Cooler for half height graphics card

adrichardson · Post by **adrichardson** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:37 am

Hi all - this is a bit of an odd one.

Due to space problems, I've had to rebuild one of our rigs in an HTPC case (Antec Minuet 350). It's been a good case, but I've had a number of problems even moving our exisiting mATX setup over. The rig gets used for light gaming, so I went for the best half height graphics card I could find.

Settled on an 8600GT DDR2

http://www.msi-korea.co.kr/?this_in=dow ... GT-MTD256E

It's not perfect (the ddr2 is a big bottleneck), but it'll do the job. Anyway, the biggest problem is temperatures. It's peaking at about 73-75c @ 540/800mhz. Has anyone got any suggestions for bringing the temps down? I've checked in Rivantuner, and the fan is allegedly running at 100%. I thought about changing the cooler, but couldn't find anything that looked like it would work with half height cards.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Cheers!

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:31 am

Hi,
I have a half size 8600GT as well. I fitted it with a Zalman VNF100 fanless cooler. My case has decent airflow but no fan blowing directly on the cooler or anything like that.

My idle temps are 50-55Â°C depending on room temperature (25Â°C approx an average) and the worse I ever got on a hot day was 68Â°C when gamming. Usually I get around 63-65Â°C. Temps are recorded by Speedfan.

The cooler seems to do a good job even though the card only has 2 screw holes for the cooler (usually 4) and I had to very slightly bend one of the cooler fins to get it to fit. I'll recommend it if you want to get a small fanless cooler.

adrichardson · Post by **adrichardson** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:02 am

Thanks, those temps are a lot better than I'm getting fromt the stock active cooler! Just checked the spes - they say it's 95mm high. I'm not sure whether it'll actually fit in my case. Any idea how high it is mounted on yours? I think it'll possibly srcape the top of my case...

Just found this:
http://www.coolermaster.com/products/pr ... e=1&id=148

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:17 pm

I'm not sur what you mean by high...

From the mobo to the side of the card farther away from the mobo, I measured 115mm (video card + sink)
The sink is 45mm thick in total (bottom and top parts of the heatsink)
The sink is 30mm longer than the card

I tried to be precise.... hope it's clear enough...

If you need any more details, don't hesitate to ask !

adrichardson · Post by **adrichardson** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:36 pm

Thanks.

From the top of the pcie slot to the top of the case, I've got about 80mm clearance. This means I cant use a cooler that's more than 80mm wide, which rules out pretty much everything.

I'm stuck with:

http://www.coolink-europe.com/main.php? ... =14&lng=en

or

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2825.html

Neither exactly fills me with confidence, needless to say

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:20 pm

tight fit !!
Let us know what you find and the results (cooling + noise)

Good luck

adrichardson · Post by **adrichardson** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:01 pm

Woo hoo!!!

Bought some ram sinks at lunchtime and stuck them on the chips on the back of the card. Figured I'd take the stock cooler off while I was on... I was greeted by a layer of thermal crust, which had obviously been applied with a trowel. It was totally dry and clearly doing nothing. I also noticed there was no thermal tape between the top ddr2 chips and the heatsink, just a 2mm gap.

Didn't have any thermal pads, but scraped off the crust and replaced it with MX2. Core now idles at 51c (was 56c) and peaks at 73c (was 77c). For now, I think I'll stick with the stock cooler - temps are well within my safe range, and I think I could probably safely squeeze another 20mhz out of the core without too much trouble.

Also installed the Noctua U6 (single most annoying thing I've ever had to install) and the Scythe Shuriken. CPU is now peaking at 72c (both cores 100% load) and idling at a perfectly respectable 44c (CPU is actually @ 1.375v - forgot to change the voltages when I took the overclock off

). Either way, it's better than the 54c it was idling at with the stock cooler!

Next step is to add a Silverstone FM82B, which should give me some pretty acceptable airflow, then I can start the serious overclocking.

Thanks for all the help and support!