x1950xt Cooling help

deathbyburrito · Post by **deathbyburrito** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:29 am

I'm attempting to make my Sapphire x1950xt quieter. I tried installing a vf900 but the temperature would get too high (100*C). The max was around 85*C with stock. I re-seated the cooler many times with varying amounts of thermal grease with the same results.

I believe the issue is with the voltage regulators on the back portion of the card heating the card up. There is a heatsink installed on the regulators and the stock heatsink pulls air accross this heatsink. When using the vf900 there is very little airflow on this heatsink.

I'm guessing I'll have to somehow mount a fan blowing on this heatsink. Anyone have any clever ideas to cool the voltage regulators?

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:33 am

You might be able to get some airflow over them by setting up a case fan in front of your hard drive mounts. I have a 120mm Coolermaster at 5V sitting on a block of foam in front of my hard drives blowing directly toward my Zalman NB47J which has some difficulty cooling the nForce4 chipset adequately.

You can also improve the VF900's performance by swapping the fan with a more efficient 25mm thick case fan cut out of it's frame.

deathbyburrito · Post by **deathbyburrito** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:48 am

An intake fan would have to run at somewhat high RPMs in order to get enough airflow over the regulators. I'm guessing the fan will have to be mounted closer to the heatsink itself.

I thought about a fan swap, but I'm using the slot below the Zalman so it cannot stick out any farther.