Silencing a Geforce4 Ti4200

They make noise, too.

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Freelancer
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Silencing a Geforce4 Ti4200

Post by Freelancer » Sun Aug 17, 2003 7:00 pm

Hello

I need some tips on how to silent this card. Currently I'm cooling with with a stock Intel heatsink for a Tualatin (the bigger version of the heatsink) and a 80×80 fan at 5v.
Has anyone managed to run this thing fanless? It emits A LOT of heat. I've been thinking about the Zalman's heatpipe but after reading the review here, I'm not so optimistic!
The card itself is cool. The only problem is the core! Maybe this could be solved by a huge heatsink mounted on it. Has anyone tried mounting a thermalright SK-7 or SLK-800/900 on a GF4? LOL My current heatsink is almost as big as the card itself, I imagine what a thermalright's sink would look like :lol:
Underclocking this thing doesn't seem help. I guess the only solution would be undervolting, but I'm not very happy with volt-modding my card!
Please post your Ti4200 related cooling experiences here.

Regards,
Freelancer

MGP
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Post by MGP » Sun Aug 17, 2003 7:12 pm

Freelancer,

I would definitely not recommend placing a thermalright or any type of super-size AMD/P4 CPU cooler of the like on your GF4 card as the sheer weight of the heatsink will cause problems (damage the video card, problems during case transportation to things like LANs).

Like many SPCR members (and MikeC in his Cooling Sticky), I truely feel that the quietest alternative to the noisy video card fan like yours would be to install a Zalman heatpipe cooler (ZM80A-HP or higher) and run an undervolted fan (i.e. Panaflo L1A) beside it. I run a hotter running GF4 Ti4600 with a similar combo (ZM80A-HP, 5V NMB 92mm fan) and the card remains cool even during operations such as playing Splinter Cell. IMO, you should give it a try!

DryFire
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Post by DryFire » Sun Aug 17, 2003 7:52 pm

o you could slap a 1u cooler on it an place a fan over that.

Tigr
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Post by Tigr » Mon Aug 18, 2003 1:08 am

I had some experience with this card. If I remember correctly, it was Abit Siluro GF4 TI4200. It had a tiny heatsink with a tiny fan that was excruciatingly loud. I replaced it with Zalman ZM80A-HP passive heatsink. No fans are used to blow onto this heatsink. This card now has worked through the hottest part of the summer and the person never experienced any problems with the graphics card or overall stability of the computer. The heatsink gets very hot but, apparently, works.

Ulgen
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Post by Ulgen » Tue Aug 26, 2003 7:03 am

I have a Ti4200 with a zm80hp heatsink, and it worked great, all until a lightning struck 10m from our house, that is... So I'm on the lookout for a new gfx card...

jpsa
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Post by jpsa » Tue Sep 09, 2003 8:49 am

Freelancer What were the temps when you're using that p3 heatsink and 5v 80mm fan? is it enough to cool the card? Im thinking about using a similar setup

Freelancer
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Post by Freelancer » Tue Sep 09, 2003 10:10 am

Well I don't know about temps, I can only tell you that the card was running OK during the hottest days of the summer here (about 35°C ambient). After several days of uptime the heatsink was warm to the touch and there were no artifacts during gaming at all. The card was not overclocked though.
The heatsink I used came from a stock tually Celeron and it was slightly bigger than the one I had from another tually. Anyway it was real easy to mount it because it fit perfectly, all I needed to do was to drill two holes into it and use the stock mounting system.

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:44 pm

Tigr wrote:I had some experience with this card. If I remember correctly, it was Abit Siluro GF4 TI4200. It had a tiny heatsink with a tiny fan that was excruciatingly loud. I replaced it with Zalman ZM80A-HP passive heatsink. No fans are used to blow onto this heatsink. This card now has worked through the hottest part of the summer and the person never experienced any problems with the graphics card or overall stability of the computer. The heatsink gets very hot but, apparently, works.
I'm in the same situation.. right now my siluro is the loudest thing in my machine with this high pitched whine. Driving me nuts. Instead of spending almost $50 Cdn for the ZM80C-HP, could I not just mount a larger heatsink on it and have my case fan blow over it?

