Video Card Noise

[SneakyStuff]

Hello, I am going to be buulding a quiet PC this spring/early summer, and I am considering the fact that my video card fan is small, and quite noisy. Here is a link to my card 5700u What would be the best way to quiet this card down? It also has a heatsink on the back, and that seems to be quite hot at times. My biggest concern, would be the length of the card, it is definately full-sized. Would a Zalman passive heatpipe cooler work with this card?

Edit: The noise that I am hearing, is a type of whiney noise.

 

[s2kpacifist]

Sounds like your fan is dying too. My northbridge fan is about that small, and it also makes that whiny noise which I'm going to fix with a waterblock.

Heatpipes should do the job, just make sure they're big enough and have enough W's of dissipation for the job of cooling your vid card.

Another way is that you can replace it with a larger fan: larger fans tend to be a lot less noisy and "whiny"

 

[SneakyStuff]

The card is less than 2 months old. Could the fan really be dying? It was noisy from day 1

 

[klah]

All 40mm fans are noisy.

Get the Zalman and put a quiet fan on. There is an optional Zalman fan, but I just use a 80mm L1A @ 5V.

 

[SneakyStuff]

So provided I can get that dopey heatsink off my card, the Zalman passive cooler fits full-sized cards? And when i say full sized, I mean FUUULL sized.

 

[Wedge1]

Judging by the picture, it looks as if the top plate can just pop off (looks as if it is "hinged" in there). If that's the way it is, I would definitely pop it off, unplug the whiney fan, use an 80mm Panaflo L1A because they are much quieter and offer much better cooling. Use a Zalman fanmate with the L1A to undervolt it a bit and it will be virtually inaudible. If you can't devise a clever way of mounting the fan yourself, order a Zalman FB123 (fan bracket).

 

[SneakyStuff]

Thermaltake makes an NV30 class heatsink, lets say I could get the heatsink off my card now, front and back, and I think i can, seeing as how it's held in by those little white pins. Would this product A.) be a quality product, and B.) Cool the card, and the DDRII memory, to a satasfactory level, I would be prepared to reset the card to stock speeds, just want to know if this would work.

 

[Wedge1]

Wish I had an answer. I'll ask elsewhere to see. In the meantime, I have a GF2 Ultra and I'm wondering if that Thermaltake cooler would work with it. I can't remember if the Ultra is an NV30?

 

[SneakyStuff]

afternoon bumpage, in regaurds to the thermaltake heat-pipe cooler

 

[Wedge1]

Sneaky, check your PM.

 

[beatle]

Wedge1 has a good idea. I did just that and used an L1a on a homemade bracket to cool my PNY Ti4200 to 300/625.

 

[SneakyStuff]

That is an excellent idea, I can just disconnect my card's fan, leave the heatsink on, and put an 80mm ran in front of it with a HOMEMADE BRACKET! wow, you deserve a creative thinker's award for that because I would have never thought to do that.

 

[Wuzup101]

Check out the VGA silencer they have them over at www.svc.com. I was going to get one but last time I tried they were out of stock (will order one this summer probably). From all the reviews I read they are supposedly very quiet and perform quite well.

 

[Wedge1]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
That is an excellent idea, I can just disconnect my card's fan, leave the heatsink on, and put an 80mm ran in front of it with a HOMEMADE BRACKET! wow, you deserve a creative thinker's award for that because I would have never thought to do that.

Thanks Sneaky, glad you managed it. I basically get all my info and "ghetto-rig" ideas from Silent PC Review. I used a Panaflo L1A for my card and I acheived higher overclocks with it than I currently do with the Arctic VGA Silencer (with the fan on low -- if I bump the fan to 'high' there is definitely more overclocking that can be done).

Check out this simple hanging fan mod that MikeC at Silent PC Review did. I favor this idea mainly because of the way air flows across the card and exits out the case (with the PCI slot guards removed). This is very similar to what I did with a Panaflo, except that mine pulled fresh air in from the open slots, then it crossed the card (hitting the ram chips too), then it would be pulled up and out the back vent with a 92mm L1A. I switched to the Silencer only because I wanted to recoup the 3 PCI slots on the board that my ghetto-setup was taking up.

Also, check out what jeffa did with a modification of the AVGA Silencer.

 

[SneakyStuff]

oooo, thats neat