This thing, this little tin heat sink which was virtually worthless. The first time I cracked open my Power Macintosh 6100/66 to install additional memory, I foolishly brushed my hand against this "heat sink" Ouch!

As the PowerPC matured and the PowerPC 603 found its way into the Performa family, Apple again opted for an absolutely abysmal cooling solution. The PowerPC 603 didn't run nearly as hot as its first generation predecessors, but that wasn't an excuse for the heat sink employed in the 5200, 6200 and 6300 families of computers. They were literally made out of aluminium foil. I do not have a photograph of this utter and complete joke, but I just about cried the first time I cracked open a Performa 5260 and saw the "heat sink".

As Apple progressed, the 604e processors were given heat sinks that covered the entire processor card, and in the lower level hardware occupied by the 603e, Apple was still using the most pathetic heat sinks imaginable. The Performa 6400 family used the same heat sink that was woefully inadequate in the first generation PowerPC hardware and the Power Macintosh 6500 family used a heat sink and fan not much larger than a postage stamp.

Earlier this year, my Power Macintosh 6500 began to make a strange sound. The culprit was the postage stamp sized fan on the 225mhz PowerPC 603e processor. I took off this CPU fan and just stared at it. Earlier this year I also bought a Matrox G450 videocard for my Windows NT workstation. I bought a ThermalTake blue orb (http://www.thermaltake.com/tgf020.htm) to keep it cool. However, I would never get around to installing it. It sat on my desk unused for months.

Blue Orb Retail Box

This is how I converted a ThermalTake blue orb for use in a Macintosh.

Take your original Apple heat sink or fan and remove the chrome mounting clip.

Using pliers, remove two of the clips that attached to the motherboard and the two clips that attached the clip to the heat sink. They easily break off with pliers.

Take your ThermalTake Blue Orb and unscrew the fan. There are three screws holding the fan to the heat sink.

Place the clip along the surface of the heat sink in the obvious position. Re-attach the fan to the heat sink. You will need to screw the fan down tightly. Screw the screws as tightly as possible, until it feels like they are going to strip.

Take the Thermal compound provided by ThermalTake and apply it to the die of the PowerPC CPU. You don't need much, just enough to cover the surface of the die. Position the Blue Orb above the PowerPC processor on your motherboard, and apply force until it snaps into place.

Attach The Power cable, On the Power Macintosh 6360-6500 there is a plug for attaching a fan, However, these are only two pin plugs. Position the plug of the Orb so the red and black wires are attached, the blue wire is irrelevant.
In earlier machines there is no plug on the motherboard for attaching a fan. Thankfully the Blue Orb includes an adaptor to plug the 3 pin fan directly to the power supply.

Reassemble you computer and you're finished. It should be mentioned that in 6400 and 6500 class systems, the Blue Orb will NOT interfere with the PCI riser card. It should also be mentioned there is a 3 pin power connector near the memory banks. I do not know what this is for therefore, DO NOT ATTACH THE BLUE ORB TO IT. The two pin power connector is intended for a CPU fan.

In my experience, I have had 6 Power Macintosh 6100's fail on me. In all but one case, I believe the death was as a result of the failure of the processor. It is rare that a processor failure isn't related to heat. Consider the Blue Orb a $12 insurance policy on your processor.

You can buy a Blue Orb at just about any computer store that sells OEM components. If you are a PC user, I highly recommend the ThermalTake Volcano 2 and the Golden and Chrome Orbs for your Intel and AMD processors.
-Trevor Morris

Other Cooling Articles: See the G3-ZONE sidebar links and the Graphics card section of the Video topics page for other CPU/Graphics card cooling articles.