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Ok, this will sound a bit odd: I plan to build my own cooler out of copper and I was planning to test it on some old Duron (700 perhaps), so I was wondering if CPU burns out, will it damage my MB?

It definitely could.

And/or the Hard drive, memory and any Add-in cards you may have in your PC. simply putting a copper heat sink on you may not know if it works better than stock,you'll need to "Red line" the CPU. thus risking all things related to the FSB.

Be carefull

Ofcourse it could, but I personally wouldnt think it would. But Im no Rick or StormBringer, so its just my .02

As long as the heatsink is a reasonable size and attatched firmly to the CPU core, I seriously doubt it can generate enough heat to burn your board or even burn itself, for that matter.

I have run Athlon XPs at much higher speeds with a decent HS without a fan for at least several seconds before. It didn't burst into flames or anything.

And if you actually take the care to attatch a fan to the HS, then I'm absolutely sure you won't burn anything.

It might get too hot and lock up the computer, but that is well below the chip's maximum threshhold, you can be fairly certain.

Also, the design of your heatsink will make a huge difference on how it performs.

If it is just a huge block of copper, it probably won't work very well because it will retain massive amounts of heat energy.

While "thermal theory" is debatable and manufacturers are still changing their designs, there might be some general designs out there to follow.

I think one universal rules for successful heatsinks are the fins. It seems like the more fins there are, the more surface is exposed to air which means the HS gets cooled off more quickly.

There may be a wealth of tips out there on the Internet.

no, it wouldn't be just a block of copper. it would be an U pipe entirely of copper (but in shape more like arc than real U) on whose bottom (on the outside middle of pipe) is contact area of cooler and CPU, and in the middle of pipe itself i would solder flat copper leafs (dunno how to describe that better ). Anywayz, on one end of pipe i would put a fan, just big enough to cover the hole of pipe and on other hot air would come out, and cause of arc shape, air would go straight out of case (case is open all the time).

I want a pic!

You would want to maximize the surface area (what the fins do) that the fan blows across- perhaps you could machine-cut grooves in the u-channel you are talking about- though this seeems like an aweful lot of engineering for a heat sink. Personally I'd tinker with water cooling- I think there is a much greater potential for benfit in cooling and sound reduction.

I think many people would go water but its $$$$$$$$$$$

is it me or does Ivans Heatsink sound like a "Silent Tower"?? (Tt)

noooooooo?
c mon, how can my description of U shaped cooler can be simmilar to big box with fan on one side? Mine would be a big pipe with leafs in it. I would attach picture, but i havent got MS Paint or anything to drow in...