Zalman ZM80C with a 9800 Pro?

I'm in the process of selecting some bits to stop the incessant wine of my
PC, with the 9800 Pro and P4 stock cooler being the worst offenders.

Having looked around the web, the Zalman ZM80C seems to be the best as far
as noise is concerned - am I correct? Are there any alternatives I may have
overlooked?

I have a Hercules 9800Pro 128Mb which I think has Zalman compatible
mountings around the GPU. How difficult is it to pull the Hercules cooler
off? I understand it invalidates the warranty - couldn't I just put it back
on if I have any problems with the card?

Also, the Zalman site states the optional fan is "recommended" with the 9800
Pro. Is anyone getting away with not using one? I don't overclock. Not being
very heat savvy, what would happen if the card overheated? Graphical
glitches? Artifacts? Smoke?

I don't really want to fork out £37 for the Zalman if it won't do what I
want it to i.e. silence my graphics card.

Cheers,

Ted.

-
Ted stood up at show-n-tell, in , and
said:

I'm in the process of selecting some bits to stop the incessant wine
of my PC, with the 9800 Pro and P4 stock cooler being the worst
offenders.

Having looked around the web, the Zalman ZM80C seems to be the best
as far as noise is concerned - am I correct?

Yes, NO noise can be considered the most noiseless


Are there any
alternatives I may have overlooked?

I believe Thermaltake, and a few others, make the same thing. Prices vary.


I have a Hercules 9800Pro 128Mb which I think has Zalman compatible
mountings around the GPU. How difficult is it to pull the Hercules
cooler off? I understand it invalidates the warranty - couldn't I
just put it back on if I have any problems with the card?

Depends on how nimble you are, with those plastic studs that they use. I
was able to put the stock fan/sink, back onto my PowerColor 9700np.


Also, the Zalman site states the optional fan is "recommended" with
the 9800 Pro. Is anyone getting away with not using one? I don't
overclock. Not being very heat savvy, what would happen if the card
overheated? Graphical glitches? Artifacts? Smoke?

With today's stuff, it's best to have a fan blowing on that area of the
motherboard. It, particularly, benefits the heatsink on the video card.



I don't really want to fork out £37 for the Zalman if it won't do
what I want it to i.e. silence my graphics card.

Trial and error, my boy. Trial, and error.


Cheers,

Ted.

--
Strontium

"It's no surprise, to me. I am my own worst enemy. `Cause every
now, and then, I kick the livin' **** `outta me." - Lit

In article , (Ted)
wrote:

I don't really want to fork out £37 for the Zalman if it won't do what I
want it to i.e. silence my graphics card.

On low speed (it comes with a 12V/5V adapter) the Zalman fan's very quiet.
I can run my un-clocked 9700Pro without it turned on, but my fairly quiet
CPU fan (Thermaltake Silent Boost) is noisier, so I leave the Zalman on
low permanently. It's a very good heating solution, and I like having the
option of turning it up when the weather's hot.

The only problem, as you suspect, is removing your card's default
heatsinks etc... that can be a little (ok, a lot) nerve-wracking. My card
was second hand anyway so I wasn't risking full price or much of the
guarantee, but it was tricky removing the plastic lugs holding the
heatsink assembly on. They were the type whose end you pinch, then push
through the circuit board. That required quite a bit of force and
control... not an easy combination. But there was no nasty thermal "glue",
just some friendly thermal grease, so once that was done the heatsink just
came away easily.

There's no guarantee you'll be so lucky but hopefully Google will find you
some other people with the same brand of card who've tried something
similar.

Andrew McP

PS Hope this is useful to you 'cos I forgot about my bacon while typing it
and... oh well, there's plenty of Marmite ;-)

Ted, just buy this:

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/en/products/vga_silencer/

Its completely brilliant in every respect and half the price of the Zalman.
I run mine in silent mode and can overclock my 9700 Pro by an *extra* 30MHz
or so over the stock cooler. So I can run at 410MHz with a 9700Pro!

Its a brilliant product and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Chip.

"Ted" wrote in message
...
I'm in the process of selecting some bits to stop the incessant wine of my
PC, with the 9800 Pro and P4 stock cooler being the worst offenders.

Having looked around the web, the Zalman ZM80C seems to be the best as far
as noise is concerned - am I correct? Are there any alternatives I may
have
overlooked?

I have a Hercules 9800Pro 128Mb which I think has Zalman compatible
mountings around the GPU. How difficult is it to pull the Hercules cooler
off? I understand it invalidates the warranty - couldn't I just put it
back
on if I have any problems with the card?

Also, the Zalman site states the optional fan is "recommended" with the
9800
Pro. Is anyone getting away with not using one? I don't overclock. Not
being
very heat savvy, what would happen if the card overheated? Graphical
glitches? Artifacts? Smoke?

I don't really want to fork out £37 for the Zalman if it won't do what I
want it to i.e. silence my graphics card.

Cheers,

Ted.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to order the Zalman, although I'm not
particularly looking forward to pulling the heatsink off my £270 card mind,
especially as it is only a month old.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I got on.

Ted

"Ted" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to order the Zalman, although I'm
not
particularly looking forward to pulling the heatsink off my £270 card
mind,
especially as it is only a month old.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I got on.

Ted

Ted, don't do it! Read my post and go for the www.arctic-cooling.com vga
silencer! Its a way better product, easier to fit, less than half the
price, better overclocker. The Zalman is an OK product too. But why pay
2x more for something that's just not as good?

Chip.

