Artic Cooler for VGA cards

"Chalky" wrote in message
news:dqHac.48743$K91.116444@attbi_s02...

"Stoneskin" wrote in message
t...
I'm thinking about buying one of these for my Prophet 9800 Pro. Anyone
use one?

The reviews seem to give it a thumbs up. What do you think?
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

I installed one recently on a 9700 PRO. The hardest part is scraping the
old
thermal pad off the cpu. The card itself is made up of many many tiny very
sensative components that can be easily damaged. The yellow thermal gunk
that was on the GPU was impossible to remove--I had to scrape and scrape
for
almost a solid hour. It was painstaking. Nailpolish remover did not
help--it
might have been because mine was acetone free. Anyway, I finally got the
thing installed, I played with it for a few minutes and itseemed fine.
Then
I started overclocking it. I heard a loud click from inside my case and my
card just died never to return. I might have fried it--I might have
installed the VGA silencer too tightly--it could have been just about
anything. A piece of thermal gunk might have gone where it didn't belong,
ect. The point is, there are a million ways to destroy a graphics card if
you tinker with it enough, and the installation proceess of this cooler
requires handling of the card that puts you at risk of killing it. The
silencer itself is excellent and the noise level is a major improvement,
but
install at your own risk! Also, my arctic cooler did not seem to allow me
to
overclock the core any further than stock cooling.~Chalky


I think the stock thermal compound etc varies from manufacturer to
manufacturer and may well be different between 9700's and 9800's. But I can
share your "dried yellow gunk" experience. I had exactly the same with my
9700 Pro and it was a real pain trying to scrape it all off.

Luckily for me however, once fitted the VGA Silencer has been completely
brilliant and one of the best upgrades I have ever bought. Its added a good
30MHz to my max Core speeds, taking it up to 400MHz and beyond, and I only
use the low setting on the fan, so its completely inaudible.

I feel like I got a 9800 Pro upgrade for about $20. Brilliant.

Chip

Dont do it!! this cooler has burned up lot's of ATI cards. I fried my
9800 AIW.

check this link out.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....hreadid=738150




"Chalky" wrote in message news:dqHac.48743$K91.116444@attbi_s02...
"Stoneskin" wrote in message
t...
I'm thinking about buying one of these for my Prophet 9800 Pro. Anyone
use one?

The reviews seem to give it a thumbs up. What do you think?
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

I installed one recently on a 9700 PRO. The hardest part is scraping the old
thermal pad off the cpu. The card itself is made up of many many tiny very
sensative components that can be easily damaged. The yellow thermal gunk
that was on the GPU was impossible to remove--I had to scrape and scrape for
almost a solid hour. It was painstaking. Nailpolish remover did not help--it
might have been because mine was acetone free. Anyway, I finally got the
thing installed, I played with it for a few minutes and itseemed fine. Then
I started overclocking it. I heard a loud click from inside my case and my
card just died never to return. I might have fried it--I might have
installed the VGA silencer too tightly--it could have been just about
anything. A piece of thermal gunk might have gone where it didn't belong,
ect. The point is, there are a million ways to destroy a graphics card if
you tinker with it enough, and the installation proceess of this cooler
requires handling of the card that puts you at risk of killing it. The
silencer itself is excellent and the noise level is a major improvement, but
install at your own risk! Also, my arctic cooler did not seem to allow me to
overclock the core any further than stock cooling.~Chalky

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 11:32:03 +0100, "Chip"
wrote:

I think the stock thermal compound etc varies from manufacturer to
manufacturer and may well be different between 9700's and 9800's. But I can
share your "dried yellow gunk" experience. I had exactly the same with my
9700 Pro and it was a real pain trying to scrape it all off.

Mine scraped with a fingernail.

Luckily for me however, once fitted the VGA Silencer has been completely
brilliant and one of the best upgrades I have ever bought. Its added a good
30MHz to my max Core speeds, taking it up to 400MHz and beyond, and I only
use the low setting on the fan, so its completely inaudible.

Girly man. Turn it up!

I feel like I got a 9800 Pro upgrade for about $20. Brilliant.

It cost me £7.00 + p&p. I think that it is the fan Radeons should be
fitted with as standard.
--

Julian Richards
computer "at" richardsuk.f9.co.uk

XP Home
L7S7A2 motherboard
Powercolor 9800 SE 8 pipelines with Omega drivers
1 GB RAM
10 GB + 80 GB HDs
CD+DVD/CDRW drives

Installed on 9700 Pro with the spacer removed
using Arctic Silver 3. Works like a charm.
Stable at 405/324 so far. (no Ramsinks).

