6800GT 10 degrees cooler with duct

F

Fluke

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 22, 2000
Messages
493
I have a 6800GT with the reference cooler design. Was thinking of ways to cool it down without modding the card. Had one of these in the junk box:

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/2974115?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Ripped the fan out of it and trimmed the hole to match up with the hole in the 6800GT heatsink. Put it in the slot next to the 6800GT and was amazed at the temperature drop on the card. 10 degrees C!

Fluke
 
Neat little intake duct mod, actually really nice cause lots of people have those blower fans laying around.
 
Just in the PCI slot next to it. It's such a tight fit that you don't even need to connect them.
 
So You have made cold air intake and it lowered 10 deg. temps. Nice

So You havemade oposite of a AC Silencer and it works.

I wonder what would then silencer doo with cold air intake for his fan. Hmm time for a drawing table :)



MD
 
TheGamerZ said:
Actually its an exaust. Those fans blow out, not suck in.
Click to expand...

he took the fan out, so all it does it allow air to be sucked into the 6800 heatsink. Actually i have one of those coolers laying aroud, i'll try it today and see what happens :)
 
lol, I made my own the other day.. with one of my blue led 80mm fans blowing 32 cfm.... put it right under my 6800ultra in the pci slot... right where it's fan is and used intake.. dropped my idle temps from 52 to 47.. and load from 74-75 to 69-70 :)
 
I cleaned my NVsilencer out last night because my load temps were 95C. Not much of a suprise when I literally saw a wall of dust blocking air from the fan. Cleaned that out and reapplied AS5, and now I have load temps of 70C :eek:
 
Just got a 7800GTX and the duct works with it as well. Great if you don't want to void your warranty.
Fluke
 
Nothing better than recycling old stuff and making new stuff work better! Cool discovery, congratulations!
 
Fluke said:
Just got a 7800GTX and the duct works with it as well. Great if you don't want to void your warranty.
Fluke
Click to expand...

That is the huge plus right there....not voiding your warrenty. Kudos to OP for bringing it to our attention. :)
 
I plan on going with Cross Fire the next time I upgrade and I am going to make sure that both graphics cards have the duct feature.
 
Would be interesting if you left the fan in but reversed the rotation so it actively sucked cold air in and blew it up into the card's fan.
 
When I first installed my 6800GT I found I could reduce load temps by 7*C simply by removing the PCI slot cover from just below the AGP slot. That was almost as good as my home-made air-duct managed.
 
nobi125 said:
Would be interesting if you left the fan in but reversed the rotation so it actively sucked cold air in and blew it up into the card's fan.
Click to expand...

Tried reversing polarity on the fan before I ripped it out. Fan wouldn't power up.
 
I've tried all sorts of things to drop the temps on my 6800U - one of those duct fans in the adjacent PCI slot, removing the PCI slot covers, case fans blowing onto the GPU etc. None of it affected the overall GPU temps either at load or idle by more than a degree or two and it was still just as susceptible to changes in room temperatures.

Just a warning that there's not always an easy solution to drop the temps of your GPU. Still, these fans are cheap enough so it can't harm to try.
 
coz said:
When I first installed my 6800GT I found I could reduce load temps by 7*C simply by removing the PCI slot cover from just below the AGP slot. That was almost as good as my home-made air-duct managed.
Click to expand...
OMG, I just removed the PCI slot cover below my 6600GT and WOW! :eek:

I'll have to dig up an extra PCI slot blower (removed of its fan) and see what that does!
 
Tiny said:
That is the huge plus right there....not voiding your warrenty. Kudos to OP for bringing it to our attention. :)
Click to expand...

I thought we voided our warranty if we overclock our cards. Not true?
 
planetary said:
I thought we voided our warranty if we overclock our cards. Not true?
Click to expand...
technically... but thats pretty much impossible to tell unless you voltmod it.
 
That makes sense. I didn't know how good nVidia & ATI were at finding out what we have done to our cards.
 
planetary said:
I thought we voided our warranty if we overclock our cards. Not true?
Click to expand...

Is true. It is a nice cooling solution to have without voiding your warranty...provided you are not overclocking. Since I don't overclock....it is perfect for me. :)
 
planetary said:
That makes sense. I didn't know how good nVidia & ATI were at finding out what we have done to our cards.
Click to expand...
ive seen instances where ppl RMAd their cards after they had put an aftermarket cooler on it and still got an RMA. they just put the original cooler back on it. i dont think that theyre very good at checkin for details.

somebody tried that but evidently they had a cracked core, and they caught that (i think it was nVidia). the person ended up having to buy a new card.
 