Quick question about the VGA SILENCER....what about the space created
by the infamous ATI shim? Do you have to remove the shim to install
the silencer or???

Hi Chip,
Why do you contend that the Zalman is not as good? I just checked out both
sites and I was impressed by the amount of spec info Zalman provides and the
animated Zalman installation instructions. The Zalman unit has a heatpipe
and a massive heatsink on *both* sides of the GPU. Also, I just watched the
Tech TV video in which Yoshi demonstrates his totally silent computer in
which he uses Zalman units on the CPU *and* the graphics card. Based on the
info I have read, I'm going to use Zalman on the CPU and GPU of my new box.
We're all probably concerned about money but here we're talking about how
much $20? The Arctic unit is probably very good but I can't find any info to
support your contention that it is better than the Zalman - although I must
confess I haven't researched the issue thoroughly s. BTW, in the Intel
P4, 2.8C CPU database on Overclockers.com I see quite a few Zalmans but no
Arctic units. Of course here I'm referring to CPU coolers and not GPUs.
--
Tally Ho!
Ed
"Chip" wrote in message
...
"Ted" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to order the Zalman, although I'm
not
particularly looking forward to pulling the heatsink off my £270 card
mind,
especially as it is only a month old.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I got on.

Ted

Ted, don't do it! Read my post and go for the www.arctic-cooling.com vga
silencer! Its a way better product, easier to fit, less than half the
price, better overclocker. The Zalman is an OK product too. But why pay

2x more for something that's just not as good?

Chip.

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 07:06:20 +0000 (UTC)
"Ted" wrote:

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to order the Zalman, although=20
I'm not particularly looking forward to pulling the heatsink off my
=A3270 card mind, especially as it is only a month old.
=20
Anyway, I'll let you know how I got on.

Having just installed one of these myself I have a few comments and this
looks as good a place as any to put them.

The ZM-80C comes with two mounting blocks, a narrow one that looks to
have been targetted specifically at the Radeon 9800 and a wider one that
apparently is to deal with board where the holes are too far apart for
the narrow one.

They provide some spare parts which is a good thing IMO and a rarity
these days--drop one of the screws down a crack and it's no disaster.=20
Also a screwdriver--anybody know any charities that need a bunch of
small Phillips screwdrivers?

Getting the old heat sink off the 9800 is no problem at all--pull on the
old one gently and while pulling take a pair of long-nosed pliers and
sqeeze each of the two mounting pins and it pops right off, no hassle,
no trauma.

The 9800 looks to have had some kind of silver-based heat sink compound
on it--I had a tube of Arctic Silver on hand so used that in that
location--figured ATI wouldn't have spent the extra half a cent or
whatever it costs them without a reason--used the stuff that comes with
the Zalman in the others that had larger contact surfaces--there was a
little left over in the first tube and there's a second in the spares.
No hassle if you don't have Arctic Silver though--Dansdata ran a test a
while back in which he determined that toothpaste has slightly better
heat transfer than any of the commercial compounds and Vegemite comes
close, but they dry out and the commercial compounds don't--regardless
the difference is small.

Haven't run a stress-test on it yet, in normal use the Zalman, sans fan,
gets hot but not so hot that I can't hold my hand on it--newegg was out
of the fans, so I ordered from siliconacoustics (not the
cheapest around, would probably have done as well to go by
CrapUSA, but I was ordering some other bits and saw the fan and
figured it didn't cost enough to be worth looking for cheaper)--newegg
shipped from Tech Data's New Jersey warehouse and the stuff arrived
overnight (I'm close to New Jersey), siliconacoustics shipped from the
west coast, so the fan won't be here until Friday--I'm going to try to
avoid getting too rambunctious until then.

--=20
--=20
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

-
Ed Forsythe stood up at show-n-tell, in ,
and said:

Hi Chip,
Why do you contend that the Zalman is not as good? I just checked out
both sites and I was impressed by the amount of spec info Zalman
provides and the animated Zalman installation instructions. The
Zalman unit has a heatpipe and a massive heatsink on *both* sides of
the GPU. Also, I just watched the Tech TV video in which Yoshi
demonstrates his totally silent computer in which he uses Zalman
units on the CPU *and* the graphics card. Based on the info I have
read, I'm going to use Zalman on the CPU and GPU of my new box. We're
all probably concerned about money but here we're talking about how
much $20? The Arctic unit is probably very good but I can't find any
info to support your contention that it is better than the Zalman -
although I must confess I haven't researched the issue thoroughly
s. BTW, in the Intel P4, 2.8C CPU database on Overclockers.com I
see quite a few Zalmans but no Arctic units. Of course here I'm
referring to CPU coolers and not GPUs.

Most of my box is running Zalman. In my opinion, it is top notch. Would
not even think of touching another brand. Let's face it, Zalman has mad a
name for themselves for one very good reason: quality product. Reminds me
of Asus. I don't do 'bargain bin' building. I don't throw money at name
brands, either. But, Zalman is high freaking quality. That's just my
opinion.


"Ted" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to order the Zalman, although
I'm not particularly looking forward to pulling the heatsink off my
£270 card mind, especially as it is only a month old.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I got on.

Ted

Ted, don't do it! Read my post and go for the
www.arctic-cooling.com vga silencer! Its a way better product,
easier to fit, less than half the price, better overclocker. The
Zalman is an OK product too. But why pay

2x more for something that's just not as good?

Chip.

--
Strontium

"It's no surprise, to me. I am my own worst enemy. `Cause every
now, and then, I kick the livin' **** `outta me." - Lit