The contact plate has serious tooling marks
on it so a couple hours lapping it down to
mirror finish were well spent.

Its a bit fiddly to install. I felt that too vigorous
tightening of the mounting mechanism might result
in a cracked component on side 2. However, firm
contact between the plate and the core did not require
all that much tightening. It simply has to be slow and
even on both screws to prevent damage.

It is very very quiet compared to the screaming
bit of junk that came stock on the card.

{{ MudFish (Co30){('
www.Co30.com
"Careful with that Axe Eugene."




"Chalky" wrote in message
news:dqHac.48743$K91.116444@attbi_s02...

"Stoneskin" wrote in message
t...
I'm thinking about buying one of these for my Prophet 9800 Pro. Anyone
use one?

The reviews seem to give it a thumbs up. What do you think?
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

I installed one recently on a 9700 PRO. The hardest part is scraping the
old
thermal pad off the cpu. The card itself is made up of many many tiny very
sensative components that can be easily damaged. The yellow thermal gunk
that was on the GPU was impossible to remove--I had to scrape and scrape
for
almost a solid hour. It was painstaking. Nailpolish remover did not
help--it
might have been because mine was acetone free. Anyway, I finally got the
thing installed, I played with it for a few minutes and itseemed fine.
Then
I started overclocking it. I heard a loud click from inside my case and my
card just died never to return. I might have fried it--I might have
installed the VGA silencer too tightly--it could have been just about
anything. A piece of thermal gunk might have gone where it didn't belong,
ect. The point is, there are a million ways to destroy a graphics card if
you tinker with it enough, and the installation proceess of this cooler
requires handling of the card that puts you at risk of killing it. The
silencer itself is excellent and the noise level is a major improvement,
but
install at your own risk! Also, my arctic cooler did not seem to allow me
to
overclock the core any further than stock cooling.~Chalky

On 1 Apr 2004 04:16:34 -0800, (MikeG) waffled on
about something:

Dont do it!! this cooler has burned up lot's of ATI cards. I fried my
9800 AIW.

check this link out.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....hreadid=738150

Not sure how that thread helps!

Only looked at a couple of the 12 pages, but didn't hear anyone say
"don't do it!"... Just one guy who was nervous and everyone else
telling him to have a stiff drink and just do it!

D0d6y.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

"Mudfish\(Co30\)" left a note on my
windscreen which said:

Installed on 9700 Pro with the spacer removed
using Arctic Silver 3. Works like a charm.
Stable at 405/324 so far. (no Ramsinks).

Thanks to all who responded. Another quick question about it - my card
is a Hercules Prophet 9800 Pro and it has copper heatsinks on the back
of the card. I haven't seen any pictures of the Arctic Cooler which
have heatsinks on the back of the card. Do they need to be removed and
if so is the fact that the Arctic cooler only on the front of the card
going to cause problems with the rear chips overheating?

Pics of the rear of the card are here if I haven't made myself clear;
http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/herc9800pro1.shtml
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

it was a real pain trying to scrape it all off.

Use a small piece of cloth dampened with acetone, MEK, Xylol or lacquer
thinner next time. Wipes off like butter.

"Chip" wrote in message
...
"Chalky" wrote in message
news:dqHac.48743$K91.116444@attbi_s02...

"Stoneskin" wrote in message
t...
I'm thinking about buying one of these for my Prophet 9800 Pro.
Anyone
use one?

The reviews seem to give it a thumbs up. What do you think?
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

I installed one recently on a 9700 PRO. The hardest part is scraping the
old
thermal pad off the cpu. The card itself is made up of many many tiny
very
sensative components that can be easily damaged. The yellow thermal gunk
that was on the GPU was impossible to remove--I had to scrape and scrape
for
almost a solid hour. It was painstaking. Nailpolish remover did not
help--it
might have been because mine was acetone free. Anyway, I finally got the
thing installed, I played with it for a few minutes and itseemed fine.
Then
I started overclocking it. I heard a loud click from inside my case and
my
card just died never to return. I might have fried it--I might have
installed the VGA silencer too tightly--it could have been just about
anything. A piece of thermal gunk might have gone where it didn't
belong,
ect. The point is, there are a million ways to destroy a graphics card
if
you tinker with it enough, and the installation proceess of this cooler
requires handling of the card that puts you at risk of killing it. The
silencer itself is excellent and the noise level is a major improvement,
but
install at your own risk! Also, my arctic cooler did not seem to allow
me
to
overclock the core any further than stock cooling.~Chalky


I think the stock thermal compound etc varies from manufacturer to
manufacturer and may well be different between 9700's and 9800's. But I
can
share your "dried yellow gunk" experience. I had exactly the same with my
9700 Pro and it was a real pain trying to scrape it all off.

