Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer 80mm Fan Mod (with pics)

jeffa2 · Post by **jeffa2** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:15 pm

I found the noise/cooling performance of the VGA silencer had room for improvement. On my Sapphire 9800 Pro, at the low speed fan setting I was measuring heat sink temps of 57C under full load. The high speed setting dropped the temps down to 45C, but I found the noise levels unacceptable. At high speed, the stock fan has an annoying buzz to it, probably due to the vibration of the plastic housing. At the low speed, I don't feel there is enough air moving out the back slot to significantly reduce case temperatures.

Time to mod...I removed the plastic cover/fan and drilled holes for mounting an 80mm Panaflo L1A. I trimmed the ends off some rubber fan isolators and pushed them into the heatsink fins to prevent direct contact between the heatsink and fan. I also put nylon washers under the screw heads. While 4 screws can be used, I found 2 held the fan just fine(actually I only had 2 screws of this length available

). A Zalman fan mate allows control of the fan speed. I have it set to 7 volts...the fan is pretty much inaudible. GPU Heatsink temp has decreased to 40C under full load, I didn't see any change in case temp, normally around 30C with 24C ambient temps.

I mounted the fan closest to the GPU because I found that end of the heatsink was significantly warmer. Not sure if it makes any difference. If you try this mod yourself, mount the fan slightly higher than I did in this picture (you can only go about 1mm higher), my fan barely touches the top of the adjoining PCI slot. You will lose an additional PCI slot with this mod (for 2 total). Since this is my gaming rig with only a sound card it was not a problem for me.

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:05 pm

Doesn't that sort of completely ruin the point of the VGA Silencer, eg, low profile paddlewheel exhaust?

Slapping a giant heatsink and a fan on a graphics card isn't exactly rocket science.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 6:28 am

Not to mention that 40-50°C isn't even very hot for a GPU.

jeffa2 · Post by **jeffa2** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 3:03 pm

Isn't the title of this forum "Cool and Quiet VGA" ?

I agree, there's nothing extraordinary about this. Any P3/P4 heatsink can be modded(with a bit more effort) and slapped on there. I'm showing this to those who may have already purchased this VGA cooler and are interested in modding it for lower noise and better cooling.

I wanted lower temps for better overclocking. I forgot to mention I'm running this setup at 450GPU/370Mem. This is a nice boost over stock 380/340 settings. This $200 card performs within 5% of cards over twice the price.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 6:34 pm

True, the VGA Silencer isn't the greatest solution if you are extreme about both silencing and overclocking, but man it offers one hell of a large aluminum heatsink for those who are willing to go this far.

I have to admit that I am truly impressed with your clock speeds. It makes me now want the pro even more, even though I don't "need" it. And with that L1A on it, I have no doubt that it is quiet.

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 9:28 pm

Sweet, i am totally going to do that because the fan in my vga silencer has a really loud clicking that drives me nuts.....i actually had to turn up the rest of my case fans to drown out the annoying clicking. thanks for the great idea!

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:12 am

How about mounting the fan to the end of the card (opposite to the connector end)?

That way it would cool the heatsink, the RAM chips, the caps AND exhaust some of the air out of the back of the case.

Not that it's necessarily any better way to do things. Just different