Solve VGA overheating with junk parts!

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Alright, before I get started, I want to apologize for the sensationalist title. It's not quite as miraculous as it sounds. ;)

So last year, I got a Sapphire Radeon x1600Pro AGP. It's been a great card, once I got through some driver issues. However, the stock cooler is... lacking. It's all aluminum and low-profile, with a dinky fan. It proved adequate in my old case, with the side panel off, but wasn't nearly as happy in my Ultra Aluminus, even with a large vent next to it. The wakeup call came while I was playing GTA San Andreas one day and suddenly encountered some pretty nasty artifacting after a few short minutes. This simply Would Not Do.

So I made this.

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/875/nascanewsidevd0.jpg

(Another picture (http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7237/nascanewwq9.jpg), and the assembly in my old case (http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/8274/nascadw7.jpg).)

It's a 92mm Delta medium-speed fan, with its original guard, from a Newton or Astec (I forget) 200w power supply. The card it's screwed to is half a Creative AudioPCI sound card, which I removed all the components from, then sliced in half with a jigsaw. There was already one well-placed hole in the card, so I simply made another, attached the fan and guard, and screwed it in under the card. This worked for a while. (Both the card and the power supply were salvaged from an old Gateway P2-400 system - I have several of them around.)

This summer, once the hot weather rolled in in June, I had to take the plastic shroud and dinky original fan off of the x1600. It seems fine now, though I'm thinking about removing the original heatsink, lapping it, and replacing the original white thermal goo with AS5. And while I'm at it, cleaning some of the dust out of my case. Whoo! It's worse than I thought!

Parts and Tools:

- Creative AudioPCI
- 92mm Delta 12v fan (dunno model or CFM offhand, probably high 40s)
- Stamped steel fan guard (it's what I had at the time and not terrible)
- Jigsaw from the early '80s or so
- C-clamp (of course)


Ahh, it's good to be a contributor instead of a lurker. :D

[simon275]

Yes it is good to be a contributer. And let this be a lesson to the rest of the lurkers.

Anyway I like what you have done. Yeah under the graphics card is a real dead zone. Neat idea about making the bracket out of an old card.

[Bucko]

I like this sort of mod using old parts. Nice work!

[slytherock]

Nice work, but a little thing can be done to make it better:
http://www.bmpt1.com/tutorialimages/IMG_4375b.JPG

[FuzzyPlushroom]

a little thing can be done to make it better:

Yeah, I know. Next time I shut it down to tinker with something I'm gonna blow the dust out of it. Got a can of air duster right here, actually.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys!

[SgtM]

I like it. +rep

[Spawn-Inc]

well i posted this else where but this is more approtiate(if you don't mind anyway...), i too solved my overheating problems (made the monitor flicker and freeze) on my downstairs computer. it had a pathetic excuse for a heat sink, i might as well have stuck a coin on it.

40mm (loud and semi busted) fan on the left and old but working 60mm fan on the right.
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7371/08010003vd7.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=08010003vd7.jpg)

close up of the crappy one.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/82/08010004xc5.th.jpg (http://img130.imageshack.us/my.php?image=08010004xc5.jpg)

its twice the size of the old one.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6933/08010006ep4.th.jpg (http://img130.imageshack.us/my.php?image=08010006ep4.jpg)


i'm not sure how much of a temp drop i got since i wasn't able to take the tempature with anything. before if i touched the top of the card, right above the core, it hurt my finger. now its a nice warm and i can keep my finger there for more than a second. i had a old heatsink that i used, i put the old heatsink on it then drilled holes in the same spots and lapped it with 320, 500, 1000, 2000 grit sand paper and AS5'd it.





+rep BTW pack rats rock!

[Ouch!]

Nice simple idea! I too have loads of old sound & network cards lurking about that could be used for a fan frame.

However, Aren't you worried about damage to your PCI slot? Couldn't you cause a nasty short across some of those terminals?

This is not supposed to be a criticism, just a question. I really do fancy this idea.

Ouch!

[FuzzyPlushroom]

That's the spirit, Spawn! My neighbor's old Radeon 9100 had a (formerly) passive heatsink from a P2-400 on it, with two 80mm fans held on with telephone cord. Most ghetto-ass thing I've ever seen - it was serious overkill but it worked well! That thing in a Tualeron system tackled CoD2 no problem.

Funny thing is, he had a gF2 MX400 (64 meg) with an almost identical heatsink and fan on it, and his fan died too... It eventually got replaced by a northbridge heatsink from a dead socket 478 motherboard, which had yet another 80mm fan tied onto it with wire from either a switch or a status LED out of an old case. Good times...

Ouch(!), I suppose it's theoretically possible, but all I did was cut down the old card. I took all the components off of it, of course. I probably should have sanded the "finger" contacts off of the bottom, but I didn't, and it's worked anyway. I sure can't complain!