Salvaged Server As HTPC

[scrapyard]

Hey guys, I recently came into possession of some old rackmount servers. I'm planning on cannibalizing them for parts to throw into a dedicated htpc.
True to my name I want to reuse as many parts as possible. As the systems are all 1U, the stock heatsinks have no fans. Would slapping a fan on the heatsinks give me any additional cooling? Or are the passive heatsinks not designed to work with fans at all? Fitting them isn't an issue, I always find a way to make it work, it's more the heat dissipation I'm wondering about.

 

For reference, I will be using dual Xeon L5420 cpus, and I do not plan on doing any game on the machine at all. 

The blocks look pretty identical to this one http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/131

 

Thanks in advance!

[narrdarr]

are you using the u1 rackmount case? if so you shouldn't need any fans. as the case fans work as blower design similar to a reference gpu cooler. if your moving to a atx case of somethings similar yea i would add a fan. or better yet get an aftermarket cooler.

[scrapyard]

3 hours ago, narrdarr said:

are you using the u1 rackmount case? if so you shouldn't need any fans. as the case fans work as blower design similar to a reference gpu cooler. if your moving to a atx case of somethings similar yea i would add a fan. or better yet get an aftermarket cooler.

Actually I'm scratch building a case for this project. I guess I could make it work with the salvaged case fans. Thanks for your input!