Success with fanless Radeon 9100/8500?

singularity01 · Post by **singularity01** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 10:00 am

After two months, I'd finally had enough of the racket my Sapphire 9100 was making in my mostly-quiet PC, and I unplugged the hs/fan last night. I checked this site and noticed a few references to some doing the same to theirs, and I'm wondering what your long-term stories are. I have a Zalman CPU cooler with one of those big arms that stretch over the video card, and will soon bolt a quiet 92mm fan (Vantec is all I have reasonable access to) to blow air over the deactivated hs/f. Will this be enough?

--singularity01

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 11:36 am

Search the forums for "8500" or something like that and you'll find the posts from us guys that have disconnected/removed the stock cooling fan on our ATI 8500's and cooled the card with a 5V L1A (or similar) suspended over the card. It works fine and I've certainly seen no deleterious effects from doing it.

singularity01 · Post by **singularity01** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 1:14 pm

Thanks. I had done the search before posting, and I was just checking to see if it had blown up in anyone's face yet. My fan is currently unplugged, and its frickin cold in my room, plus the card is cheap, so things are working out ok. I'll soon have an undervolted Vantec blowing on the card, so it will be reasonably quiet and cool.

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 2:59 pm

singularity01 wrote:Thanks. I had done the search before posting, and I was just checking to see if it had blown up in anyone's face yet.

No, not yet

I have a Sapphire 9100 too. What I did, is replace the normal heatsink with a Zalman ZM17. The setup is running without a fan at all. This is possible because I have good general airflow. I definately would not try it in a restricted case (I have an AMB3700).

I tested the card temperatures to make sure I would not run into problems. The temperature level did rise about 6-8C. But that means 48C max in my case.

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 6:44 pm

Singularity, until last night I had been running my 8500 without ANY fan to cool it for ages (6 months +).

It has been absolutely flawless, even in my low airflow sonata with Silenx PSU. I play lots of FPS games, and never skipped a beat. The heatsink never got over about 55C

Last night I installed a HIS 9800 Pro ICEQ edition.... review soon to come... but this card is a good card, and the fan speed switch makes it reasonably quiet... quiet enough that it doesn't dramatically add to my Fanaflo L1A + Silenx PSU + 120mm Sonata rear case fan.

I now have a fanless 8500 just sitting on the floor.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 8:22 am

I ran a 128MB 8500 retail with a Zalman ZM-17CU and no fan for a while, it ran solid and no artifacts in fps games. I now have it in a family member's system with a fan, but the fan was just for extra "insurance" since I want that system to be extra, extra safe and stable.

Hey starsky, take good care of that loyal 8500 of yours! Those cards are also worth something on ebay, and are really great for backup too when you need 'em...

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 3:43 pm

Al, I am toying with the idea of ripping a fan off a ti4200 that a mate of mine has spare, and seeing if I can run that fanless also.....

I will use the K-Type thermocouple and do some temp measures.

What I think I need to do is a series of "How can I run this card fanless" articles, involving underclocking etc, and them comparing 3dmark, gunmetal and other benchmarks....

Would people find this helpful ?

seishino · Post by **seishino** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:40 pm

I had been running an 8500 fanless for about a year with no ill effects. During the summer months when I was experiencing CPU heat problems, I added a 5v L1A that pointed generally over the card to help with case air flow, but that's it.

BTW, anyone near Boston want an old fanless 8500? I would like to give it away before it is useless. Spcr[at]chriscanfield[dot]net.

unregistered · Post by **unregistered** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 7:48 pm

I took the fan and heatsink off my AIW 8500 and replaced with a Zallman nothbrige heatsink NB??. Did it about 6 months ago, it is a bit warm to the touch and I did sacrifice a PCI slot, but it hasn't caused any problems. If that chip was on the other side of the card it would dissapate a lot better. Hmm... maybe I'll flip this box upside down.

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 3:57 pm

unregistered.... it still makes we wonder why engineers were so stupid as to design the ATX/PCI spec with chips facing down !