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#1
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How do I remove the heatsink on a Creative Ti4400?
Cheers for that John, I've just gone and ordered the Zalman cooler. Just one
other question - how do I clean up the chip when I've removed the heatsink? Is there anything in particular I should use? Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... I had the same thing on my Geforce 4460MX. If you look at the bottom of the black clip it has a little - tiny in fact - end which can be squeezed together. If you squeeze these together - your fingers will do it but pilers can be safer and easier - and then push gently upwards they will suddenly fly out with some force. Be careful, when I say they fly out they fly out at speed and the first time I did this I was very glad that the clips were facing away from my face as I think they could cause a nasty injury to eyes and bits and pieces so be warned. They are spring loaded. Once you have them out it is very easy to see how they work, to pop them back in and out but that first time it looks as if they are permanently attached to the board. Once the pins/clips are removed you need to carefully wriggle your fan. I had to twist mine and ended up using quite some force to pull the fan off the chip as it was stuck on strongly. Clean up the chip, apply some thermal grease and attach the Zalman cooler. Putting a Zalman VGA and Zalman 7000 CPU cooler in my PC were the best investments I have ever made. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... Hi everybody, I've just bought and fitted a Zalman Flower Cooler and 300W Silent PSU for my Athlon XP system. They've cut down on a fair bit of system noise, but now, all I can hear is the whoosh of my Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 card, and it's already driving me nuts. I haven't got the money for a new card (the Creative's only a year old anyway), so what I'd like to do is get a Zalman ZM80A-HP silent heat pipe cooler for the card. The thing is, I can't work out how to remove the existing Creative heatsink from the card - it's fastened onto the card with these two black 'pins' (for want of a better word) with not a screw in sight. How do I remove the heatsink, assuming it is possible in the first place? And once the heatsink has been removed, is the ZM80A actually compatible with the Creative card? I'd be grateful if anyone with experience of combining the two could give me a few pointers in the right direction. Cheers. Andy. |
#2
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First of all, make sure you get the rigth Zalman VGA cooler for your board?
I have the '50' and it just barely fits due to the position of my Northbridge - even then I had to fix it without the risers. They have the 80 and the 80A for your card dependent upon the transistors on the VGA card and also things like the location of the Northbridge, Memory slots on your mobo. I think the 80A is the better model - it fits 'upwards' rather than 'downwards' - but you should double check Zalman's site. For cleaning the chip you can buy special cleaner from the link below. Alot of people use nail varnish remover. If your card is a typical Geforce it will be a black rubbery material which will mostly just pull off. I simply scraped the gunk off with my finger-nails and then used the tip of a fine screw-driver to finish scraping the stuff off until it looked nice and clean. After that I simply applied a nice dollop of thermal grease to my VGA chip and leveled it off using a thin piece of plastic. There are 'nutters' who will use special fluid to clean off the chip, then they apply thermal grease and then they clean it off again, repeat that 2 or 3 times because they somehow think this does wonders for connectivity between the chip and the heatsink. They claim doing so makes sure microscopic indentations on the top of the chip and heatsink are filled by the thermal paste - of course, if they are microscopic how can they tell. They never provide any engineering proof to back up their arguments anyhow. Personally, I think they need locking up. Get yourself some decent thermal grease - the two TINY packets that come with the Zalman will not be enough. The gurus recommend Artic Silver. I use Antec's thermal grease which also contains silver because silver is better for heat conductivity. Make sure you get the grease as the grease does not set solid. You can order Artic Silver from http://www.overclockers.co.uk or you can pop into Maplins to buy the Antec stuff - it is £8.99 in Maplins and the Artic Silver comes in a variety of prices on OCers. PC World set a copper thermal grease for about a fiver. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... Cheers for that John, I've just gone and ordered the Zalman cooler. Just one other question - how do I clean up the chip when I've removed the heatsink? Is there anything in particular I should use? Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... I had the same thing on my Geforce 4460MX. If you look at the bottom of the black clip it has a little - tiny in fact - end which can be squeezed together. If you squeeze these together - your fingers will do it but pilers can be safer and easier - and then push gently upwards they will suddenly fly out with some force. Be careful, when I say they fly out they fly out at speed and the first time I did this I was very glad that the clips were facing away from my face as I think they could cause a nasty injury to eyes and bits and pieces so be warned. They are spring loaded. Once you have them out it is very easy to see how they work, to pop them back in and out but that first time it looks as if they are permanently attached to the board. Once the pins/clips are removed you need to carefully wriggle your fan. I had to twist mine and ended up using quite some force to pull the fan off the chip as it was stuck on strongly. Clean up the chip, apply some thermal grease and attach the Zalman cooler. Putting a Zalman VGA and Zalman 7000 CPU cooler in my PC were the best investments I have ever made. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... Hi everybody, I've just bought and fitted a Zalman Flower Cooler and 300W Silent PSU for my Athlon XP system. They've cut down on a fair bit of system noise, but now, all I can hear is the whoosh of my Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 card, and it's already driving me nuts. I haven't got the money for a new card (the Creative's only a year old anyway), so what I'd like to do is get a Zalman ZM80A-HP silent heat pipe cooler for the card. The thing is, I can't work out how to remove the existing Creative heatsink from the card - it's fastened onto the card with these two black 'pins' (for want of a better word) with not a screw in sight. How do I remove the heatsink, assuming it is possible in the first place? And once the heatsink has been removed, is the ZM80A actually compatible with the Creative card? I'd be grateful if anyone with experience of combining the two could give me a few pointers in the right direction. Cheers. Andy. |
