Can you trust the arctic silencers then?

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Mon May 30, 2005 4:48 am

Hi guys, great forum

Got an ATI 9800 Pro 128mb here, being cooled by a VM-101

But i bought that because i thought i'd be able to use the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, but you actually can't anyway, so if i had known that, i would have preferred to use an arctic silencer and get that hot air from my case...

Especially now the weather's getting hotter here... i really don't want to take any chances though, and so i've hot a huge (room) fan pointing at my computer!

I think the Silencer 1 Rev.4 is the latest and greatest one to get for the 9800 pro 128... Is that gonna kill my card? Or is only the rev 3 on an 9800 pro 128 troublesome?

I've read the horror stories about the cards being fried with arctic coolers

PS - Doesn't this big thing block the molex connector on the card?

Thaks guys

Edd

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Mon May 30, 2005 5:17 am

Sorry another question - do the coolers take up 1 or 2 pci slots?

Please tell me it's one! I need to be able to fit my gigabit ethernet card in the next slot (which is a pretty tiny card).

Thanks

feddup · Post by **feddup** » Mon May 30, 2005 6:22 am

I believe that all the arctic cooling solutions completely block the next slot. The ATI silencer 3 that I put on my 9800XT certainly blocks the next slot. As for can they be trusted? At Christmas I installed the cooler. I was inspired by the quality of the aftermarket cooler and disgusted by ATI's shoddy stock cooling on a $500 graphics card (looked like a three year old assembled it!). Unfortunately the ATI Silencer 3 seems to be developing a growing noise issue. I'm a Zalman fan and was thinking of trying their cooler. Of course it seems to have issues as well. Nothing is perfect and there will always be some issue. Perhaps arctic cooling has improved the product in the last six months. Arctic cooling's idea is excellent but a steadily growing growling noise makes an endorsement unethical.

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Mon May 30, 2005 8:57 am

hi

thanks for the reply - i was expecting it to take up one pci slot, but i've read rumours that they take up TWO pci slots? I can't quite confirm it from the pic's i've seen

the VM-101 works fine, but due to the fact that i have a funny shaped case (it's a *cough* mac that i've modded the crap out of), the psu is the only exhaust fan. the vm-101 dissipates the heat, but it has nowhere to go. i thought this would help.

i'd probably go for this: http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_i ... ts_id/1132

which is the arctic '1' but the 4th revision.

hmmm.... still not sure. i looked at the active zalman solution, but again, i'd like to remove the heat from the case...

thanks again.... still thinking...

Edd

feddup · Post by **feddup** » Mon May 30, 2005 11:00 am

To the best of my knowledge the artic cooling silencers are the only solutions that vacate the heat. There are "slot coolers" but of course they are going to use up a slot. With the VGA silencers the back opening next to your graphics card becomes a grill through which the hot air is exausted. An excellent concept! Get the heat out of the case. However you are not going to be using that slot for anything else. I have a couple of PCs and so haven't removed the noisy graphics card to see if there might be an easy fix. There is a chance I'm condemning the cooler wrongly. The ATI Silencer 3 appeared to be extremely well made but I couldn't see the bearings and other internal parts. They may also have made improvements in the last six months. I've seen the coolers for under $20 recently so it might be worth a try. Does the Zalman cool the video RAM as well as the GPU? I'm fond of Zalman in general and their graphics coolers are certainly beautiful but those factors are not the way to make a wise buying decision. I'm amazed by the level of detailed analysis I've found at SPCR and I wish to make it clear I'm no expert but am here to learn. In your situation it might be worth $20 or so to give it a try but there are no gaurantees.

Chris.Day · Post by **Chris.Day** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:27 pm

I'm not convinced that the Silencers do make a huge effect on case temps:
- You are disrupting the airflow to the PSU/CPU area. It may actually get hotter up there since front intake air is likely to go out via the Silencer.
- There's still heat radiated from the back of the card; in fact my whole 9800 Pro PCB would get warm and the area around the GPU hot.

