Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev. 2

Gnerma · Post by **Gnerma** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:20 pm

idealcrash wrote:... it must be the effect some SPCR members describe of the vga silencer acting as a huge heatsink dumping heat inside the case...

That theory makes no sense. No matter what you use to cool a chip it will dissipate the same amount of heat. The VGA silencer may not vent all the heat out the back of the case but it will vent a lot of it. So there is no way that it could be putting more heat out into the case than stock solutions or Zalman heatpipes (with which none of the GPU heat gets vented).

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 2:45 pm

Gnerma,

My thought exactly, I find it strange to see many people complaining about the vga silencer acting as a radiator. Surely it must be better than a passive solution. IMHO, whoever claims it does that has never tried using a zalman heatpipe cooler without a fan. Now THAT is a radiator, better yet, a double radiator, one on each side of the card.

Fat Bunny · Post by **Fat Bunny** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:45 pm

Idealcrash,

The previous cooler was the stock ATI/Sapphire effort. To test the ACVS as radiator/dead zone theories I have tried running it for a couple of hours with the fan on high. My thinking was that if there is radiant heat affecting the South bridge increased fan speed would make the situation better and worse if a dead spot was the problem.

Previously my SYS temp was pretty stable around 32 C as I run Folding at Home 24/7 for SPCR

. After two hours with the ACVS on high the SYS temp has dropped 2 C and the CPU temp 3 C!

I realize that the situation is more complex than I had previously thought, the hottest part of the ACVS seems to be the "neck" that touches the GPU, This part is, I think, about an inch away from the South Bridge so it is possible there is a certain amount of radiant or convection heating is taking place. As my case has undervolted fans the airflow around the ACVS and the South Bridge may be subject to different airflow patterns based on the speed of the ACVS, further changing the picture.

So now I believe a mixture of convection heating and radiant heating of the South Bridge is occuring.

I'm trying to find out if I will see a drop in system temperatures with the vga silencer in the low mode or not.

The only response to that question I can make is it depends on how your motherboard measures the SYS temp and how the sensor(s) is positioned relative to the ACVS.

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 11:36 pm

Fat Bunny wrote:The only response to that question I can make is it depends on how your motherboard measures the SYS temp and how the sensor(s) is positioned relative to the ACVS.

Actually I meant overall system temperatures, cpu and psu included.

The cpu fan is right above the zalman sucking the hot air and blowing it down at the thermalright sp94.

And what makes you think your asus board is reading the temperatures from the northbridge and southbridge? AFAIK those chips don't have temperature sensors. The system temperature you're reading is most likely from a sensor built into the motherboard somewhere, they're not easy to spot you see.

Just a while ago I was looking at a sis648 asus mobo I have laying around and couldn't tell where the sensor was.

Fat Bunny · Post by **Fat Bunny** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 7:57 pm

Actually I meant overall system temperatures, cpu and psu included.

My ACVS produced nil change in CPU temp on the low setting but the other night's trial produced a 3 celcius drop on high. I guess that the amount of air pulled out of the case by the ACVS is too small to affect the CPU on the low fan setting, with my case and motherboard.
As for the PSU temps I doubt they have any effect on the temp of my Antec 550 boiler. It has been keeping my attic warm enough for Miss Jennifer Lop-Ears (a rabbit) to use it as an exercise space through a cold winter, not to mention drowning out the noise of all my other components.

All in all I doubt that the ACVS will produce much more of a drop in system temps than taking an 80 or 92mm L1A an fixed with an angle bracket on a Zalman Fan Bracket so that it blows from the forward end of a Zalman HP80 with the one or two top PCI covers removed. Zalman recommend taking the top cover off for a 5 degree drop I seem to recall.

And what makes you think your asus board is reading the temperatures from the northbridge and southbridge?

Just an "educated" guess. In the past I have used 40mm fans on top of both the North and South bridge sinks, both produced substantial 5-8 C drops in SYS temp. Based on that I am extrapolating that it's not too difficult to place a thermal diode in both chips and output a mean of the two values.

Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev. 2

Artic Cooling VGA Silencer and System Temps

Re: Artic Cooling VGA Silencer and System Temps