I laugh at aftermarket video card coolers!

C

cyclone3d

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
16,325
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

I just made a cooler for my 7900GS...

GPU is cooled by an aluminum (stock type) socket-A heatsink... and I made ram-sinks out of a Slot-A heatsink.

I thought about getting an Artic cooler unit,, but after seeing that you only loose about
7-8C generally, I knew I could do a lot better with stuff I had laying around.

Idle on this card at stock 450/660(1320) used to be 44C... now it is 34C

Load at stock used to get to about 60C

Overclocked to 560/720(1440) the Idle was about 48C... now it is at 37C

Load used to get up to 68-70C after only about 30 minutes... now it maxes out at 50C after playing for about 4-5 hours.

And the best part is.. I don't even have a fan hooked up to it yet... I do have two Athlon64 fans pointed in the general direction of the card... I just can't wait to see what the cooling will be like once I build the shroud and fan hookup so that both fans will actually cool the card and blow the hot air out of the back of the case.

The only con is, is that I now can only use 1 PCI slot... the other two are blocked... but that is ok really, since the only PCI card I have is my old as dirt Audigy sound card :)

If anybody want to see pics... let me know and I will post them.
 
card with new and old setup -

card with new setup -

card with shroud -

The sad thing is... the card runs like 5C hotter with the shroud then with the fans just pointed at the card... oh, well... at least it will keep the vid card heat out of the case now.
 
i think i cut that same heatsink up that you are using for gpu cooler in too ramsinks. i got 8 huge ram sinks out of it.
 
Hahahaaa... You used springs for the Ramsinks?

What box'd you make the shroud outta?
 
i would almost recommend that this be moved to "ghetto mod" thread, but its actually done well, and would thus score low there ;)

nice work
 
That is pretty cool.

I figure I will have to do a custom job on my 7800gs if I want to replace the stock cooler. It does not accept standard aftermarket cooling.
 
I was thinking of doing similar, using a hs that isn't meant for gpu use, but IDK my x1900xt produces alot more heat.
 
Arcygenical - yep... I used springs and tiewire... it actually works really well.. it holds the ramsinks in place very well.... the box... it was a "faded glory" Walmart shoebox :-D
 
cyclone3d said:
And the best part is.. I don't even have a fan hooked up to it yet... I do have two Athlon64 fans pointed in the general direction of the card...
Click to expand...
Are you running those Athlon64 fans in 32bit or 64bit mode and are you using dual channel memory on those fans?

I found that if you run your Athlon64 fans in 32 bit mode with dual channel memory, they blow faster than if you run them in 64bit mode with dual channel memory, but in 64bit mode with single channel memory, they blow just about as fast as in 32bit mode with dual channel memory.
 
Met-AL said:
Are you running those Athlon64 fans in 32bit or 64bit mode and are you using dual channel memory on those fans?

I found that if you run your Athlon64 fans in 32 bit mode with dual channel memory, they blow faster than if you run them in 64bit mode with dual channel memory, but in 64bit mode with single channel memory, they blow just about as fast as in 32bit mode with dual channel memory.
Click to expand...


It is true to a degree, but the increase in speed isnt worth the cost of getting a 64bit OS for the fans. Unless you decide to go with a linux OS to run just the fans. I have seen some ppl do the, get a micro ATX board and mount it close to case....then run 64bit Linux to power fans.
 
you people are too funny... the reason I posted about what type of fans they were was to give an idea of size and airflow.... they aren't both the same exact fan though... one is rated at like .5A and the other is rated at .74A...

I do have a question though... bothg of these fans are temperature controlled... so they run at a faily low speed the way they are set up now...

Question is: can I just jumper the temp sensors in order to have them run at full speed, or do the temp sensors still have resistance even when the fans are running at full speed? I don't want to fry the fans... and I have never tried that before on a temperature controlled fan.

Or even better yet... I do have a few temp sensors (the ones that used to come with some motherboards)... could I remove the temp sensors off of the fans, and hook up the motherboard temp sensors so I can have the temp sensors in the actual airflow that comes off of the video card?
 
You could simply chop off the temp sensors and splice the wire, which would cause the fan to run at full RPM. You can also desolder and relocate the fan's temp sensors to wherever you'd like. I wouldn't suggest you use the mobo temp sensors, since they probably have different resistance the stock ones and could give you odd speeds.
 
Cool... I just wanted to make sure that it would work ok before I tried it... I don't have any extra fans laying around that are that size...

I also need to modify the output of the shroud a bit as it is probably losing quite a bit of the actual possible flow out of the case since I didn't size it to fit the open slots below the card....

I'll post back with results after I mod the fans and the shroud.
 
You think a stock socket A hsf can cool my x1900xt better than lets say a vf900? The problem with it is that the 1900xt produces so much more heat.
 
I just got some really interesting results with the fans on high and the shroud modded...

This is still overclocked 560/720(1440) ...
Now idle I get 35C and load of 46C. So load dropped about 9C from the fans running on low.

The one fan, I jumpered the temp sensor with wire from a twistie tie... the other one had two different sensors that looke like surface mount resistors... twistie tie would not work... so I penciled the top of both sensors and that fan runs on high :)

It is quite a bit louder.. but a 9C difference on load.. that is awesome.... so from stock which was getting 70-72C on load overclocked... I now only get 46C load when overclocked. A very nice 25C-ish drop from the stock cooler... and the RAM is getting cooled very well also... I like this setup very well.

As for it cooling a x1900xt better than the zalman vf900.... I'm not sure... but I would definitely say it would keep the inside of the computer a lot cooler as all the video card heat is being vented out the back of the computer.. so it may well cool a x1900xt even better than the zalman... and if you really had any doubt.. you could always get a copper thin finned socket A heatsink....
 
Since this is an old post I have changed a couple things. The card is now voltage modded from 1.2gpu/2.0mem to 1.5gpu/2.1mem as well as having the regulator frequency mod and the overcurrent protection mod done.

I am also using a single 92mm fan.

This has gotten me from 580/830 up to 670/920, a very nice performance boost for this card that stock ran at 450/660.
 
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