Just made it in about an hour! Using Gainward "Golden Sample" ti4200 128MB. (Pictures below:) Barely consumes 2 PCI slots. I won't be spending $47 on that Zalman fanless cooler, especially since it requires lower case temps.

EDIT: Almost silent using 80mm Panaflo L1A undervolted to 5V, plus Alpha PAL15 low-profile copper-clad heatsink. I lapped the rough GPU surface (headsink already lapped) and applied Artic Silver 3. I am using a rubber elastic band from CVS/Pharmacy to hold it in place, with a pencil on the top side (see top side pic). I cut a small chunk into the middle of the pencil, which prevents the rubber from touching the hot GPU's opposite side. The heatsink appears adequately pressed against the GPU.

TEMPS: My Asus P4B533 has no thermal sensor header. However, touching the top side of the videocard reveals that it's cooler than before with stock cooler!

STABILITY: Exactly same as before: core 320mhz (default 250), and mem 595mhz (default 444). Higher speeds result in artifacts.

PICTURES:







--Leo

Very nice cooling mod there LeoV, I did kinda the same mod with my Geforce DDR as well, but I managed to save another PCI slot by mounting the Fan on a bent PCI bracket with zip ties pointing directly at the Heatsink, and then bending it so that a little NIC card can sit on top of the fan

Nicely done Leo!

It's ghetto-tastic!


But seriously.....have you considered thermal-epoxying the HS to the GPU? That would be both more secure and improve the heat tranfer. And you could use Quokked's idea, or one of Zalman's fan brackets to mount the fan. Although the packing tape is pretty cool too!

I have Arctic epoxy (as previously used on GF4 in my article here on SPCR), and I didn't use it this time for 2 reasons:
1) It's irreversible--the headaches of selling this and building a new cooler with each upgrade!
2) Will it really improve the heat transfer? AFAIK, any Arctic Silver has superior heat transfer to Arctic Epoxy. The vertical pressure exerted by the elastic band is pretty decent, too.



I have 4 empty PCI slots out of 6 total. My cooling will only get slightly worse if I do this, so why bother?

Thanks for the feedback!
Leo

Nice job! This provides a valuable evidence about how much cooling is required for Ti4200/4400.

No offense, but I'm not sure if it's literally "totally silent", given that you are using a Panaflo that tends to emit motor-friction noise at 5v and that a fan directly mounted on heatsink could cause slight vibration of the heatsink. (I second Quokked's suggestion for mounting a fan on a bracket in this regard, although it's not good for cooling since you are using PAL153 and not Alpha UBC60 or any other fanless-type heatsink.) Probably it sounds totally silent because of your HD/PSU noise. Perhaps your Panaflo is a better one. Of course, if you don't hear anything, that's perfectly good for you.

A rubber elastic band may work for a short period of time, but, being elastic, it can gradually lose its tension in time, given the weight of HS & fan. Also slight vibration of HS caused by a fan can lead to slight displacement of HS. For the loss of tension, you can exchange a band for a new one from time to time, but that's pretty bothersome. Perhaps, however, it may last till you change your video card!

With regard to Zalman,



I think what matters more is sufficient air flow rather than lower case temp. I'm not sure how much air flow is required for Zalman to work, though.

The fan isn't quite directly "on" the heatsink, I rolled some tape into a loop and stuck it between the fan motor and heatsink. This way, the fan doesn't directly touch the heatsink, and some of noise vibration is absorbed. But you're right, I made an overstatement. At night, I can easily hear my workstation, and when it's off, I can even hear the server which uses a single fan around 5-7V. I am an optimist for a quieter future

The elastic is basically stretched to the limit of the actual string (with which it's interweaved), so I doubt it can get much looser. In fact, connecting the rubber behind the card was not even required--there was sufficient friction at the holes in the GF4 that the HSF assembly was held firmly in place there. Of course, I may be wrong, but it's certainly worth finding out!



I'm not sure about that, in my case--the vibrations may not be strong enough to overcome the adhesiveness of the AS3.



I was slow about that bracket idea... of course, the bracket can be bent to put the Panaflo in the same position as now! (Duh ) Having realised this, I must reconsider moving the fan onto a separate bracket.

Reducing the weight load on the elastic is a great idea. However, the packing tape plays a role in directing airflow with my current setup--everything from GPU to memory to misc circuitry ends up getting some airflow. The tape acts like a 80mm-->60mm adapter, in a way. I'll have to weigh the pros/cons of moving the fan.

BTW, Ausone: I have successfully constructed the hood from Ziploc Freezer, almost identical to yours (PAL8942 + AS3). Using a Panaflo @7V (which is *MUCH* quieter than a 12V Papst 8412NGL I just got...what a waste of money...) I've also modded the Seasonic APFC--I completely sealed the bottom grille (for better forced convection), cut out the entire front-side grille (opposite the fan), and cut out the fan grille and replaced it with a "real" wire-made fan grille. Instead of the Adda, I put in another 5V Panaflo:




So, 3 fans total, 7V, 5V, and 5V. Inevitably CPU temps are greater than w/Intel HSF... at 2550MHz I get arithmetic errors in BurnP6 as soon as the CPU reaches 65C. However, moving down to 2517 fixed that, and temps safely stabilized at 66C (and 58C after real-life benches like UT2003). Ultimately, I'll probably move down to 2500MHz while AS3 settles and makes it even cooler.

