Video Card Cooling- quieter

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Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
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I have a Shuttle SFF. It has a Gigabyte GV-R96X128D 9600XT Videocard in it.

The computer is very loud and sometimes one of the fans makes wierd and inconsistant noise so I opened it up to see if a wire was hitting it or something. I found out that the PSU and main fan (cools the CPU thru a heat pipe) are very quiet, the video card fan is what's making all the noise.

I was wondering if there's a way to either slow this fan down or replace it with something quieter. 98% of my computer usage is websurfing and other 2d programs, the remaining 2% is playing Q3A for about an hour a week.

So what can I do? Is there another HSF that will fit on the Gigabyte GV-R96X128D 9600XT Videocard? Will it be easier to remove the stock one? Here's a link to it's picture: http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews/gigabyte9600xt/

It would be great if I could quiet this thing, I'm used to having a laptop that I keep running all the time, but this computer is just too loud right now to watch TV with it running.
 
This is a good question. Personally, I have a fanlees Gigabyte 9600 Pro for exactly this sort of reason.

Remove the card and then look at the fan to see how it mounted. Measure the dimensions of the fan. Is it possible for you to buy a new, high quality 3rd party fan with the same dimensions as the old fan and then mount it on the heat sink? That's what I did for my noisy processor fan. I just bought a silent 3rd party fan of the same dimensions and it screwed right onto the heat sink.

(Check the forums for what brands and types people advise.)

Or, is it possible to remove the heatsink and fan together and then get an entirely new solution? I don't know how to remove a heatsink. I mean, I would think it is glued on to the processor and I'd be afraid of damaging the processor. :)
 
Do you have a second slot available? Even the VF700 would be an overkill, but I can't think of any good single-slot aftermarket coolers.

If you can find a way to mount a smallish fan on the edge of the card blowing across its surface, you can actually disable the onboard fan. (Think Zalman's ZM-OP1.) The vanilla 9600 is designed to be passive, so the 96XT shouldn't dissipate that much more heat.
 
yea, before my shuttle mysteriously died, I had an 80mm case fan mounted on a hole, right above the video card, and then I used the video card's fan power to power the 80mm one (with a couple of wire-nuts), but you could always disable the onboard fan. It shouldn't be a problem with yours, but some brand-new video cards (*coughpny6800cough*) won't accept the fan being disabled, and scream at you.
 
replace it with a little blue led vantec iceberq 5, small and won't take up another slot
 
fuffmucker said:
replace it with a little blue led vantec iceberq 5, small and won't take up another slot
Click to expand...
Is that a silent HSF? Is it a direct fit?

What do I have to do to get the current HSF off my video card, from what I remember in the olden days, you had to put the entire card in the freezer to get the HSF off.
 
As previously posted, how much space do you have in your Shuttle? Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of trying one out yet. Someone mentioned the Zalman VF700. I found one at a pretty reasonable price if you would like to give it a try.
VF700 AlCu
Maybe even an Arctic VGA Silencer.
 
Not much space, the AGP slot is all the way over, the last slot. There is about 1/2" between the top of the current HSF and the side of the case.

I'm not looking to overclock this card or keep it ice cold. I just want it to be quiet while being about to cool the chip enough to get thru an hour of Q3A.
 
I unplugged the video card's HSF and closed the case back up. I played Q3A for about 20 minutes, Excessive with a lot of rocket launcher against the wall to make it bright (I remember that always brought my FPS down really low).

As soon as I was done playing I pulled the cover off the computer and felt the heat sink, it was barely warm.

I guess, since it's such a big heatsink already, and it's right next to the vent on the side of the case, it will cool enough for me. I'll keep an eye on it for a while.

All I know is that thing thing is now quiet as could be!
 
It's still going fine with the fan unplugged, hardly gets warm.

But I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure i don't toast it. What would be the first sign of it overheating? Artifacts?
 
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