Luckily for me however, once fitted the VGA Silencer has been completely
brilliant and one of the best upgrades I have ever bought. Its added a
good
30MHz to my max Core speeds, taking it up to 400MHz and beyond, and I only
use the low setting on the fan, so its completely inaudible.

I feel like I got a 9800 Pro upgrade for about $20. Brilliant.

Chip

Pics of the rear of the card are here if I haven't made myself clear;
http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/herc9800pro1.shtml

ohhh....

good job you put that bit up. Thats important information. It has a non standard stock cooling
solution. DONT DO THE MOD.

I dont think your card is compatible.

That second heatsink on the back of your card looks non standard. It looks like both the front and
back heatsinks are fixed by the same two pins, and these go through the board. If you take the fan
off, you have to take the back sink off.

I would recommend *against* doing the mod on this basis, the artic is heavy and relies on a sizeable
amount of pressure on the back of the card to hold it on. whatever is under that back heatsink will
be getting all that pressure.

BTW, I have modded two cards successfully, Connect 3D 9500 pro, and Sapphirre 9800 pro, both
*standard ATI reference designs*. I can certainly recommend it as a cool upgrade (in every
sense!), but on reference-design cards there is a blank area to the back of the GPU, on which a
clip needs to rest against. this clip holds the artic tight. It looks like there may be some sort
of chip (or sone sort of heat transfer device) under that non standard back heatsink of yours, and
this would worry me, because your pressure would now be on a chip, not on the board itself. also,
if your card uses a non standard heat transfer device to push heat through the back heatsink (and I
would wonder why all that expensive copper is there if it does not!), the artic would bypass it.
have a look at...
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/en/sup..._silencer1.pdf

....to see what the card expects the back of your card to look like, and what the clip is (it has a
little pad on it that presees down , and that point is right behind the GPU... you may have a chip
there looking at that back heatsink!

Also, the card you show seems to have a high quality *copper* heatsink. the artic is 100%
*aluminum*, which is a far poorer conductor. Your sink arrangement looks to be better than the
stock ATI sink on the reference design. Myself and others upgraded because we had stock coolers,
whereas yours looks to be superior.

Is there a real and compelling reason you are doing this upgrade? If not, dont bother is my best
advice (and I would normally thoroughly recommend the Artic, as you may see by some of my previous
posts).

How about you contact artic at their site and ask what you need to do next?
Seems the best option by far.

S

"Julian Richards" wrote in message
news
Girly man. Turn it up!

Well I can do, but ATITOOL shows errors beyond about 395. I can 3dmark at
415 though :-)

I must have got good ram on my card anyway because thats rock solid upto
360MHz with no sinks or anything.

Chip.

Sham B left a note on my windscreen which said:

...to see what the card expects the back of your card to look like, and what the clip is (it has a
little pad on it that presees down , and that point is right behind the GPU... you may have a chip
there looking at that back heatsink!

An excellent post - thanks for the advice. Yes, I looked up various
pictures of modded cards and noticed they do not have the heatsinks on
the back. I had assumend that either my card required cooling measures
on the back of the card which this mod would not cater for or that these
heatsinks are not required.

On your advice I don't think I'll bother with the mod.

Is there a real and compelling reason you are doing this upgrade? If not, dont bother is my best
advice (and I would normally thoroughly recommend the Artic, as you may see by some of my previous
posts).

The reason I was interested is that I had assumed that my card was
basically 'stock' and that modding it would give me lower temperatures,
a quieter fan and/or more overhead to overclock it.

For the record my card is a Hercules Prophet 9800 Pro (I think I may
have said that already).

How about you contact artic at their site and ask what you need to do next?
Seems the best option by far.

Will do. Once again - thatnks for the post.
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]