Interest Check - Upgraded heatsink / fan setup for Atari VCS

[low_budget]

I found the stock heatsink / fan combination in the Atari VCS to be completely inadequate for my use as a mini PC running Windows 10, with temperatures averaging over 80 degrees C and sometimes reaching 90 degrees. I did increase the RAM speed to 3200 MHz and increased the TDP to 54w.

 

I looked into upgrading the original Atari cooler, but there are very few options with the limited space available. I could not find any heat sink / fan combinations that had 70mm x 50mm mounting holes and fit in such a tiny space. The Atari VCS doesn't have good ventilation either, with only 2 small vents in the rear of the console.

 

I figured out a solution that will fix all overheating issues with the Atari VCS, although it is a bit taller than the original cooler and would require case modifications.  It is a 6061 aluminum plate that allows an XBOX 360 copper CPU heatsink to be mounted to and cool the Atari VCS.  The mounting plate I designed would screw to the XBOX heatsink with countersunk screws and make a completely flat surface on the bottom.  The thickness is the same as the original cooler so spring pressure on the APU would be the same.

 

For those unfamiliar, the XBOX 360 CPU heatsink (from the early gen versions) has a copper heat transfer plate, heatpipe, and about 4x the fin surface area of the original Atari cooler. 

 

A 60mm fan would be used to cool the XBOX heatsink. There would be a few options for powering this fan. The easiest would be using a 5v fan connected to USB power.  I looked into making a fan adapter cable, but the Atari fan connector is so small, I've tried 1.25mm pitch 4p JST cables and it's still not small enough. It should still be possible to simply cut off the original fan and splice the wires into a common 4 pin pwm fan connector.

 

Is anyone interested in my Atari VCS heatsink upgrade, even if it requires case modification or leaving the top cover off while using?  I'll post some photos of the 3D render soon. 

 

If I can get 20 or so people interested in the upgraded Atari VCS heatsink I can have the machine shop make a batch. Estimated cost is $20-25 for each mounting plate.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

This seems cool but at the same time a bit extreme. I use both my Atari VCS consoles in PC mode using Windows 10 and have not experienced over heating. I mainly use it to play retro and modern games on Steam and the Epic game Store for hours and hours at a time and have no issues? Both my Atari VCS’s have the Ram and storage upgraded/ maxed out on them to. I feel if you really need to go the route you posted above and have to modify the case for the cooler to work it would be time to buy an actual gaming PC or more capable device. The VCS shouldn’t really need modifications. I used to have an issue with the fan ramping up like crazy on my backers edition VCS in the beginning but a few firmware updates tamed it and both of my machines are practically silent now depending on the work load. Cool project though, I hope the upgraded heat sink solves your issues. 

[Mockduck]

I'd never modify my VCS case, but I'm not the target audience for this kind of thing as I'm also unlikely to ever add ram or overclock anything. Looks like a heat sink I have from like an old 2010 PC. 

[THX-1138]

No I would not want to modify my case.  I've no intention of playing around with heat sinks etc.  I changed a BIOS setting some months ago and the machine has run quiet and cool ever since so I have no desire to mess around with heat sinks.  I will be upgrading the RAM at some point, but will only use the type Atari recommend and AMD rate for the processor.

[low_budget]

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

 

Looks like there isn't much interest. I uploaded the 3d renders of the mounting plate anyway, I'm happy with how the design turned out but I guess I won't be making any.

 

I'm still open to making these if at least some Atari VCS owners would be interested but it is what it is.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

The renders for the mounting plate look decent. It’s just a pity the case would need to be modified to accept a new cooler or I’d be down for trying it out. If this had been for another console I’d probably have been down for trying it out for the fun of it and not really caring about the case lol but when I comes to the VCS there’s no way I could hack that case, it’s far to good looking.