More details to follow, and your feedback is welcome. Here is my case view (just added:)

Great modding with your Sea Sonic APFC!
It is really nice that you cut out the rear or front grille because not only does it improve air flow but also eliminates the noise created by air hitting the grille. (I've bent each and every bar of the grille of my Enermax so that air flow is parallel to them.) What's the capacity of your Sea Sonic, BTW?


Did you have to actually 5-volt a Panaflo? Reading the review of Sea Sonic at this site, I thought any fan is 5-volted, until temperature gets really high, if you put it into Sea Sonic. Did you have to 5-volt your Panaflo because of high temp so that it will always run at 5-volt?

12v 8412NGL is definitely louder than 7-volted Panaflo or any other comparable fan at 7v. However, you can run 8412NGL at 9v by using a commercial fan controller like Fan Mate or a rheostat. It will then give you slightly more air flow and perceptibly less noise compared to Panaflo@7v.

Although I find the assertion reasonable that you should seal the bottom opening of PSU, my experience tells me that is not always the case. I got lower CPU/case temp with a PSU with a large bottom opening than with a PSU without bottom opening using the same exact fan for both. You might like to experiment with yours.

Good work with your Ziploc hood, too!

Looking at the picture of your case, let me suggest your removing one or two PCI slot covers below AGP slot to let air come in.

It's the 300Watt unit that Mike reviewed (in fact, it's one of Mike's PSU )



Yes, I connected esp. to 5V. In my experience, the Adda seemed to become noisier under stress. And variable-speed fans make me doubt my sanity, after all the quieting work! I prefer fixed noise, fit for worst-case scenarios.



My idea here is to give the Seasonic more efficient cooling, and then make it fend for itself w/ a 5V fan. From Mike/Seasonic engineer, the Seasonic likes to have air forced through the entire unit--I don't want to overburden it to help the rest of my system.



I removed all 3, the slots should be too small for EMI to get out. Update: idle CPU and mobo temps both dropped 1C Thanks for all the help so far!!

PS: I'll look for a rheostat at Radio Shack... the CPU fan is the noise/cooling bottleneck for me. I'll give the Germans another chance...

Really? I thought your HD is. Anyway, I also think you should give your Papst another chance.

I forgot to comment on one thing in your previous post.

That's pretty ingenuous. Sorry I didn't realize that by looking at your picture. Having read this, I now think your description was not so inaccurate as I thought. I guess your approach is definitely on the right track. So long as a fan is inaudible outside the case, that's all we need even if the fan is not silent by itself.

My HDD is a 40gb Barracuda IV, so it has reasonable spinning noise. The seeks are loud and clear, of course. Unfortunately, the Cuda runs hotter than my previous drive (2-platter IBM 75GXP)--the Cuda outputs 8W on idle compared to 5.6W for IBM, to my memory. So I cannot have it as quiet as my IBM was inside the SilentDrive. On the other hand, I'll try Mike's HDD suspension mod--fewer heat problems, and cheap noise dampening.

My HDD is a 40gb Barracuda IV, so it has reasonable spinning noise. The seeks are loud and clear, of course. Unfortunately, the Cuda runs hotter than my previous drive (2-platter IBM 75GXP)--the Cuda outputs 8W on idle compared to 5.6W for IBM, to my memory. So I cannot have it as quiet as my IBM was inside the SilentDrive. On the other hand, I'll try Mike's HDD suspension mod--fewer heat problems, and cheap noise dampening.

Ah yes, definetly decouple that hard drive! It will make a big difference if the HD is one of the louder noise sources. A low flow fan at 5V is plenty enough to cool it in my experience.

Nice GFX card mod, ill post up my mod i did to my Geforce 256 if i can find somewhere to host the pics... I went for a slightly bigger HS, a Golden orb, takes about 3 PCI slots i think

That's a nice mod. I would like to make my MSI GF4Ti quieter too but I can't find that Alpha heatsink you got there. Can anyone recommend a widely available heatsink for a GF4Ti?

shunx, Alpha unfortunately discontinued the PAL15 heatsink. Check out my thread, where knowledgeable folks suggested some alternatives.

Alpha now has PAL153 as the successor to PAL15.

mm I can't find PAL153 in Canada...

by the way, is epoxy absolutely irreversible?

I think I might get the new Zalman heatsink since the installation appears to involve only screws.

When I destroyed my first GeForce4, I tried to remove the PAL6035 that I glued on w/ Arctic Epoxy. I put it into the freezer, but the epoxy was still very hard to undo. What happened was, the GPU itself came off along with the heatsink! I was able to pry off the GPU with a knife (to salvage the heatsink & make a GPU keychain ) but the bottom line is, Arctic Epoxy is pretty much irreversible.

Alpha also has U60 and UBC60, which are of the same dimensions as PAL15/153 but have fins of different shape. In fact, I'd recommend U60/UBC60 over PAL15/153 for fanless or quasi-fanless operation because the former has flat fins placed in such a manner that air flows through them easily, compared to hexagonal fins of the latter that are placed rather densely.

As regards Arctic Epoxy, I've heard it could be reversible if it is mixed with Arctic Silver n in the ratio of 1:1, which makes epoxy to silver compound ratio 1:3. I haven't confirmed it, though.

I've also considered the UBC60 series of heatsinks for use on my gfx card, problem is, no one seems to sell them!

I haven't seen a single vendor that sells this heatsink. *sigh*
That's why I'm probably going for another alpha heatsink which I can actually buy quite easily, the S1540, or the S1560.