Radeon X1600 - needs a new fan

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a new fan for my Asus EAX1600PRO (Radeon X1600 Chip) as
it has failed (siezed up, doesn't even turn) and the card now overheats and
kills video within 10 minutes of booting my pc! (power off, cool down for 2
minutes and power on will give me a further 10 minutes at a time).

The fan I need is a 50mm "bury fan" model number "5010H12C":

5010 = Size - 50mm x 50mm x 10mm
H = Speed - High Speed (5,000 RPM+)
12 = Voltage - 12V
C = Bearing - 1 ball, 1 sleeve

It's clear with a 3 hole "Y" shaped bracket to scew it to the heatsink. No
frame around the fan, just the bracket underneath. It's also a 3 wire (ie.
rpm sensor) fan, which is proving hard to find.

Here's a good closeup (first google image result I could find)
http://obzor.ishodniki.ru/images/160...0pro_front.jpg

I can find plenty of 50mm fans with the correct mountings, but they are all
2 wire and medium speed, not 3 wire and high speed. Will the card still work
ok if it doesn't sense a fan rpm signal ? Also is a slower fan (3,500 to
4,500RPM vs 5,000RPM) going to be a problem ?

I don't want to throw away a perfectly good card over an $8 fan!

Chris

Skeleton Man wrote:
Hi all,

I'm trying to find a new fan for my Asus EAX1600PRO (Radeon X1600 Chip)
as it has failed (siezed up, doesn't even turn) and the card now
overheats and kills video within 10 minutes of booting my pc! (power
off, cool down for 2 minutes and power on will give me a further 10
minutes at a time).

The fan I need is a 50mm "bury fan" model number "5010H12C":

5010 = Size - 50mm x 50mm x 10mm
H = Speed - High Speed (5,000 RPM+)
12 = Voltage - 12V
C = Bearing - 1 ball, 1 sleeve

It's clear with a 3 hole "Y" shaped bracket to scew it to the heatsink.
No frame around the fan, just the bracket underneath. It's also a 3 wire
(ie. rpm sensor) fan, which is proving hard to find.

Here's a good closeup (first google image result I could find)
http://obzor.ishodniki.ru/images/160...0pro_front.jpg

I can find plenty of 50mm fans with the correct mountings, but they are
all 2 wire and medium speed, not 3 wire and high speed. Will the card
still work ok if it doesn't sense a fan rpm signal ? Also is a slower
fan (3,500 to 4,500RPM vs 5,000RPM) going to be a problem ?

I don't want to throw away a perfectly good card over an $8 fan!

I would try contacting the manufacturer. I've had more luck along those
lines than you might expect.

On Sun, 7 Jun 2009 22:13:33 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
wrote:

Hi all,

I'm trying to find a new fan for my Asus EAX1600PRO (Radeon X1600 Chip) as
it has failed (siezed up, doesn't even turn) and the card now overheats and
kills video within 10 minutes of booting my pc! (power off, cool down for 2
minutes and power on will give me a further 10 minutes at a time).

It is not good to do this, letting the system run till it
locks up. After the first time the best thing to do is open
the case and check that fans are running, and if they are
not power off immediately.

A seized fan doesn't have to stay that way. A temporary fix
if you need to use the system is put a couple drops of thick
oil in the bearing. The way you describe the fan below that
probably means you need unscrew it from the heatsink to
access the sticker and/or bearing plug to remove them to
gain access.

After doing this a fan might fail again in a few days but
some may run quite a long time, usually long enough to
receive the replacement fan at least if the bearing is too
far worn to expect long term use.



The fan I need is a 50mm "bury fan" model number "5010H12C":

5010 = Size - 50mm x 50mm x 10mm
H = Speed - High Speed (5,000 RPM+)
12 = Voltage - 12V
C = Bearing - 1 ball, 1 sleeve

It's clear with a 3 hole "Y" shaped bracket to scew it to the heatsink. No
frame around the fan, just the bracket underneath. It's also a 3 wire (ie.
rpm sensor) fan, which is proving hard to find.

Here's a good closeup (first google image result I could find)
http://obzor.ishodniki.ru/images/160...0pro_front.jpg

I can find plenty of 50mm fans with the correct mountings, but they are all
2 wire and medium speed, not 3 wire and high speed. Will the card still work
ok if it doesn't sense a fan rpm signal ? Also is a slower fan (3,500 to
4,500RPM vs 5,000RPM) going to be a problem ?

With a slower fan the card will run warmer, but if you
aren't overclocking it will probably be fast enough in
moderate ambient conditions, IE if it gets hot in summer you
have air conditioning. There isn't much of a gain in
airflow from such a tiny fan at a difference of 3,500 and
5,000 RPM, the faster they spin the less gain per RPM.

The closest match I found was the "M", medium speed 4,000
RPM version of that with the two pin connector,
http://www.directron.com/ec5010m12s.html
But personally I would be hesitant to buy nearly the same
thing again that failed already though with it being a
little lower RPM it may last a little longer all else being
equal.

