Hi,
I bought a Hush PC about 2 years ago which is a great (but horribly expensive) fanless pre-built computer. It came equipped with a Sapphire X800 Pro (AGP), with the fans removed and a single heat-pipe installed on it to guide the heat to the case. The X800 Pro has always been fast enough for my gaming needs but the game I play most (EVE Online) will require a DirectX 9 SM3 card in the next expansion for full visual goodies and the X800 Pro only supports DX9 SM2.
I've searched around for a cheapish videocard to replace the X800 Pro with, since I want to extend the life of my current PC for about a year before shelling out for a completely new rig again. The biggest headache was finding a card that is faster and supports SM3 without drawing more power, as this PC has a 240 W PSU which can't be upgraded and is already severely taxed with the stock components I think. Thanks to a site which listed the X800 Pro as drawing 48W and the 7950 GT as drawing 49W I settled on a 7950 GT AGP. The only company still selling those around here turned out to be XFX. The PCIe version of this card is passively cooled but the AGP version isn't unfortunately. Also, the passive heatsink of the PCIe version wouldn't have fit in my case anyway. So I bought the AGP version, hoping I would be able to convert the existing heatpipe to the 7950 GT.
Unfortunately removing the stock fan assembly is a lot harder than I would have expected. Under the stock fan is a heatsink which covers all RAM chips and another chip (HSI?) and which seems to have a thin layer of foam glued between it and the board itself. I haven't tried to pull it off with brute force yet but I'm a bit hesitant to do that without knowing if I'll be able to make this work.
Does anyone on this forum have any experiences with installing a different cooling solution on this (or any AGP 7950GT) card? If so, what did you install and how were you able to install it? Any help would be greatly appreciated before I destroy my shiny new card by doing something foolish. I've searched around before posting this but can't seem to find anything on the AGP version of the 7950 GT.
Quieting an AGP 7950GT?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Your plan seems awfully ambitious. The Hush isn't exactly customizable, and replacing the videocard seems like a tremendous chore. One that's probably impossible without machining a new passive cooling element for the 7950GT. I can't imagine the custom heatpipe cooling system for the X800 Pro being compatible with a 7950GT. If it is, and you are able to fit the 7950GT, then it probably still won't work because there's no way a 7950GT only consumes 49W. In fact, my first google hit showed that the official Nvidia rating for the 7950GT is 82W. This is probably for the PCI-E version, but I strongly doubt the AGP version uses much less power.
Unfortunately your options seem rather limited. Maybe contacting Hush tech support can be helpful? Perhaps they have a list of compatible graphics cards that are interchangeable with the X800 Pro.
The only other thing I can think of is to use the 7950GT with the stock fan in place, and add some makeshift fans to the case to keep everything from overheating. This isn't a terribly elegant solution, and I doubt it's satisfactory to a Hush owner, but aside from currently non existant external graphics cards, I can't really see any alternatives.
Keep in mind this is all based on the assumptions that 1) the 7950GT won't be compatible with the X800 Pro's heatpipe cooling solution, and 2) the 7950GT's wattage rating is much higher than your listed 49W. Hopefully I'm wrong and you can get it to work.
Oh, and in reference to this:
Good luck with your project, I hope you manage to get it to work.
Unfortunately your options seem rather limited. Maybe contacting Hush tech support can be helpful? Perhaps they have a list of compatible graphics cards that are interchangeable with the X800 Pro.
The only other thing I can think of is to use the 7950GT with the stock fan in place, and add some makeshift fans to the case to keep everything from overheating. This isn't a terribly elegant solution, and I doubt it's satisfactory to a Hush owner, but aside from currently non existant external graphics cards, I can't really see any alternatives.
Keep in mind this is all based on the assumptions that 1) the 7950GT won't be compatible with the X800 Pro's heatpipe cooling solution, and 2) the 7950GT's wattage rating is much higher than your listed 49W. Hopefully I'm wrong and you can get it to work.
Oh, and in reference to this:
I can't tell you what to do here, because the foam could either be glue or simply sticky thermal paste. If it's glue you're gonna have a hard time removing the heatsink (maybe using a hairdryer to soften up the adhesive is something you can try?) if it's thermal paste you should be able to remove it.Unfortunately removing the stock fan assembly is a lot harder than I would have expected. Under the stock fan is a heatsink which covers all RAM chips and another chip (HSI?) and which seems to have a thin layer of foam glued between it and the board itself. I haven't tried to pull it off with brute force yet but I'm a bit hesitant to do that without knowing if I'll be able to make this work.
Good luck with your project, I hope you manage to get it to work.
Oh, I should have been clearer! In stock form the 7950GT works perfectly already. I "only" had to unscrew half the case to change the cards. The stock cooler does blow a lot of warm air on the harddisk which might not be ideal but at least the PSU is keeping up. And it sounds as if I have an electric water kettle on my desk with boiling water in it...
The custom heatpipe can actually be changed quite a bit, the pipe itself (which is L-shaped) is inserted into tubes with thermal paste at both ends, so I can reposition the GPU element along 2 axes. The hard part is being able to screw the GPU element to the card since the positions of the screw holes don't match. But the part with the screwholes is interchangeable so if I can get someone to make a new one for me I'm all set to go.
Contacting Hush will probably only make them want to rape my wallet again, and I'll probably have to ship my PC off to Austria to have them change it and be without a PC for two weeks (had to do that once already when the old motherboard + PSU died), so I'd rather not do that again.
The hairdryer tip is a good one, I might try that actually. Wattage ratings came from this link (which I couldn't post in my 1st post because the forum wouldn't let me):
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&c=7&t=9354
The custom heatpipe can actually be changed quite a bit, the pipe itself (which is L-shaped) is inserted into tubes with thermal paste at both ends, so I can reposition the GPU element along 2 axes. The hard part is being able to screw the GPU element to the card since the positions of the screw holes don't match. But the part with the screwholes is interchangeable so if I can get someone to make a new one for me I'm all set to go.
Contacting Hush will probably only make them want to rape my wallet again, and I'll probably have to ship my PC off to Austria to have them change it and be without a PC for two weeks (had to do that once already when the old motherboard + PSU died), so I'd rather not do that again.
The hairdryer tip is a good one, I might try that actually. Wattage ratings came from this link (which I couldn't post in my 1st post because the forum wouldn't let me):
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&c=7&t=9354