Freelancer
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Post by Freelancer » Wed Oct 08, 2003 7:35 am

exrcoupe wrote: I'm in the same situation.. right now my siluro is the loudest thing in my machine with this high pitched whine. Driving me nuts. Instead of spending almost $50 Cdn for the ZM80C-HP, could I not just mount a larger heatsink on it and have my case fan blow over it?
That's what I did. And I never changed it, even though at first I was attempting to. I use a P3 heatsink and a 80x80mm fan @ 5V. Works like a charm. And you can use the original mounting system too.
BTW. That little POS that is the original fan of siluro is so damn loud it's unbelievable :>

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Wed Oct 08, 2003 8:45 am

Freelancer wrote:
exrcoupe wrote: I'm in the same situation.. right now my siluro is the loudest thing in my machine with this high pitched whine. Driving me nuts. Instead of spending almost $50 Cdn for the ZM80C-HP, could I not just mount a larger heatsink on it and have my case fan blow over it?
That's what I did. And I never changed it, even though at first I was attempting to. I use a P3 heatsink and a 80x80mm fan @ 5V. Works like a charm. And you can use the original mounting system too.
BTW. That little POS that is the original fan of siluro is so damn loud it's unbelievable :>
P3 heatsink? How did you mount it? I have one here and it uses the typical clip. How does it clip onto the card?

Freelancer
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Post by Freelancer » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:04 am

exrcoupe wrote: P3 heatsink? How did you mount it? I have one here and it uses the typical clip. How does it clip onto the card?
Well I chose that heatsink because I've had two of the laying around, and they're pretty massive.
I've decided that I would use the existing mounting mechanism - the two clamps. The only problem was that there was not enough space for the clamps between the ribs. So I've had to saw two ribs off the heatsink - one for each clamp (a circumferential saw should do it - i'm not sure if this is the right term :)).
Then I simply drilled two holes into the heatsink for the clamps and voila.
Luckily the base of the heatsink I've used has just the right thinkness - the contact with the core is just right - tight, but not too tight. Overall
the heatsink fits perfectly :>

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:18 pm

You don't have pics of this do you? You lost me on your description of how to mount it.

WannaOC
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Post by WannaOC » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:25 pm

When I had a stock AMD cooler on my card it was really heavy and bowed the card some. What I did to fix it was make a small stand to prop up the card. I had rubber on both sides to help hold off vibrations and it would have worked fine with no fan at all for silence.

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:33 pm

I have my stock AMD heatsink sitting around as well, but how did you mount it to the videocard?

Freelancer
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Post by Freelancer » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:13 pm

Sorry, no pictures :(

I hope this quick sketch will help...
Image

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Thu Oct 09, 2003 8:04 am

Thanks for the pics. I'll have to try to figure that out because I don't have a saw to hack through the heatsink. :P

WannaOC
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Post by WannaOC » Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:18 am

I just used arctic alumina adhesive. It was permanent but it worked so well it was worth.

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Sun Oct 12, 2003 8:20 pm

Would this work as well? Using a Zalman Northbridge cooler heatsink? It comes with the clips that may fit the mounting holes for the stock heatsink and fan?

http://www.zalman.co.kr/images/0311/NB47J_b2.gif

http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/zm-nb47j.htm

Jaik
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Post by Jaik » Mon Oct 13, 2003 5:02 am

I did the whole Zalman NB HS trick, but with the old gold one rather than the new blue one. The mounting hardware was just a littl eoff for the holes on my card, so I ended up using the epoxy. It works fine, never had any lock-ups, crashes or artifacts. On the downside, it gets hot, as in "Oww oww oww, I can't touch it" hot. But it still works. Now, once I get my 120 mm stealth Panaflo blowing on it from the front of my mATX case, it might cool down a little bit...

