Some Arctic Cooling Silencers not so good?

Kevin Ar18 · Post by **Kevin Ar18** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:36 pm

I'm trying to figure out what kind of quiet cooling solution to use on a Geforce 6600GT. The Arctic Cooling Silencers look interesting. However, I heard that the ATI and NV silencers may not be as good as the older VGA slilencer (louder? bad fans?). Is this true? If so, are there any other alternatives?

P.S. are any of them compatible with the 6600GT? I'm still looking through the posts to see if this has been mentioned yet.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:56 pm

They don't have a high/low switch anymore, so you'll need a fanmate or something to turn it down.

Kevin Ar18 · Post by **Kevin Ar18** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:27 pm

anything else bad about them?
Will reducing the voltage basically make them just as good as the VGA one?

BTW, I don't suppose you know if any of them support a Geforce 6600GT?

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:33 pm

None are made for 6600GT's, though there's always the chance that some will fit where they're not supposed to by coincidence, especially if you're willing to saw it down to make it fit.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article197-page1.html

and use the search function

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 12:14 am

Have you bought the card yet? If not, Gigabyte do one with a proprietary passive cooler.

Kevin Ar18 · Post by **Kevin Ar18** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:20 pm

Spod wrote:Have you bought the card yet? If not, Gigabyte do one with a proprietary passive cooler.

Unfortunately, I need one with AGP; otherwise the Gigabyte card would be a good choice. I've also looked into the cose of choosing a PCI Express motherboard instead of an AGP motherboard, however the prices didn't look good. However, as I was writing something up for this post (which I didn't include), it encouraged me to take another look at the prices.

akelsall · Post by **akelsall** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:58 am

I have a ati silencer 4 on an x800xt.
It is stupid. Brand new, and the ball bearing noise is a constant clicking. It runs at 66% all the time according to atiTool. When I set the fan at 100% the clicking goes away, but then the fan is audible.
Is there anything I can do about this?

MonsterMac · Post by **MonsterMac** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:31 pm

you could try to mod it with a new fan... it would take alot of thinking and work, but hey it'd be worth it...

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:18 pm

akelsall wrote:I have a ati silencer 4 on an x800xt.
It is stupid. Brand new, and the ball bearing noise is a constant clicking. It runs at 66% all the time according to atiTool. When I set the fan at 100% the clicking goes away, but then the fan is audible.
Is there anything I can do about this?

Yes, the solution is to use something other than the on-board fan controller to power the fan. This has been discussed a dozen times on the forum, so a quick search for "ati silencer" or somesuch will quickly present you with more information on getting rid of the clicking. No fan-mods required.

Basically, the ATI Silencer fan doesn't like the PWM fan controller on the video card, which is activated whenever then fan is run at less than 100%, and that is what causes the clicking. You need to use some other method to slow the fan, such as a Zalman fan controller, an external-bay fan controller (with a good review from SPCR), a 12-to-5 volt wire swap, a resistor, a diode chain, or whatever creative method you can come up with.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:32 pm

Kevin Ar18 wrote:anything else bad about them?
Will reducing the voltage basically make them just as good as the VGA one?

No, they will not be as good, even if you use an external voltage regulator or re-wire the fan to accept 5 volts. See MikeC's comments in the thread discussing the 6800GT+NV5 Silencer article.

Kevin Ar18 wrote:
Spod wrote:Have you bought the card yet? If not, Gigabyte do one with a proprietary passive cooler.
Unfortunately, I need one with AGP; otherwise the Gigabyte card would be a good choice.

The passive Gigabyte card is a Geforce 6800, AGP. Have a look. The 6600GT AGP cards are 25% less expensive, and they usually perform the same (except in certain fillrate-intensive tasks, like Far Cry with anti-aliasing), but this way you'd get a guaranteed silent cooling solution out-of-the-box.

There have been conflicting reports on the Zalman's compatibility with the 6600GT AGP. This post quotes a Zalman representative saying the combination will work. However, in this thread people including myself come to the opposite conclusion (I use this quote from a different Zalman rep, which contradicts the previous rep's assertion that the ZM80D is compatible with the 6600GT-AGP). So I can't tell you definitely whether the Zalman cooler will work with the 6600GT-AGP, but I'm very doubtful. The Zalman cooler will not cool the AGP bridge chip on that card, nor is it likely to provide enough room for the existing heatsink that comes with it on the reference-design cards, like the XFX one.

Personally, I'm having a hard time choosing between the 6800 and 6600GT-AGP, or a used ATI 9800. I will not use any fanned VGA heatsink other than the old model VGA Silencer, but I am willing to use a Zalman ZM80 cooler or attach my own CPU heatsink with thermal adhesive, and rig up a slow-spinning Panaflo fan. I've used this solution for almost 2 years with my Geforce3, with great results.