SPCR

First thing I should admit is I have no idea how to actually measure the GPU temps since I don't have a temperature probe and don't have any spare cash to get one. I've got a GeForce Ti4200 running in my MythTV front end and I was wondering if it really got hot enough to need the fan on it, and whether I could remove that obnoxious fan without having to buy a different heatsink for it. All I use this card for is to watch tv, dvd's and the like. There will never be any 3D gaming done with this machine.

One possible option I'm considering is removing the fan and pointing a panaflo 5v blowing from the end of the card out the PCI slot below the card.

Is this a horrible stupid idea?

I'm running the ti4200 w/ zalman passive cooling (the OP1 was too noisy) for some light gaming and regular 2D. It gets quite hot but I haven't experienced any artifacting thus far.

I had a heatsink from a pentium glued on mine for around a year and it worked well . I did have an 80mm fan blowin on her though.

Then one day, I dropped it in my driveway and accidentally kicked it into a puddle and that was that.

I have a Ti 4200 w/ 128MB of RAM. The fan on the GPU died a long, long time ago and I didn't notice until I added a Nexus 300W power supply and 120mm case fan to my Sonata. Thought I would hear the card, but upon closer inspection I realized my card "gained" silent capability.

Anyways, on my Asus P4P800 the card is completely stable in both 2D and 3D (including fairly recent games like Doom 3 and CS:S).

I took a Thermaltake 6Cu (copper core, Al fins--horrible purchase from my pre-SPCR days) and took the fan off and glued it to my ti4200. The fins are actually decently spaced for passive cooling. I also opened up the drive bays under the card to improve the cooling. I could tell that temperature went up a little, by my method of touching the back of the card where the gpu is. To help with this, I hooked up a fan blowing sideways through the heatsink towards the back of the case.

I did some benchmarking without the fan and I was able to get artifacts, but i think i had to overclock to get them. In the end I left the card underclocked, since I don't need the performance.