Disabling fans on graphics cards

DutchLlama · Post by **DutchLlama** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:04 pm 0

Funnily enough my Geforce 5200 card doesn't have a fan and works fine without it. My old Geforce 4Ti card which died on me had a fan.

Dungeon-Dave · Post by **Dungeon-Dave** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:40 pm 0

... that's advice from someone that also authored "Annual PC fuckup"...

/me runs!

Sorry, DL - couldn't resist that one!

Kronos · Post by **Kronos** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:01 pm 0

This is a trick question right?

oh ok.....

There's the all encompassing clear plastic coolers you can get to replace the stock cooling system/fans, they're pretty quiet, can't remember what they're called and my pc isn't convenient to read off my 6800 ultra to get the name, tried googling what I thought they were called but no luck. They do them for most high end cards anyway and any shop worth it's salt should have them.

Overclockers et al do them about 15-20 quid but seeing as even when overclocked by 20% they're whisper quiet and the card hasn't died in two years of BF2 abuse they're worth it

stay · Post by **stay** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:47 pm 0

A couple of months ago, I put together a new system for myself, and grabbed the cheapest (~Â£60) 7600GT I could find to go along with it.

Unfortunately cheap meant no support for fan speed control, and besides that it was annoyingly whizzy. It simply had to go.

Removed the fan and associated gubbins, and strapped a spare 80mm PSU fan to the card, along with a resistor or two in series with the fan to keep the speed down.

Reported GPU temperatures dropped by around 5 degrees and its virtually silent. You have to stick yer ear right next to it to hear anything.
Quiet, cool and cheap.

DutchLlama · Post by **DutchLlama** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:50 am 0

Dungeon-Dave wrote:... that's advice from someone that also authored "Annual PC fuckup"...

/me runs!

Sorry, DL - couldn't resist that one!

Well it didn't came with a fan so never thought of putting one on it. It just worked. Since late 2005 at least.

Rib · Post by **Rib** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:51 am 0

I wish i was popular enough to have a fan.

isomies · Post by **isomies** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:22 am 0

I have a nearly 6 year old PC with a Radeon 8500 AIW card. It used to be the main internet connection sharing machine and is still always left on as it runs some apps on it.

About two years ago the ATI card's fan started making a terrible racket. I unplugged the fan and the PC has been on constantly ever since.... still waiting for the card to fail.

Chuffmeister · Post by **Chuffmeister** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:35 am 0

I bought a few inline caps/pots so that I could control the rpm of the fans in my music PC. I just monitored the heat and feathered them all down to the minumum rpm to keep a reasonable temp in the box.

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:50 am 0

isomies wrote:About two years ago the ATI card's fan started making a terrible racket. I unplugged the fan and the PC has been on constantly ever since.... still waiting for the card to fail.

Run a 3D application and it probably will within about five seconds.

isomies · Post by **isomies** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:50 am 0

Dio wrote:
isomies wrote:About two years ago the ATI card's fan started making a terrible racket. I unplugged the fan and the PC has been on constantly ever since.... still waiting for the card to fail.
Run a 3D application and it probably will within about five seconds.

Still use it for video capture occasionally and the kids play lots of games on it.

Kronos · Post by **Kronos** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:40 am 0

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=125

Arctic cooler, link to the version specifically compatible with that ATI card, much quieter and performs better too