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Tue Oct 28, 2003 8:19 am

Digging this up....

I finally quieted my Ti4200 by removing the stock fan and hanging an L1A undervolted to 5V over the stock heatsink. So much better now.

I'll try to take some pics of my setup.

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Tue Oct 28, 2003 6:39 pm

I just used arctic alumina adhesive.
I loves me some arctic alumina adhesive. I use that stuff all the time. Amazingly handy.

Great tip: I never thought of using an old P3 heatsink on a video card!

shadestalker
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Post by shadestalker » Sat Nov 01, 2003 7:07 am

Maybe I should have posted in this thread instead of starting a new one > http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=7998

Short version: I just scrapped the stock fan on a G4-VGA in favor of an 80mm hanging nearby to blow on the heatsink.

rootdown
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Post by rootdown » Mon Nov 10, 2003 8:20 am

I've just silenced my Ati Radeon 8500 LE using a celeron2 heatsink as the card's original fan was pretty noisy (whining and clicking).
I removed the original heatsink that was glued on the GPU using the card-in-the-freezer method. I then glued the celeron heatsink on the GPU using Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive. Side Note: Be careful when "shaving" the glue off the GPU with a razor blade. I applied just a little bit too much pressure and dented the GPU, result: some copper was showing. After that dent, I used some acetone to dissolve the remaining glue, slower but so much safer. Anyway, I've been pretty lucky as the card still fully works. Good thing the Alumina glue is not conductive.

The celeron heatsink came with my celeron 850 and was able to cool it even when overclocked to 1.1 GHz. My overclocked celeron is now cooled by an Alpha PEP66 and a Panaflo L1A, much quieter, barely audible :).
The celeron heatsink isn't too heavy and doesn't add much weight to the Radeon. The good thing with those socket 370 heatsinks is they have a recessed side which helps clear some of the electronics on the Radeon's PCB.

Running the modded Radeon fanless is possible. After looping through 3DMark2001 the heatsink is very hot but still touchable. But to be safe, i'm using the low profile 40 mm fan that came with the heatsink. It's not quiet at 12V, but i run it at 5V using a Fanmate and it's not audible (really). It pushes just enough air to keep the heatsink (and the GPU) cool.

I'm pretty happy with this mod as my Radeon is now silent and the heatsink "only" blocks 2 PCI slots. Also, the mod looks pretty neat as i don't need a overhanging fan (it helps keep the case tidy).

chrono
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Post by chrono » Wed Nov 19, 2003 8:49 am

I just silenced by Abit Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 using the Zalman ZM80C-HP with optional ZM-OP1 Fan.

It was alittle difficult to remove the original heatsync, but once that was off, the zalman mounting was fairly strait forward.

Right now I'm running the card at 301/601 using the fan at 5v. Almost no noise at all, giving very stable preformance. I might eventually put the fan on a controller, and see how far I can push the card without it getting too loud.

1398342003
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Post by 1398342003 » Wed Nov 19, 2003 10:51 am

I'll also have to praise the ZM80C-HP. My GF4 Ti4200 works fine OCed to 340/600.

It only uses case airflow, two 120mm 5v YSTech (one intake, one exaust) the intake blows in the general direction of the card, but the flow is not focused.

exrcoupe
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Post by exrcoupe » Sat Nov 29, 2003 8:50 pm

chrono wrote:I just silenced by Abit Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 using the Zalman ZM80C-HP with optional ZM-OP1 Fan.

It was alittle difficult to remove the original heatsync, but once that was off, the zalman mounting was fairly strait forward.

Right now I'm running the card at 301/601 using the fan at 5v. Almost no noise at all, giving very stable preformance. I might eventually put the fan on a controller, and see how far I can push the card without it getting too loud.
If you don't mind me asking, where and how much did you get the Zalman for?

I have my card running at 300/600 with the stock fan removed and left the original heat sink with a Panaflo L1A undervolted at 5v doing the same thing as yours. Super stable performance as well.

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