Without fan RPM feedback, you simply lose the ability to see
what RPM it is, the card will still run the fan ok, but if
the connector isn't compatible then you're left soldering
the old one onto the new fan's leads, and in some situations
just because a fan mounts from the rear screwed to the
heatsink it doesn't necessarily mean those screw points are
spaced the same, as with the above fan I know I have seen
others that don't have screw holes spaced the same, but if
it is necessary you could mark where the new screw holes
should be on the heatsink, use a center punch to indent them
slightly (be sure heatsink is on a very hard flat surface so
there is no chance of bending it when punching it) then
drill out slightly undersized holes and use your own screws
with aggressive self-tapping threads, though these are hard
to find in the tiny sizes you may need with a flat head so
you might see what the local hardware store has to determine
if this is a viable option.



I don't want to throw away a perfectly good card over an $8 fan!

Chris

If worst comes to worst you'll have to buy an entire
replacement heatsink, though sometimes places like
Newegg.com offer low end video cards for about $20 after a
rebate, so how much time to spend depends a lot on how
valuable your time is, keeping in mind you may never find
one and end up having to buy a whole heatsink instead,
typically for more than $15 delivered.


There may be another option, I can't tell the exact
dimensions on that card but if you had a standard full
framed 60mm fan lying around you might be able to drill
three holes in the plastic heatsink shroud (carefully since
it's probably fairly brittle) and either strap it down with
wire ties or screw it down with long screws. This is
getting rather fiddly and the dimensions may not be right to
do it, it is normally much easier to do when cards don't
have the side-offset fan on a 'sink with the plastic shroud
over it... I hate that kind of heatsink, as you have to
take the entire thing off the card to get at the screws
holding the shroud down just to clean all the dust out
later.

Keeping that in mind, if you can bear for the card to become
double-height, I would probably just take that plastic
shroud off and strap a fan down right in the middle of the
heatsink, again drilling holes as needed and using wire ties
or longer screws. Then again it looks like that 'sink uses a
fairly common 4 point mounting close around the GPU, you
might be able to take some random CPU heatsink from an old
system that's at least slightly larger dimensions, cut it to
size if too long and use it instead... I don't usually go to
that much trouble on an old card but have had very good
results doing it when a card is new to avoid having fan
failures later and/or make them easier to replace by using a
more common and higher quality fan... and the part about
avoiding having to take the fan shroud off later to clean
it, compressed air may do the job but sometimes not entirely
effectively without stressing the fan bearing by spinning it
so fast with uneven force.

It is not good to do this, letting the system run till it
locks up. After the first time the best thing to do is open
the case and check that fans are running, and if they are
not power off immediately.

It's probably been running for a couple of months like that. I didn't know
the fan had stopped and just kept resetting the pc every time I needed to
check something.
It stayed working for remote file access so I figured I'd deal with it when
I had time (I use my laptop for everything, desktop is just a file server
these days).

A seized fan doesn't have to stay that way. A temporary fix
if you need to use the system is put a couple drops of thick
oil in the bearing. The way you describe the fan below that
probably means you need unscrew it from the heatsink to
access the sticker and/or bearing plug to remove them to
gain access.

Slight problem with that: the fan motor is burnt out and the plastic mounts
on the bottom are completely melted from the heat! The fan is well beyond
repair!

It's been running with no fan for quite some time, I only noticed it
yesterday when I went to pull the card and the fan fell out and fell to
peices (the motor itself came free of the small round pcb)

The copper heatsink gets hot enough to be painful to the touch within
minutes, so I can see why it melted.

After doing this a fan might fail again in a few days but
some may run quite a long time, usually long enough to
receive the replacement fan at least if the bearing is too
far worn to expect long term use.

Yes, I have relubed that fan about a year ago and it ran fine up until now.


With a slower fan the card will run warmer, but if you
aren't overclocking it will probably be fast enough in
moderate ambient conditions, IE if it gets hot in summer you
have air conditioning. There isn't much of a gain in
airflow from such a tiny fan at a difference of 3,500 and
5,000 RPM, the faster they spin the less gain per RPM.

Yes we have A/C.

The closest match I found was the "M", medium speed 4,000
RPM version of that with the two pin connector,
http://www.directron.com/ec5010m12s.html
But personally I would be hesitant to buy nearly the same
thing again that failed already though with it being a
little lower RPM it may last a little longer all else being
equal.
Without fan RPM feedback, you simply lose the ability to see
what RPM it is, the card will still run the fan ok, but if
the connector isn't compatible then you're left soldering
the old one onto the new fan's leads, and in some situations
just because a fan mounts from the rear screwed to the
heatsink it doesn't necessarily mean those screw points are
spaced the same, as with the above fan I know I have seen
others that don't have screw holes spaced the same, but if
it is necessary you could mark where the new screw holes
should be on the heatsink, use a center punch to indent them
slightly (be sure heatsink is on a very hard flat surface so
there is no chance of bending it when punching it) then
drill out slightly undersized holes and use your own screws
with aggressive self-tapping threads, though these are hard
to find in the tiny sizes you may need with a flat head so
you might see what the local hardware store has to determine
if this is a viable option.

Yes it would be a solder job to connect the wires, the 3 wire connector on
the card is much smaller.



