chumbo Troubleshooter

Well, I chose Arctic based on a google search and the many rave reviews and previous personal experience as well with the brand. As I said, I think that being limited to an 80 mm fan, even the best can only do so much 🙄

I changed the fan and I'm a little disappointed. It is definitely much quieter but...also less efficient. Although the PC was very silent before as long as I wasn't doing anything very intensive, what prompted me to want to change my fan/cooler was when I did some video conversion with Handbrake and there the fan speed…

Well, when I posted I had already remounted the whole PC so I really don't have the courage to do it all over again and attempt something that is not even guaranteed to work (for me, I have little doubt that with your experience, it would be easy for you) so I'll go with replacing the fan. Thanks for the advice just the…

JackE...yeah, depending on the responses and advice I got here in this thread, I have been changing my mind a lot, even more than what you pointed out. ;) Also, now that you quote me, I realize I initially misspoke in my first post when I said I wanted to change the fan while in fact I meant the whole cooler. However, I…

I didn't understand this? "...will lift the two (3 panel pieces)..." the two...what two? what are you talking about exactly? And "3 panel pieces"? Didn't understand that either? All I can say is that I tried pretty hard to separate the black plastic backplate from the metal one...to no avail. The plastic was bending almost…

So I took out the MB and as expected, Acer had another unpleasant surprise in making things difficult for customers. There is a backplate but it cannot be removed! It's really two parts in one. There is the backplate for attaching the cooler and then the backplate of sorts for the CPU attachment. And the two are basically…

Ok, thanks for your wise advice ;)

Yes but too risky. I think I'll just set aside an hour and try to install the Arctic cooler since I still have it here with me. I'll go ahead and remove the MB and see how it goes from there. Wish me luck 🙄

The Cooler Master you linked to has a backplate and as explained, I don't want to have to bother with removing the MB. But the idea of a cooler that uses simple screws might be worth trying...hoping again that Acer didn't go non-standard on the size of those screws!?

I'm not sure what you are getting at? Are suggesting I replace the push-pins on the cooler with screws? How would I even do that? Just rip/pry out the push-pins and...then what? The remaining hole would likely be too large for the screws anyway so...I don't understand? I didn't understand the second part about the…

Thanks but...none of that helps. I'm not going to start DIYing and trying to find screws that fit and then figure out how to attach them to the cooler or whatever other solution involving uncertain modifications. I'm done with Acer and any other ready-made PCs. Thanks for trying and chiming in.

Disappointing...I could not place the Arctic Cooling Alpine cooler because it wouldn't fit! The Acer MB has some screw fittings coming through it to which the native fan is attached...and to which the Arctic cooler could not be attached because the push-pin system that the Arctic cooler uses is too wide to fit in the those…

JackE...yup, that's the one. My thought as well, at that price, what the hell...the benefits are worth the risk. ;) Larryodie...thx, dully noted but I'm not too worried, it's not my first time replacing a heatsink. Cheerio! I'll report back around the last week of July which is when I'm getting it (on holiday before that).

You make a good point JackE, so I'll be bold...I found a decent cooler (Arctic Cooling Alpine 12 LP) for under 10€ so I'll give that a try. Thanks to everything for your kindness & patience! :) I'll be sure to report back so the info will at least be out there for others.

Thanks Billsey but I'm afraid it's not going to be too useful when shopping as very few manufacturers (and from what I've seen til now, none!), give out this info on the specs of the fans. In my case it's a cooler I'm after, so heatsink + fan.

Speccy says: Version R02-A2Date 28/10/2019

Isn't it the number at the bottom of my screenshot? v2.20.1271?

I just checked my BIOS and there is no mention of PWM so...back to square one and full of uncertainties again! :( I mean, Smart Fan definitely does something, no doubt about it because I disabled it just to see and my god...it jumped from 700 rpm to...4700 rpm and that's ***** LOUD! But that doesn't tell me if it will be…

Thx JackE! That screenshot you posted (where did it come from?) seems to me makes it more like a 99,9% certainty that it is PWM compatible...I imagine it comes from some official Acer source so...I'm good to go! :) I'll just assume that whatever issues the TC-885 had with PWM fans have possibly been addressed in the…

"Good Luck, that is what fans are suppose to do, get louder with heavier load." No doubt, but aftermarket fans who's whole marketing is geared towards very efficient cooling and silent performance can perform much better than stock fans and yet stay almost inaudible, even under load. Speccy...why would that help? I don't…