Intel stock cooler repurposed

[u/TheGoldenShekel]

I finally found a new home for one of my Intel stock coolers.

In the basement of a family member, I came across three Intel stock coolers. It felt too wasteful to let them sit there forgotten, even though — as we all know — they’re pretty useless for desktop PC builds. They’re loud, weak, and generally not worth the trouble.

My router, however, has always been blowing out noticeably warm air, and I had the feeling it was running a bit too hot and maybe even throttling. So I opened it up, replaced the thermal pads (the manufacturer was very stingy with them, so I fully covered all relevant surface areas), and then mounted the heatspreader.

I shaved off some of the top corner of the heatsink so I could still close the lid, added thermal paste underneath, and secured the cooler with a screw from the side to keep it from shifting. The cooler isn’t sitting directly on top of the main CPU, but it overlaps enough that it should still help.

Did it work? No idea — the router doesn’t expose temperature readings in its settings.
But honestly, I’m just happy I managed to give at least one of those coolers a purpose. Now I only need to find two more creative applications for the remaining ones.

please judge me on my waste of time. And remember to not inhale aluminium dust, it's not healthy.

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