My 9800 Pro recently started giving me the dreaded "power not connecting" warnings on startup (usually after it's been on for a while and then turned off for a couple of hours) so I replaced with a Connect3D X800XL (pretty much reference ATI design). The stock cooler is very quiet when running at 10-20% and it never goes above this unless I am playing a game (at which point I don't really care about noise levels). It's a very smooth fan, something that can't be said about the ATI Silencer.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:35 am

I'm not convinced that the Silencers do make a huge effect on case temps:

It has to be better than my gainward which blows (with considerable force)the hot air straight foreward at the front bezel and it blows a lot of air at full speed (hair dryer fashion) - so it just keeps recirculating the hot air making the card heat up more which makes the fan spin faster blowing more hot air.
at least the Silencers get the hot air out of the case .The card is a 6800 u and generates a fair bit of heat.
I have not bought an after market cooler for it yet - I am hoping that someone brings out a good quiet cooler that will cool the beast or that they fix the fan issues on the NV5 (noise + dislike for PWM)

HiFi · Post by **HiFi** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:01 pm

i got a radeon 9800 pro and i put the arctic silencer on it a year ago.. not only did it get much quieter from the original fan that was on the radeon.. but it also lowered case temps. you should definitely get it.. clean off the chip an use arctic silver when applying the silencer

matva · Post by **matva** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:12 pm

feddup wrote:I'm a Zalman fan...

You're??? Cool!

tempeteduson · Post by **tempeteduson** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:28 pm

I recently read a review of a Sapphire X700 Pro card on Maximum PC that seems to have an Artic Silencer preinstalled. The reviewer didn't like the fact that it took up a total of THREE slots!

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:10 am

three!?!? how come? only 1 surely? i'm just about to buy one but holding off til i have reassurance....

thanks

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 6:07 am

ah, i bought one anyway...

rei · Post by **rei** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:49 am

i sold my silencer to my friend last fall/winter and his card died shortly after. (rev3 classic 9700/9800 aiw silencer, unopened so he could install it himself)

not sure if it was due to human placement/error or the fault of the card dying, i've heard other people's cards die or the fan in the silencers get noisier and clicking.

before it died, it was blissful cooling for him though.
maybe the extra cooling encourages people to o/c?

or these are the exceptions?

fmriguy · Post by **fmriguy** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:46 am

Just wanted to put in my 2c...

I have two ATi Silencer Rev. 3's. One on an ATi-branded 9700 pro and another on a Sapphire 9600 pro.

I haven't noticed any increase in fan noise, although recently the 9600 pro card just died, and the system will no longer post with it installed. I had the card for about 8 months, then installed the silencer, and then about 2 months later it was history.

Was it the silencer or not, who knows, but until that point I was very happy with the Arctic solution.

The 9700 pro I have had for much longer than the 9600 and has had the silencer for about 6 months now with no problems. I've got my fingers crossed, but as far as I can see, i don't know how this cooler could "kill" a card, unless it somehow grounded to the case??

BTW, I love this forum!!! I've been coming for a while, but never posted...building my own case soon with silence in mind...man this really does become a disease

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:06 am

fmriguy wrote:BTW, I love this forum!!! I've been coming for a while, but never posted...building my own case soon with silence in mind...man this really does become a disease

You don't know the half of it yet !!! ...

welcome to SPCR !!! fmriguy

I have a Silencer on a 'GeForce 3 WahHoo Thingy' myself,... no probs in 18+ months.....

. Damn !!! Me an my mouth...

Pete

scruzbeachbum · Post by **scruzbeachbum** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:53 am

I had silencers on my two ATI branded 9600xt's. Less noise than the stock ATI fan and ran cooler. Then they both died (no post) after 2-4 months of installation. I tried a reinstall on one of them and after futzing with the seating of the card in the agp slot, it came back to life only to die again a few days later. Tried reseating again to no avail. A friend believes it to be a broken trace on the PWB....which leads to intermittant work/failure modes depending on mechanical seating/pressure on the card. <shrugs>

So, short conclusion is: when they work, they work well. I opted to go with the Gigabyte 6600GT through zipzoomfly for the 3 yr warranty and "hands off" by this user.

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:40 pm

i really don't understand. why so many dying cards?!?

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:44 pm

it seems the Rev 3 is the one everyone has when their card dies?

i just bought this: http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_i ... ts_id/1132

but don't know if i'm gonna install it or not

feddup · Post by **feddup** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:55 pm

I hadn't heard of revision 4. Any notable improvements? Links? Are there new revisions for the entire line? ATI silencer 3 for 9800XT? Sorry for all the questions.

