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Old September 20th 03, 06:14 AM
Vanguard
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I was also considering replacing the tiny stock heatsink and noisy fan
with just a large heatsink, like what Zalman offers. However, Zalman
still recommends a fan (and, of course, their product) for Radeon 64MB
DDR or higher models. I also read a couple articles where the Zalman
heatsinks were tested, including the all copper one, on video cards of
slightly lesser performance than mine. The result was an increase of 5
degrees Celsius (don't remember if that was when idle or when under
load, like when playing a video-intensive game for awhile). Only when a
fan was used did the Zalman perform better than the active stock cooling
(heatsink + fan). Well, in that case, I might as well as just replace
the 40mm fan that's already on the tiny heatsink since I haven't had
overheating problems so far. I've written ATI (and then had to write
again to fill in an RMA form) to see if they will send me a replacement
fan. I'm certainly not going to wait 2 months to ship it in, get it
repaired, and shipped back all the while with my system dead. If they
won't send me one then I'll buy a generic one and some longer screws.
I've seen Sunon brand for 40mm fans but they're rated at 29 to 31 dB for
noise while, I think, the Evercool 40mm fans were rated for 22 to 25 dB.

Then there's the other option of tossing the noisy fan on the video card
and using Zalman's bracket-supported fan
(http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/fb123.htm). If an 80 or 120 mm fan
would fit between the card tops and the side panel, and if it would
cover both the GPU and CPU, then I could even get rid of the noisy fan
for the Pentium 3 Slot1 SECC2 CPU (by popping off the plastic cover with
the embedded fan that snaps onto the heatsink and just leave the
heatsink fully exposed to get cooled by the Zalman bracketed fan. I
really don't want to punch holes in the side panel, put in a grill, and
use a case fan because that opens a big hole to let more noise out, plus
it probably wouldn't look good. But until I open the case again to
measure how far apart is the video heatsink from the farthest edge of
the CPU heatsink, and check for clearance above the cards and CPU to the
sidepanel, I don't know if the Zalman bracket is a solution since the
fan may not span that far or fit above these components.

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"S.Heenan" wrote in message
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Vanguard wrote:
Video card: ATI Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO
Fan: 40mm x 40mm body, 33mm x 33mm holes

The fan for the GPU on my video has gotten very noisy. I already
tried the trick of oiling it and that did reduce its noise somewhat,
but it is still too noisy. It's a pretty thin fan; I don't think it
is even 10mm thick although that's what I see listed for the
thickness of most 40mm fans.


http://sidewindercomputers.com/50milfan.html

A larger heatsink cemented on with thermal epoxy would be even better.

I
think Zalman makes one.
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