Passive cooling the NorthBridge chip and ATI Radeon 8500 AIW
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 4:44 pm
I'm currently working on trying to quiet down my parent's system (and I'll be attacking mine as soon as I get home). Started off by removing the intake fan on the PSU, the side intake fan, and the secondary exhaust fan. This has left me with the exhaust fan for the PSU, the intake fan, and the CPU cooler fan, all of which are 80mm temperature controlled Enermax fans.
I've also mounted the Seagate Barracuda IV hard disk with grommets, to try for a little isolation.
Next on the hit list are the two small fans, for the Northbridge chip and the video card. I'm looking at replacing the miniature heatsink and fan on the NB chip with the Zalman NB heatsink. Considering that its about 5 times taller than the current one, I don't think that'll be a problem.
However, the video card is an ATI 8500 Radeon All-in-Wonder. And the current heatsink/fan combo on that is even smaller than what is on the NorthBridge chip!! I'm contemplating using the same Zalman NB cooler on the video card, passively. This computer doesn't see any gaming or other high intensity video work. The most that it MIGHT see in the future is some minor DVD encoding/viewing. Or if'n my mom decides to take the old VHS tapes to DVD.
Is that Zalman going to be enough of a heatsink for the video card? I'd like to run the long and flat copper plate Zalman passive cooler, but with the TV tuner part of the card, I don't have the width available for it.
Should I look at remounting the side intake fan down aways where it'll blow directly on the card? I'd rather not, as we're trying to minimize overall fan usage.
Zyzzyx
I've also mounted the Seagate Barracuda IV hard disk with grommets, to try for a little isolation.
Next on the hit list are the two small fans, for the Northbridge chip and the video card. I'm looking at replacing the miniature heatsink and fan on the NB chip with the Zalman NB heatsink. Considering that its about 5 times taller than the current one, I don't think that'll be a problem.
However, the video card is an ATI 8500 Radeon All-in-Wonder. And the current heatsink/fan combo on that is even smaller than what is on the NorthBridge chip!! I'm contemplating using the same Zalman NB cooler on the video card, passively. This computer doesn't see any gaming or other high intensity video work. The most that it MIGHT see in the future is some minor DVD encoding/viewing. Or if'n my mom decides to take the old VHS tapes to DVD.
Is that Zalman going to be enough of a heatsink for the video card? I'd like to run the long and flat copper plate Zalman passive cooler, but with the TV tuner part of the card, I don't have the width available for it.
Should I look at remounting the side intake fan down aways where it'll blow directly on the card? I'd rather not, as we're trying to minimize overall fan usage.
Zyzzyx