Help quieting an X850XT

[QuietOC]

Yesterday I received my new Powercolor x850xt agp vivo as an upgrade to my Asus 9600XT vga. Before ordering the card I had read various reviews which mentioned the noisy cooler, but I could not imagine how noisy it was (well till now).
I have installed atitool in a try to bring the noise down at an acceptable level, but the sound level is irritated even running the fan at 5%

The problem is probably not the fan, but the way the video card controls the fan.

I swapped the stock cooler on my X800GTO which was fairly quiet with a retail P4 heatsink/fan. I was surprised to hear a grinding noise coming from the P4 fan even when using the 5% setting in ATITool. The Intel heatsink uses a nice Sanyo Denki fan and before this has always been very quiet especially when undervolted. I thought it must have just gone bad.

I built a cardboard fuct around the card and put a 92mm fan to blow air across both sides of the X800GTO and out of the back of the case. I had this fan run at ~1050rpm, but I could still hear the smaller fan grinding inside the duct.

I recently added a sound card which took up the area where the P4 fan was. Thinking I was getting rid of the noise, I removed the P4 fan from its heatsink, and reinstalled the duct and 92mm fan--hooking up this fan to the X800GTO. Unforunately, the grinding noise got louder!

The noise is evidently produced by the method the X800GTO/ATITool uses to control the GPU fan header, and it seems to be the worst at the 5% setting.

So, if you have a decent stock GPU cooler, the noise may not be the fault of its fan, and you may find your aftermarket cooler is not as quiet as it should be if plugged into your GPU fan header.

I am thinking a large capacitor in parallel with the fan might help reduce this noise by leveling out the current. Otherwise, try reducing the GPU fan voltage or just plugging the fan into something else.

[Copper]

The noise is evidently produced by the method the X800GTO/ATITool uses to control the GPU fan header, and it seems to be the worst at the 5% setting.

So, if you have a decent stock GPU cooler, the noise may not be the fault of its fan, and you may find your aftermarket cooler is not as quiet as it should be if plugged into your GPU fan header.

I am thinking a large capacitor in parallel with the fan might help reduce this noise by leveling out the current. Otherwise, try reducing the GPU fan voltage or just plugging the fan into something else.

What wires do you use to hook up the stock cooler? I tried black and red first to the 5v and then to the 12v line and the fan jumps a little but wont turn.

[QuietOC]

What wires do you use to hook up the stock cooler? I tried black and red first to the 5v and then to the 12v line and the fan jumps a little but wont turn.

Yes, the wire order of the GPU fan header is completely different than a standard fan header. I don't remember the right order right now, but you do have to move all the wires to switch them. One of the wires you were trying to connect may have been the rpm sense.

[mits]

Judging from the AC5's header polarity which is the same like the stock cooler i think that you have to reverse the order of the cables if you use a normal fan (ie ground in red and dc (5V or 12V) in black).

During the weekend i will connect the original hsf of X850XT on a rheostat (not a PWM) and i will check if it makes the same noise like when it was connected on the card and it was controlled by the the LM63.

[mits]

[QuietOC]
I tested the fan of the X850XT (in the open air and not inside a pc case) using a sunbeam rheobus fan controller and it is very noisy. Even at 5Volt the fan makes an annoying noise (not a whinning noise but something like gggrrr).
At 7Volt the stock fan sounds like a vacuum cleaner. So it's not a fault of the LM63 chip that controls the fan speed, but it's the cooler that sounds noisy. The AC5 at 7V is by far quieter than the stock X850XT's cooler even at the lowest voltage (where the fan starts spinning).

[gksam]

I use the arctic cooling rev 2 (or whatever the first generation type was) on my X850XT. It is currently at 43oC at idle, with the fan at lowest speed. I plugged my fan directly to a 12V drive cable (as opposed to using the header on the video card). When I am playing battlefield 2, the temps will go up to 79-80 and stay steady there.

However, usually in games I would turn the fan onto high (its not nearly as loud as the stock cooler even at 5%), and it maxes around 61oC.

I think for me, the stock cooler was 42oC at idle, and 78oC at load -- but that thing is LOUD.

I am currently not using any ramsinks. I am not sure if I should, but I see some other DDR3 video cards not using them. The chips don't seem to get that hot, and I'm not overclocking my card.

[shimq1]

Those with the Arctic Cooling ATi Silencers, at idle, is your GPU Temperature or GPU Ambient Temperature higher?

[mits]

[shimq1]
My GPU temperature is always higher than the GPU Ambient Temp. Actually with room temp at 22C i get the following readings with atittool
Ide, GPU 32C-33C , GPU Ambient 31C-33C
Load GPU 58C-62C, GPU Ambient 50C-53C (depending on the app)
My AC5 is connected to the psu and gets 7Volts through a cable converter.