Upgrading Gfx card cooler

[Balschoiw 0]

I have a little question for the hardware freaks in the forum.

I´m using a Bios-flashed ATI 9500, that is a 9700 Pro now. The card works flawlessly for over 2 years now, but I have some issues with specific games. Most of the issues arise with racing games or doom 3 for example. The gfx are displayed smooth and fluid at the start but after a while the gfx are totally messed. Before they got totally messed the display shows little artefacts, that get more and more until the gfx get totally wrecked. If I end the program in question even the desktop looks wrecked with vertical bars all over the screen. My idea is that some of those programs are very intense on the gfx card and the cpu on card gets to hot. I have to shut down the comp and restart to get rid of that gfx errors.

So my idea is to replace the gfx card cooler with a more effective one. Can this help ?

This is a similar model :

Are there any coolers for gfx cards that are more effective ?

Would a heatpipe increase cooling ?

Any other ideas ?

Thx in advance.

[ag_smith 0]

This seems to be exact effects of overheating.

Don't know much about GFX coolers, but you'll definitely want to put some radiators on that memory chips too.

Have you tried to measure how hot it gets when the problems arise?

[MachoMan 0]

coolermaster

zalman

They have some pretty cool (pun intented) coolers! And yes it might help you with your probs. You could ofcourse improve the airflow, clean the fan, etc., which is cheaper.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ] You could ofcourse improve the airflow, clean the fan, etc., which is cheaper.

Done that already

Didn´t help though

[llauma 0]

My suggestion is to get a new nvidia based card so you'll get rid of all the problems ATI cards still have. I think that the problem you have is an ATI problem as I have seen people getting them on unmodified cards without overheating.

GF 6600 GT is a great card for a decent price.

Sell the 9500 to some poor bastard on ebay...

[kevbaz 0]

Ati cards are my 1st choice, ive never had a problem with my 9700pro

[Balschoiw 0]

I also do like the card. It´s still very fast with up-to-date games and I don´t really see the need to exchange it now.

As I want to swap for an AMD 64 next year and want to get an SLI board with dual gfx slot I will have to get a major upgrade then. So it would be basically useless to swap the gfx card now and do it again next year.

I was searching Ebay a bit and found some

In addition with

passive RAM coolers it should raise the performance and decrease temperature of gfx card.

Does anyone here have experiences with Arctic cooling fans like the one displayed above and do those passive coolers really work ?

That would be a total of 20 Euros for the cooling set and maybe the chance to overclock the card.

Any experiences ?

[fallchild 0]

I've been using an arctic cooling fan on my 9800Pro for over a year now and it has worked flawlessly. It's easy to fit and allows for quite a bit of overclocking if you want.

The only thing to bear in mind is that it takes up one whole slot atthe back of the case and it canget in the way of some jumpers on certain motherboards.

Mine overlies the USB headers but I can still just about squeeze the connectors on.

[der bastler 0]

I still dream of a passively cooled PC, a good step would be the installation of this VGA cooler:

Meanwhile I buy a new cell phone. Very likely a SonyEricsson T630.

[Balschoiw 0]

The Zalmann heatpipe only has a big disadvantage. You can´t cool the RAM anymore and the weight is pretty heavy for the AGP port wich often results in gfx malfunctions and artefacts.

[llauma 0]

I have a heatpipe. Sure it's heavy but if you seldom move your computer it doesn't matter. I've been moving mine in cars several times and I haven't had any problems.

I overclocked my gfx pretty much so the heatpipe got quite warm so to be on the safe side I added a 80mm fan to it which lowered the temperature alot. So it's not really passive cooling anymore but the fan I added was already in the front of the case so I didn't add any extra fans, it also did much more good for both GPU and CPU after I relocated it.

[Gadger 0]

Ati cards are my 1st choice, ive never had a problem with my 9700pro

ditto.

[Badgerboy 0]

Bals, go for the Artic Cooler you posted above, its superb. I used that until I switched to watercooling, and I was running its on a horribly overlclocked 9800 Pro.

As for ATi cards overheating, what utter bollocks! I thought all the nVidia fanboys had died out!

[shinRaiden 0]

The thing to watchout for on that big heatpipe kit is how high your heatsink is on your northbridge or if you have a closely placed oversized CPU cooler such as the Zalman CNPS7x00 series. Also, a number of after-market cooler kits come with ~4 vram heat sinks, check the details before jumping on an additional purchase.

[der bastler 0]

Plus install a separate case fan (large and slow -> quiet) to draw the heated air out of your case. Best would be an intake on the lower front side and an exhaust above the mainboard to create some kind of air circulation...

[Balschoiw 0]

Ok, my case already has 2 extra 80mm´s. One attached to the side window, blowing air out and one at the front panel over the HD´s, also venting out. I have an additional 120mm fan, wich I built in on my own at the other side, also blowing air out. When building my video-beamer I talked to a technical engineer and he said that most of the industrial computer guided machines have the air blown out. It seems to be more effective than blowing cool air in. My work on the beamer proved this as air blown in get´s turbulated and pockets of heat are created. This is just on a sidenote though.