If worst comes to worst you'll have to buy an entire
replacement heatsink, though sometimes places like
Newegg.com offer low end video cards for about $20 after a
rebate, so how much time to spend depends a lot on how
valuable your time is, keeping in mind you may never find
one and end up having to buy a whole heatsink instead,
typically for more than $15 delivered.

A new heatsink would do fine, but I couldn't find those either.
As for newegg, I'm in Canada and newegg.ca is ****! Less products, higher
pricing, expensive shipping, and the list goes on.

There may be another option, I can't tell the exact
dimensions on that card but if you had a standard full
framed 60mm fan lying around you might be able to drill
three holes in the plastic heatsink shroud (carefully since
it's probably fairly brittle) and either strap it down with
wire ties or screw it down with long screws. This is
getting rather fiddly and the dimensions may not be right to
do it, it is normally much easier to do when cards don't
have the side-offset fan on a 'sink with the plastic shroud
over it... I hate that kind of heatsink, as you have to
take the entire thing off the card to get at the screws
holding the shroud down just to clean all the dust out
later.

60mm I doubt it - the closest I'd have is an 80mm case fan (several of these
from junked PSUs).

Keeping that in mind, if you can bear for the card to become
double-height, I would probably just take that plastic
shroud off and strap a fan down right in the middle of the
heatsink, again drilling holes as needed and using wire ties
or longer screws. Then again it looks like that 'sink uses a
fairly common 4 point mounting close around the GPU, you
might be able to take some random CPU heatsink from an old
system that's at least slightly larger dimensions, cut it to
size if too long and use it instead... I don't usually go to
that much trouble on an old card but have had very good
results doing it when a card is new to avoid having fan
failures later and/or make them easier to replace by using a
more common and higher quality fan... and the part about
avoiding having to take the fan shroud off later to clean
it, compressed air may do the job but sometimes not entirely
effectively without stressing the fan bearing by spinning it
so fast with uneven force.

I know this is only a low end cheap card (paid about $150 at the time,
probably about $70 now), but it's more about the principle of not being able
to use a perfectly good part coz a $2 fan stopped working.
I will probably buy a new card, but I still wanna fix this as a spare.

Chris

On Mon, 8 Jun 2009 16:52:48 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
wrote:


I know this is only a low end cheap card (paid about $150 at the time,
probably about $70 now), but it's more about the principle of not being able
to use a perfectly good part coz a $2 fan stopped working.
I will probably buy a new card, but I still wanna fix this as a spare.

Chris


Do what Grinder suggested, contact the manufacturer, or next
time you order computer parts elsewhere, throw a fan that's
close to the right size on to the order. If you can accept
the card taking up an extra mobo slot blocking one, you can
put the fan on top strapped or screwed to the plastic
shroud, the entire fan doesn't need to be over the hole
where the original one was, if a bit of it is blocked by the
plastic it'll just blow through the section that isn't
blocked. You could do that even with an 80mm fan but I
assume you mean a standard 25mm thick one which would block
more than one addt'l mobo slot.

"Joel" wrote in message
...
"Skeleton Man" wrote:

I don't want to throw away a perfectly good card over an $8 fan!

Chris

I don't want to throw anything away if I can be able to save it either.
About your problem now and future, you can always start with
www.google.com

- But for now, you can always check with some web site like www.newegg.com
then go from there. Or I don't know if they have any $8 fan or not, or it
could be $2, $3 or $9

Thanks for your awe inspiring wisdom

Chris

Skeleton Man wrote:

snipped

A new heatsink would do fine, but I couldn't find those either.
As for newegg, I'm in Canada and newegg.ca is ****! Less products,
higher pricing, expensive shipping, and the list goes on.

Chris

That is sort of a "blower" design heatsink. I don't know how
easy it would be to modify the plastic, such that you could
fit an external 80mm fan near the card, and get enough cooling
for a long life. But it might be worth a shot.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...121-555-03.jpg

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...121-555-04.jpg

The thing is, replacement heatsinks (the Zalman ones at least),
aren't cheap. If this was available in aluminum, that would
probably be good enough. This one is $48 CDN. I'd be curious as
well, as to whether the VF-900 can clear the four caps near the
top of the board.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=17...=ZALMAN%20TECH

http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/...ad.asp?idx=144

*******

OK, this looks more like it. Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev. 2 VGA Cooler $26.62 CDN
A passive, with plenty of fins! This one has four heatpipes. The S2 model is
cheaper, and has two heatpipes.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=27...ctic%20Cooling

http://www.arcticcooling.com/catalog...=105&page=spec

Check the mechanical drawing, so you can be sure the heatsink
clears the caps. Some of these drawings were dreadful, but this
one isn't too bad. Also check the center to center dimension
between the screw holes.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/downlo...eleroS1_r2.pdf

There is gray thermal interface material, already on the base
of the heatsink.

Installing "RAM Sinks" generally isn't worth it, due to the
tendency for them to fall off. Thermal epoxy can be used
to attach them permanently, but then the RAM Sink can never
be removed again. One guy tried, and ripped the top right
off the memory chip.

Have fun,
Paul