#3
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No problem, best of luck. The 80A looks the best, most practical and easiest
to fit of all the VGA coolers. I only picked up the 50 because I wandered into Maplins and it was half price. If I had payed full I would have gone for the 80A. You won't regret it. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... I've ordered the 80A from Overclockers.co.uk, and I'm certain it will work with my configuration (Abit KX7-333R mobo). I've got a tube of thermal grease left over from the Zalman Flower Cooler, so I'll add that on when I'm applying the stuff. Thanks again, your posts have been a great help :-) Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... First of all, make sure you get the rigth Zalman VGA cooler for your board? I have the '50' and it just barely fits due to the position of my Northbridge - even then I had to fix it without the risers. They have the 80 and the 80A for your card dependent upon the transistors on the VGA card and also things like the location of the Northbridge, Memory slots on your mobo. I think the 80A is the better model - it fits 'upwards' rather than 'downwards' - but you should double check Zalman's site. For cleaning the chip you can buy special cleaner from the link below. Alot of people use nail varnish remover. If your card is a typical Geforce it will be a black rubbery material which will mostly just pull off. I simply scraped the gunk off with my finger-nails and then used the tip of a fine screw-driver to finish scraping the stuff off until it looked nice and clean. After that I simply applied a nice dollop of thermal grease to my VGA chip and leveled it off using a thin piece of plastic. There are 'nutters' who will use special fluid to clean off the chip, then they apply thermal grease and then they clean it off again, repeat that 2 or 3 times because they somehow think this does wonders for connectivity between the chip and the heatsink. They claim doing so makes sure microscopic indentations on the top of the chip and heatsink are filled by the thermal paste - of course, if they are microscopic how can they tell. They never provide any engineering proof to back up their arguments anyhow. Personally, I think they need locking up. Get yourself some decent thermal grease - the two TINY packets that come with the Zalman will not be enough. The gurus recommend Artic Silver. I use Antec's thermal grease which also contains silver because silver is better for heat conductivity. Make sure you get the grease as the grease does not set solid. You can order Artic Silver from http://www.overclockers.co.uk or you can pop into Maplins to buy the Antec stuff - it is £8.99 in Maplins and the Artic Silver comes in a variety of prices on OCers. PC World set a copper thermal grease for about a fiver. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... Cheers for that John, I've just gone and ordered the Zalman cooler. Just one other question - how do I clean up the chip when I've removed the heatsink? Is there anything in particular I should use? Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... I had the same thing on my Geforce 4460MX. If you look at the bottom of the black clip it has a little - tiny in fact - end which can be squeezed together. If you squeeze these together - your fingers will do it but pilers can be safer and easier - and then push gently upwards they will suddenly fly out with some force. Be careful, when I say they fly out they fly out at speed and the first time I did this I was very glad that the clips were facing away from my face as I think they could cause a nasty injury to eyes and bits and pieces so be warned. They are spring loaded. Once you have them out it is very easy to see how they work, to pop them back in and out but that first time it looks as if they are permanently attached to the board. Once the pins/clips are removed you need to carefully wriggle your fan. I had to twist mine and ended up using quite some force to pull the fan off the chip as it was stuck on strongly. Clean up the chip, apply some thermal grease and attach the Zalman cooler. Putting a Zalman VGA and Zalman 7000 CPU cooler in my PC were the best investments I have ever made. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... Hi everybody, I've just bought and fitted a Zalman Flower Cooler and 300W Silent PSU for my Athlon XP system. They've cut down on a fair bit of system noise, but now, all I can hear is the whoosh of my Creative Geforce4 Ti4400 card, and it's already driving me nuts. I haven't got the money for a new card (the Creative's only a year old anyway), so what I'd like to do is get a Zalman ZM80A-HP silent heat pipe cooler for the card. The thing is, I can't work out how to remove the existing Creative heatsink from the card - it's fastened onto the card with these two black 'pins' (for want of a better word) with not a screw in sight. How do I remove the heatsink, assuming it is possible in the first place? And once the heatsink has been removed, is the ZM80A actually compatible with the Creative card? I'd be grateful if anyone with experience of combining the two could give me a few pointers in the right direction. Cheers. Andy. |
#4
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Andrew Lee said this...
