I finally got fed up with my ATI AIW 7500 after the latest drivers would not work with my TV and put my GF4 Ti200 from my game pc into my HTPC. Now the little fan on the GF4 is ruining all the great work I did on my HTPC. I saw some posts about this and had some ideas and questions. I would prefer to not mod the GF4 at all since it has a lifetime warranty and I don't want to spend more money.
1) If I just disconnect the fan and use the HTPC for TV and DVD watching, am I really working the video card that much? Everytime someone wants to test a video card they run a game or something that uses the 3d capabilities. I wonder if the fan is even needed if you don't run stuff like games.
2) If I disconnect the power to the fan, is it really bad to leave the fan on? I'm thinking it would restrict air or in some way trap the heat on the sink. Like I said, I don't want to leave any evidence that I messed with the card so I don't void the warranty. If I take the fan off I'm sure it will be noticeable.
3) Has anyone used one of the small fan controllers to volt down the fan? I'm not sure if the connection would work but it would be cheap and easy to just dial the fan down a bit.
4) I should look this up but I also thought that maybe one of the slot fans would help. I'm not sure if they are very quiet though.
5) Is using your finger the only way to measure heat on the GF4 card? I noticed the 5700 Ultra has a heat indicator but I don't see that with the GF4 card so I figured this was a new thing.
6) My real cheap and trashy solution would be to hang an 80mm Panaflo L1A fan to blow on the card. I'm not sure how or where I'd fasten it but as long as the dead zone isn't above the chip and I get air blowing on it I think this would work.
Any comments would be appreciated.
GF4 Ti200 cooling ideas/questions
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
well i hope you can see what that picture is all about. I simply hung a panaflo under the heatsink of the GPU after taking the fan and cover off. Even when i overclock the card from 250/500 to 310/610 there arent any artifacts or distortions on screen. My 3dmark score goes up a lot too
.If you dont want to do this, then you can unplug the little 2 pin fan connector and plug it into some sort of fan controller. It worked for my abit siluro card and I was able to put on the lowest setting, which i think is 5V. However I should tell you that the noise level is still too loud and the heatsink gets hot still. With my hanging fan trick, I can put two fingers on the heatsink while gaming and feel that it is pretty cold. Hope this helps.
Comments? Ok...
I also have a GF4 ti4200. Its wee lil' fan got too loud real quick. So I unplugged it. Ran it with the stock "mini-orb" cooler for a few months with no problems. I could even run 30-60 minutes of 3DMark with no visual artifacts showing up. At the time I'd also play EverQuest (plenty of work for the graphics card) for hours and hours at a time, no problems. Now, that GPU and vid card did get really damn hot, but kept on working. Still going just fine now, though I did glue on a Zalman ZM-17 passive cooler on it. Still no dedicated cooling fan though.
If you can work a way to hang a 'Flo underneath or beside the card, that should cool it just fine.
I also have a GF4 ti4200. Its wee lil' fan got too loud real quick. So I unplugged it. Ran it with the stock "mini-orb" cooler for a few months with no problems. I could even run 30-60 minutes of 3DMark with no visual artifacts showing up. At the time I'd also play EverQuest (plenty of work for the graphics card) for hours and hours at a time, no problems. Now, that GPU and vid card did get really damn hot, but kept on working. Still going just fine now, though I did glue on a Zalman ZM-17 passive cooler on it. Still no dedicated cooling fan though.
If you can work a way to hang a 'Flo underneath or beside the card, that should cool it just fine.
Hi!
Did anyone experiment some sort of electrical damage (not thermal) after unplugging the whinny fan?
My GF4 died after 5 months of unplugged fan operation (although it was well cooled by a 80mm S2, powered directly from the PSU instead of via the card).
When it died, I saw no artefacts (like everyone describes when they cook it): it would just refuse to render any 3D stuff for 3-4 days, until my psu litterally exploded (band + 15cm spark).
Overall, I have the feeling that unplugging the stock fan disturbed the electrical balance (power? voltage?), badly strssing the psu.
Any thought on this?
Did anyone experiment some sort of electrical damage (not thermal) after unplugging the whinny fan?
My GF4 died after 5 months of unplugged fan operation (although it was well cooled by a 80mm S2, powered directly from the PSU instead of via the card).
When it died, I saw no artefacts (like everyone describes when they cook it): it would just refuse to render any 3D stuff for 3-4 days, until my psu litterally exploded (band + 15cm spark).
Overall, I have the feeling that unplugging the stock fan disturbed the electrical balance (power? voltage?), badly strssing the psu.
Any thought on this?