What's the quietest radeon cooler that doesn't take 2 slots?

They make noise, too.

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Serengeti
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Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 1:00 pm

What's the quietest radeon cooler that doesn't take 2 slots?

Post by Serengeti » Wed Jan 28, 2004 1:05 pm

I have a 9800 Pro in my Shuttle XPC, and I want a quieter cooler than the stock solution.

Being such a small box, I can't use the VGA silencer or Zalman passive cooler to reduce the noise of the fan as there is no room on either side of the card for these soutions.

So, I figured I'd ask the experts... in your experience, what's the very quietest Radeon cooler that doesn't take up an additional slot?

SebRad
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Post by SebRad » Sat Jan 31, 2004 8:10 am

Hi Serengeti, a few ideas for you.
I have a Radeon 9600pro and the fan was getting on my nerves. (I've got an Artic Cooling VGA Silencer on order but that’s another story) As a short-term stopgap I pulled the fan power plug off the card (with everything turned off - obviously) and used thin wire to connect the fan to 5V from the PSU. I used the cores out of telephone cable as they are solid but thin enough to bend easily. The bare ends of the wire poke into the plug so I didn't need to cut/join anything. This makes it MUCH quieter and it still seams to cool OK even when gaming. I know the 9800 produces a lot more heat than the 9600 and you're using a SFF PC but the 9800 has a much bigger heatsink/fan than the 9600 and it wouldn't cost anything to try. I would try 7V first and keep a check on the cards temp.
You could make a custom heatsink, e.g. use a low profile CPU heatsink with a quiet 80mm fan blowing at it from where ever it will fit. You could even start with a large CPU heatsink and cut it down to exactly fit the available space.
I’ve seen a picture of a Shuttle box with a Zalman heat pipe cooler on the graphics card. A large hole had been cut in the side of the chassis and the heatsink stuck out through it!
Biostar make a SFF PC with the PCI slot out side the AGP slot so it will take double width cards.
Seb

AzN jonzOrz
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Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:04 pm

Post by AzN jonzOrz » Tue Feb 03, 2004 4:07 pm

i don't think there are any good quiet solutions that don't need more space. And i don't think if you're looking for quiet you should be using a shuttle.

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