I've ordered the 80A from Overclockers.co.uk, and I'm certain it will work with my configuration (Abit KX7-333R mobo). I've got a tube of thermal grease left over from the Zalman Flower Cooler, so I'll add that on when I'm applying the stuff. Just by way of reassurance, I put the 80a on my ti4200 a few weeks ago. Deep joy to be rid of the nasty little fan, and the card is working/cooling perfectly. Even after hours of gaming no lockups or artifacts. I'm 100% happy with it so far. I have moved a case fan to the back of the box where it will blow over the heatsink for the recent hot weather, but mainly it runs without this fan perfectly well. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
#5
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It's the other way round for me - prior to putting on the 50 I used to get
lock-ups on my card with the fan. Now, fanless but with the 50 I don't get any - touch wood. J. "Groove" wrote in message ... Andrew Lee said this... I've ordered the 80A from Overclockers.co.uk, and I'm certain it will work with my configuration (Abit KX7-333R mobo). I've got a tube of thermal grease left over from the Zalman Flower Cooler, so I'll add that on when I'm applying the stuff. Just by way of reassurance, I put the 80a on my ti4200 a few weeks ago. Deep joy to be rid of the nasty little fan, and the card is working/cooling perfectly. Even after hours of gaming no lockups or artifacts. I'm 100% happy with it so far. I have moved a case fan to the back of the box where it will blow over the heatsink for the recent hot weather, but mainly it runs without this fan perfectly well. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
#6
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OK guys, I've fitted the cooler and got it up and running... the silence is
almost deafening! It seems to be OK so far, but I touched both heatsinks after leaving the computer on for 15 minutes, and it seems a bit hot for my liking (although not untouchable). I'm not sure if I'd trust it with Half-Life 2 or any of the latest 3D games yet, but I don't play games that often anyway. Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... It's the other way round for me - prior to putting on the 50 I used to get lock-ups on my card with the fan. Now, fanless but with the 50 I don't get any - touch wood. J. "Groove" wrote in message ... Andrew Lee said this... I've ordered the 80A from Overclockers.co.uk, and I'm certain it will work with my configuration (Abit KX7-333R mobo). I've got a tube of thermal grease left over from the Zalman Flower Cooler, so I'll add that on when I'm applying the stuff. Just by way of reassurance, I put the 80a on my ti4200 a few weeks ago. Deep joy to be rid of the nasty little fan, and the card is working/cooling perfectly. Even after hours of gaming no lockups or artifacts. I'm 100% happy with it so far. I have moved a case fan to the back of the box where it will blow over the heatsink for the recent hot weather, but mainly it runs without this fan perfectly well. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
#7
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Personally, I don't rate the grease that Zalman provide and I use a brand
name thermal grease - and lots of it. My 50, although much smaller than your 80A and on a much less powerful VGA card, is only very slightly warm to touch. J. "Andrew Lee" wrote in message ... OK guys, I've fitted the cooler and got it up and running... the silence is almost deafening! It seems to be OK so far, but I touched both heatsinks after leaving the computer on for 15 minutes, and it seems a bit hot for my liking (although not untouchable). I'm not sure if I'd trust it with Half-Life 2 or any of the latest 3D games yet, but I don't play games that often anyway. Andy. "John Smith" wrote in message ... It's the other way round for me - prior to putting on the 50 I used to get lock-ups on my card with the fan. Now, fanless but with the 50 I don't get any - touch wood. J. "Groove" wrote in message ... Andrew Lee said this... I've ordered the 80A from Overclockers.co.uk, and I'm certain it will work with my configuration (Abit KX7-333R mobo). I've got a tube of thermal grease left over from the Zalman Flower Cooler, so I'll add that on when I'm applying the stuff. Just by way of reassurance, I put the 80a on my ti4200 a few weeks ago. Deep joy to be rid of the nasty little fan, and the card is working/cooling perfectly. Even after hours of gaming no lockups or artifacts. I'm 100% happy with it so far. I have moved a case fan to the back of the box where it will blow over the heatsink for the recent hot weather, but mainly it runs without this fan perfectly well. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
#8
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Andrew Lee said this...
OK guys, I've fitted the cooler and got it up and running... the silence is almost deafening! It seems to be OK so far, but I touched both heatsinks after leaving the computer on for 15 minutes, and it seems a bit hot for my liking (although not untouchable). I assume you were careful to get the thermal grease on the heatpipe fittings etc as per their instructions. One of the website reviews I looked at mentioned a "bedding-in" period of IIRC 48 hours for the grease to become fully effective. I don't know the truth of such a thing, but it may be worth monitoring the temperature over a few days. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
#9
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Yes, I took special care to apply plenty of thermal grease on the heatpipe
fittings. No crashes yet :-) Andy. "Groove" wrote in message ... Andrew Lee said this... OK guys, I've fitted the cooler and got it up and running... the silence is almost deafening! It seems to be OK so far, but I touched both heatsinks after leaving the computer on for 15 minutes, and it seems a bit hot for my liking (although not untouchable). I assume you were careful to get the thermal grease on the heatpipe fittings etc as per their instructions. One of the website reviews I looked at mentioned a "bedding-in" period of IIRC 48 hours for the grease to become fully effective. I don't know the truth of such a thing, but it may be worth monitoring the temperature over a few days. -- º~ dªv¡d ~º |
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