YES!!! CAI on the 6800GT. I gotta see what my temps are. Forgot I had one of those that the fan crapped out on. Thanks for the idea!

EDIT: I ended up putting a thin piece of plastic foam between the shrouds for a gasket and I guess sealing it makes for great temp drops. Card is OC'd to 409/1114 and after playing HL2 for a half an hour, my load temp was 64c and idles at 54c
 
Tiny said:
Is true. It is a nice cooling solution to have without voiding your warranty...provided you are not overclocking. Since I don't overclock....it is perfect for me. :)
Click to expand...

the warranty thing is starting to be come confusing, now eVGA says overclocking is covered under warranty, but DAMAGE as a result isnt, so if the card was at stock when it was damaged, your fine lol (or mabye im thinking of someone else... [and evga has a lifetime warranty now])
 
Diseaseboy said:
I use this and it works great:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article.php?aid=223

It blows air on the card, not out.
Click to expand...


Well looking at the two similar methods, I think going with the old single slot fan as an intake shroud works best. On the cooler you're talking about, set to high speed, it had a temp drop of 10degrees C under load on a 6600GT. Looking at the unit itself, its takes up two pci slots, and it has a fan (more power usage and noise). The method that Fluke came up seems more efficiant going by my results. The stock fan sucks in outside air via the shroud (not out since you would remove the fan from the slot cooler). Simply using a fanless shroud gave me about a 12degreeC drop in temp (76C down to 64C) under load on my 6800GT oc'd past ultra speeds (409/1114).

You can find the single slot coolers for as low as $4.99 + shipping here
or
The dual slot cooler for $14.99 + shipping here Cheapest I found.
 
i was skeptical, but that dropped my idle temps 5 degrees celsius. best 4 dollar part i ever butchered the hell out of.
 
wow, cards run hotter then i thought they did at stock 95C for a dirty nv silencer :eek: my 5900 nu modded to 5950 ultra ran for about 6 months like that on stock cooling, 100C load 60C idle, but old cores take heat better then newer ones
i used to actualy joke around with my friend saying 'im going to go boil some water' instead of saying im gonna go play some games :p

i dont see temps past 48C and i figured the temp was a lil high because of the prescott, never ran the card air cooling more then long enough to be blessed with the 6800 gt bios screen
 
hmm interesting little trick.
I have seen this "duct mod" done to SLI rigs in the past.
Since some mobo's have little space between the cards (makes it hard to get an aftermarket heatsink on both), this mod works very well.
 
I used a regular pci slot cooler but didn't get good results because it took air away from the gpu. Antec's solution works better because it pushes more air over the gpu- doesn't take it away. I saw about a 7C temp drop under load with the Antec V-Cool.
 
Diseaseboy said:
I used a regular pci slot cooler but didn't get good results because it took air away from the gpu. Antec's solution works better because it pushes more air over the gpu- doesn't take it away. I saw about a 7C temp drop under load with the Antec V-Cool.
Click to expand...

I think you are missing something here. What do you mean "it takes it away"? Maybe if you use the fan thats in it since its designed to be an exhaust fan. You have to gut the thing. Take out the fan and its used strickly as a duct and no longer a cooler. The thing fits so tight, that the cards fan sucks cold outside air through the duct rather than circulating any kind of warm case air through the heatsink. There is no gap between the shroud and the cards intake.

 
kraken0698 said:
I have to say, this is a great idea. I bought a couple for my Sli system.

Newegg has a few different ones for $4 a piece.

Like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835888602

This one too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835888003

Thanks for the tip guys!
Click to expand...

Glad it's working for you guys. Don't think the after market cooling manufacturers will like it though. Effective and cheap is not good for their sales.
Fluke
 
Fluke said:
Glad it's working for you guys. Don't think the after market cooling manufacturers will like it though. Effective and cheap is not good for their sales.
Fluke
Click to expand...

Yeah thanks for idea! And to think I was going to buy a Zalman. Don't need it now. Maybe some AC5 because I'm not sure if the previous owner did it or not. Guess I should find out. I used to laugh at those slot coolers like they were a joke.
 
I tried removing the next back plate cover down and it hasnt made much difference to temps. Not to worry though. :)
 
Well I haven't tooken the fan out, but its sitting right under my 6800U and I haven't notice any difference in temps. And when I feel the back, its only cold air, but my card is idling at 56C :confused:
 
why do you guys worry about temps when there low to begin with, i bought the water block so i wouldnt need to buy aftermarket coolers to shut my video cards of now and tomorrow up and maybe get a little extra ocing out of it, pitty my card wants to run 450/1200 but somthings making it crash after like a half hour even tho its topping out 48C, maybe the second molex really is there for a reason :rolleyes: :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top