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:18 pm

Installing the silencer can be a little dodgy, so I'd say don't try it unless your card is still under warranty, AND you keep the stock cooler in case you have to send the card back.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:43 am

heres my experience with the as cooler.

ive had nothing but problems from it. When i bought it i modified the fan to run off 7v, few weeks after, the fan started vibrating heavily so i took the fan apart and put some more grease in there. That went well for a while, then i noticed alot of graphical glitches in games (a sign of overheating) and another few weeks later, dead 9800 pro

.

*cries*

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:18 am

well, i'm holding it in my hands, and it's actually a Rev 2. Whether they made a rev 4 and sent me a rev2 by mistake, or if there isn't actually a rev 4 in existence, i dunno.

i have to admit the thing looks pretty darn cool, and HUGE. still not convinced this isn't gona take up 2 pci slots which is i can't do.

still not sure if i'm gonna install it yet...

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:21 am

just to clarify guys, it looks like this:

I thought there might be some confusion with teh arctic coolers and the ATI silencers, wierd naming etc

i dunno

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:27 am

there is no rev 4, rev 2 is the latest version: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=36

anyone able to confirm how many slots it takes up?

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:48 am

The Beatsmith wrote:I thought there might be some confusion with the arctic coolers and the ATI silencers, wierd naming etc

...

The Beatsmith · Post by **The Beatsmith** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:05 am

i've decided to send this back... and maybe get a mini slot fan @ 7v to run in the open slot

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:47 am

In my experience the v.3 cooler is a great product. In a low airflow case it does make an impact on the case temperature compared to the passive Zalman, which I previously used in the system. I would say somewhere around 3-5 degrees improvement.

I run it on a ATI9700, that is overclocked, on the low fan setting. It has been very stable for over a year. If I crank up the fan to Hi I can max out the core overclock in powerstrip and still have it running stable. Altough that has only been tested for one night because of the noise.

The Zalman was hot to touch on the very same card. I've moved the Zalman to my HTPC with an ATI9600. There it is barely luke warm.

fmriguy · Post by **fmriguy** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:14 pm

Mar. wrote:Installing the silencer can be a little dodgy, so I'd say don't try it unless your card is still under warranty, AND you keep the stock cooler in case you have to send the card back.

Hmm, the only thing is that you have to remove the shim (at least I did) to install the silencer and apply arctic silver or the supplied paste. I'm pretty sure this would void your warranty even if you replaced the stock fan...which could be tricky with the plastic push-pin design. That said, maybe i'll still try it on my dead 9600 pro

gksam · Post by **gksam** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:41 pm

I am on my 3rd ATI AIW9600XT. The first two had silencers (the AC VGA Silencer -- original one), and they died after 2-3 months.

I don't know what could cause this. I suspect maybe overclocking? Then again, I am wondering about the fan. Maybe it draws too much power (esp when its at 5V where I assume htere is some resistor to slow it down). That fan is much larger than the stock ATI fan, and does seem to consume more power. To play it safe, I think I'll power it off of my powersupply.

Hope others are having better luck!

scruzbeachbum wrote:I had silencers on my two ATI branded 9600xt's. Less noise than the stock ATI fan and ran cooler. Then they both died (no post) after 2-4 months of installation. I tried a reinstall on one of them and after futzing with the seating of the card in the agp slot, it came back to life only to die again a few days later. Tried reseating again to no avail. A friend believes it to be a broken trace on the PWB....which leads to intermittant work/failure modes depending on mechanical seating/pressure on the card. <shrugs>

So, short conclusion is: when they work, they work well. I opted to go with the Gigabyte 6600GT through zipzoomfly for the 3 yr warranty and "hands off" by this user.

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:35 pm

I would suspect that the only ones you're hearing from are the people who have had trouble with the silencers, and that the majority of people who use them think they're great, like me.

However, I did destroy my first 9800pro with one, but that was because I somehow crushed the core... oops

And just to clarify, you don't have to take off the shim....

Can you trust the arctic silencers then?

Can you trust the arctic silencers then?

next slot

Arctic cooling

Re: next slot

revision 4