I guess, after thinking about it, with the help of "Bundestag Cuvee", a special "Sekt" brand I got a 6 bottle box for some arrangement we had, today, I will go for the Arctic cooling fan. I have the MSI KT2-Ultra board and it looks like there are no obstacles in the way to place the fan and the RAM-passive cooling elements. I need 8 of them as the gfx card has 4 DDR Ram modules on the front and 4 DDR Ram modules on the back. I could not find an Arctic cooler with 8 copper Ram coolers, so I will order them extra. All in all it will be 17 Euro plus postal fee. Not so expensive :-)

Note: Any semantic or interpunctual errors are to be blamed on german Reichstag tonight

[berghoff 11]

I have an Zalman vf700-cu (comes with some RAM heatsink but I already have copper ones) which is silent and very good at cooling. My card is now 9800pro -> 9800 XT @ 430 core and 730 mem

[der bastler 0]

When building my video-beamer I talked to a technical engineer and he said that most of the industrial computer guided machines have the air blown out. It seems to be more effective than blowing cool air in. My work on the beamer proved this as air blown in get´s turbulated and pockets of heat are created. This is just on a sidenote though.

That's what I meant. My case hase only one additional 80 mm fan at the backside, right beneath my Enermax EG365AX, blowing hot air out. The mount point is somewhere at the upper end of the mainboard. The intake is at the bottom front side (plastic cover got dozens of tiny holes to let the air in.

Circulation:

1.) backside fan drags hot air out

2.) that causes a low pressure inside the case at the top of the mainboard

3.) air streams from the bottom of the case over vga card and cpu to balance the pressure

4.) therefore fresh cold air is drawn in at my custom intake.

[Bernadotte 0]

I still dream of a passively cooled PC...

Me too.  And they may be on the way.  

Gigabyte's new GF6600 GT has only passive cooling.

[berghoff 11]

Well there a "kit" to make your pc running at 0 db.

[der bastler 0]

Gigabyte's new GF6600 GT has only passive cooling.

Interesting. Good that I don't have decided yet which card to buy.

What I mean are computers with less power loss. I already own an EPIA board, but it doesn't have the BogoMIPS of my 2500 XP.

PowerPCs are promising since the early 90s, but it's hard to find one for a fair price. Although I came across http://www.pegasosppc.com/ recently...

[bn880 5]

Ok, my case already has 2 extra 80mm´s. One attached to the side window, blowing air out and one at the front panel over the HD´s, also venting out. I have an additional 120mm fan, wich I built in on my own at the other side, also blowing air out. When building my video-beamer I talked to a technical engineer and he said that most of the industrial computer guided machines have the air blown out. It seems to be more effective than blowing cool air in. My work on the beamer proved this as air blown in get´s turbulated and pockets of heat are created. This is just on a sidenote though.

I guess, after thinking about it, with the help of "Bundestag Cuvee", a special "Sekt" brand I got a 6 bottle box for some arrangement we had, today, I will go for the Arctic cooling fan. I have the MSI KT2-Ultra board and it looks like there are no obstacles in the way to place the fan and the RAM-passive cooling elements. I need 8 of them as the gfx card has 4 DDR Ram modules on the front and 4 DDR Ram modules on the back. I could not find an Arctic cooler with 8 copper Ram coolers, so I will order them extra. All in all it will be 17 Euro plus postal fee. Not so expensive :-)

Note: Any semantic or interpunctual errors are to be blamed on german Reichstag tonight

You _need_ to blow air IN from the bottom of the case, preferrably the bottom front, and have the rest blowing out. It is also best to have only one real blow out area at the back top of the case. (surprize surprize, that's how all case manufacturers [proper ones] design cases)

You need circulation above all else, and your problem is memory overheating I think, need to stick some of those copper sinks on, and also a copper for the GPU would be nice. Weight won't kill it, getting the shit to stick on might be hard.

(you are absolutely doing the wrong thing blowing all air out, you require to drill hundreds of holes in the bottom of your case for that to be effective with at least 50% area removed, and then all fans blowing OUT will need to be at the top of the case)

Edit: Every container has a different design, industrial machines are specifically designed with air intakes as is your beamer...

[der bastler 0]

(you are absolutely doing the wrong thing blowing all air out, you require to drill hundreds of holes in the bottom of your case for that to be effective with at least 50% area removed, and then all fans blowing OUT will need to be at the top of the case)

Simple equation... Area intake >= Area exhaust

My case is nearly open at lower front side, regarding its metal frame. A plastic cover creates the front --it's covered with dozens of holes since I bought the new mainboard.

Works for me...

[bn880 5]

Yes that sounds good, as long as your fans which blow out are somewhere at the top-back area, making sure the air is sucked in at the front and drawn up and over the mainboard etc.

The problem Bals has is I think he has a fan blowing out somewhere besides the top and rear... which makes first of all a lot of restriction for the fans (not a lot of intake holes most likely) plus the airflow won't pass over the major components.

[der bastler 0]

Yes that sounds good, as long as your fans which blow out are somewhere at the top-back area

Sure it is. Together with the two-fan Enermax it forms a some sort of fan array.

For some time I even blocked all unneeded case openings (gaps and the like) with foil to prevent dust build-up inside my case. The main openings where secured with filter pads, reducing the air flow. But after some months the white pads were gone dark grey, there was dust inside and I dropped the concept.