Installing a heat sink and fan

Some processors may get so hot that a heat sink may not be enough of a cooling device; in this case, you may want to place a fan on top of the heat sink. To install the heat sink and fan on your system, simply place the heat sink on the processor and then clamp it in place with the heat sink clamping bar. After you have the heat sink in place, you can secure a fan on top of it by clamping the fan on the heat sink.

The term passive heat sink is used for a heat sink that does not use a fan on top, while the term active heat sink is used for a heat sink with a fan on top.

Increasing Performance

When it comes to processors, there are a number of different ways to increase the performance of your system. A first and obvious way is to buy the faster processor when upgrading; for example, upgrade a 1.8 GHz processor to a 3 GHz processor if possible. Also, get a processor that is designed to run on the faster motherboards. For example, back when the Pentium II processors were popular, there were 100 MHz motherboards or 133 MHz motherboards - you get a faster system by having a 133 MHz motherboard.

You will have to look at other features of the processor, such as the L1 cache and L2 cache that resides in the processor packaging. Acquiring a processor with more cache memory can dramatically increase system performance.