intel Core i7 12700K
Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Elite AX DDR4
Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4-3200 C16
Yeston RTX 4060 Cute Pet MA
Superflower LEADEX III Gold 650w PSU
Samsung SSDs (990P + 980P + 2x970E)
Thermalright AXP-90 x53 (The subject being replaced)


Here's the cooler:

Teardown of the cooler

A pic of my system that this cooler is going into

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Noctua kit is on its way so wish me luck!

 

[Caring1]

I have a feeling that cooler would work better if the motherboard was horizontal.

 

[WonderSnail]

Oh and here's my plan for how to modify Secufirm 2+ to make it work

The bottom of the Zalman cooler has a removable plate that's a part of their own mounting system, from my research this is a standard component used by Zalman across the entire range of CNPS and FX coolers excluding the low profile ones.

There are two versions of this plate, both have similar same shape but differ in hole positioning for the intended fan mounting bracket.
Version 1 (The one I have) appears to be older and is used for the CNPS 9900 LED, 9700 and 9500. There are fan bracket holes for fans mounted towards one side of the heatsink like the 9700 and 9500. On the 9900 LED, these holes are left unused as the fan is mounted via a piece of plastic through one of the 'donut holes' on the heatsink

Version 2 is newer and has holes for both side and center fans and is used on later revisions of old coolers and newer coolers such as the CNPS 9900A and CNPS 9900 MAX

The thickness of the nub on Version 2 appears to be thicker so whatever I do here may not translate directly to newer coolers but imo Version 2 is better as the fan is mounted with a steel bracket to the cooler base rather than the heatsink itself which may help reduce vibrations and noise.

So back to the plan, I found that the top of the Zalman has a 'nub' (~10mm Diameter) and the center of the Noctua NM-SFB4 bracket has a hole (~4mm Diameter)
If I drill out the Noctua plate I can get it to fit through the nub and it will act as a lateral hold of the heatsink which should make a solid mount. (it wont stop the heatsink from rotating but I don't expect this to be much of an issue)

I even made a very low quality NM-SFB4 myself! out of paper!

This should work pretty well so the only other factor is thickness to ensure there's enough contact force
I did a few measurements of the Zalman cooler and references a scale image of a Noctua U9S which uses the NM-SFB4 bracket to measure the differences in thickness if any.

It turns out that there's roughly a 2mm difference in thickness from where the NM-SFB4 will make contact with the cooler down to the surface of the cold plate.
The Zalman is thinner which means there's not going to be any issues mounting it, however potentially it is possible to over-tighten the mount (of noctua's spec)
I could fix this by putting a washer around the nub or sticking some kind of foam/silicon sticker under the bracket to add some space and also help stop the cooler from rotating.
Its great its this close though, I expect Noctua's sprung loaded screws will deal with the ~2mm margin and it will work perfectly.

I have a feeling that cooler would work better if the motherboard was horizontal.

yeah I think so too, the weird shape would passively radiate more heat horizontally I reckon.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Interesting. I would worry about overtightening, though, especially the tension that might place on your motherboard. Less might as well be more, be very careful here. I have a suspicion that I damaged my MSI Z690 Ace by doing the same thing, an unofficial, aftermarket cooling mount that caused its PCB to warp a little. At the time I was so excited about my build that I didn't even notice...

Oh btw, that GPU is adorable. Did you make that shroud?

 

[WonderSnail]

Interesting. I would worry about overtightening, though, especially the tension that might place on your motherboard. Less might as well be more, be very careful here. I have a suspicion that I damaged my MSI Z690 Ace by doing the same thing, an unofficial, aftermarket cooling mount that caused its PCB to warp a little. At the time I was so excited about my build that I didn't even notice...

Yeah I will definitely be careful of the mounting pressure, Ideally I can fill in that 2mm difference and it should be the same pressure as Noctua's spec.

Oh btw, that GPU is adorable. Did you make that shroud?

haha no, it would be incredibly talented if I did.
Its a Yeston GPU, part of their Cute Pet series.

 

[kilo]

Oh btw, that GPU is adorable. Did you make that shroud?

Yeston cute pet. And I agree, it has charm

 

[QuietBob]

I've always liked the Zalman Flower HSF design. Still running its GPU variant, the VF900Cu, in my WinXP retro rig.
I wonder how many watts this old beast will manage to cool. With realistic loads, the 12700K can consume around 200 W (power limits removed, as per TPU's testing).

 

[Onasi]

Oh, I remember those coolers, they were quite decent at the time when they were actively around. Not outstanding, but decent. I am incredibly curious how it would hold up on a modern CPU considering the higher thermal density (even on Intel chips) and boosting algorithms. I assume you plan on gradually lowering the target TDP in BIOS once installed until the cooler can hold its own and not throttle?

 

[WonderSnail]

I wonder how many watts this old beast will manage to cool. The 12700K can consume around 200 W with power limits removed, as per TPU's testing.

The newer version of this cooler (that had a larger fan) advertised a qMax of 300w, whatever that means haha

Oh, I remember those coolers, they were quite decent at the time when they were actively around. Not outstanding, but decent. I am incredibly curious how it would hold up on a modern CPU considering the higher thermal density (even on Intel chips) and boosting algorithms. I assume you plan on gradually lowering the target TDP in BIOS once installed until the cooler can hold its own and not throttle?

same, I can't wait to test it. I reckon it will handle stock TDP. It's quite large, about the same size as a dual 120mm tower cooler and being full copper has a fair amount more thermal mass than those.

 

[Onasi]

I reckon it will handle stock TDP. It's quite large, about the same size as a dual 120mm tower cooler and being full copper has a fair amount more thermal mass than those.

Depends on what "stock TDP" is, with the MoBo settings and all. But, ehhh.... size ain't everything (yeah-yeah), the design of the HS itself is... well, there is a reason why they went outta fashion and copper is not the advantage you'd think. But yeah, would be interesting to see.

 

[Ruru]

Even though there has been numerous better designs during the years, I also see the charm of these older high-end air coolers.

I've always liked the Zalman Flower HSF design. Still running its GPU variant, the VF900Cu, in my WinXP retro rig.
I wonder how many watts this old beast will manage to cool. With realistic loads, the 12700K can consume around 200 W (power limits removed, as per TPU's testing).

I have a VF700Cu on my 6800 Ultra AGP.

 

[sethmatrix7]

Definitely post a picture once it's installed @WonderSnail. Zalman flower cooler + yeston GPU = cute rare build.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Yeah I will definitely be careful of the mounting pressure, Ideally I can fill in that 2mm difference and it should be the same pressure as Noctua's spec.

Yup, make sure to double check it

haha no, it would be incredibly talented if I did.
Its a Yeston GPU, part of their Cute Pet series.

View attachment 357610

Sweet! That one flew under my radar completely. I love the white and blue aesthetic. My wishlist is a ROG Strix 5080/5090 with a Genshin or Star Rail collab... I admit I would get into debt for that