Voodoo3 3000 Fanless?

They make noise, too.

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abilstein
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Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2003 7:19 am

Voodoo3 3000 Fanless?

Post by abilstein » Fri Dec 26, 2003 7:31 am

My dad has an old 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 that I would like to silence economically (i.e. not upgrade to a new card). Should I minimally use the Zalman ZM17-CU? Or can I use an even more basic heat sink for an old card like this? All he does is browse the web, email, and word processing for the most part.

MGP
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Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 4:32 pm

Post by MGP » Fri Dec 26, 2003 9:19 am

Welcome to the SPCR Forums, abilstein!

I have three or four passively-cooled 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 video cards sitting around from past Dell Dimension 4100 machines, so I should be able to answer your question. These particular video cards utilize relatively large aluminum heatsinks to cool their graphics cores (similar to the heatsinks of Slot 1 Pentium II/III coolers); therefore, I would say that using any model of Zalman's heatpipe video card coolers would be somewhat "overkill." If you don't want to search for a generic heatsink on the internet and don't mind the Zalman ZM17-CU's price and installation, go ahead with a Zalman cooling solution. Hope this helps, and good luck!

abilstein
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Post by abilstein » Fri Dec 26, 2003 9:57 am

Thanks for the welcome! I just discovered this site (and silencing in general) a few weeks ago. I've been reading the articles and forums, it's been very informitive.

Unless I'm confused, the ZM17-CU is not a heatpipe solution, it's just a large heat sink. I definitely wouldn't go with a heatpipe (too much cost/hassle) when I could just get him a stock passively cooled GF2 MX400 64MB card for around $35. Heck, now that I think about it, it's probably not even worth the $18 or so for a ZM17-CU when I can get the above mentioned card and increase his power for only another $20.

So I guess my question should really be can I go down to the local computer junk shop and pick up a generic large aluminum heat sink for a couple of bucks and just slap it on there? Sounds like you're saying that'd be okay...

Jan Kivar
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Post by Jan Kivar » Fri Dec 26, 2003 10:15 am

Isn't Voodoo 3 3000 passive? I have a V3 2k, and it has a small HS, like in some northbridges, with no fan. AFAIK V3 3k has a bigger, but still passive HS.

Cheers,

Jan

abilstein
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Post by abilstein » Fri Dec 26, 2003 11:33 am

Jan,

You are correct, my mistake. Turns out he has a Diamond Monster Fusion 3D 16MB. I had put my old Voodoo card in another machine and only looked to see that my dad's card had a fan. Soooo....

Can I replace the fan on the monster fusion with a cheapie heat sink?

MGP
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Dec 05, 2002 4:32 pm

Post by MGP » Fri Dec 26, 2003 2:41 pm

I'd surely say so considering that the Voodoo3 3000 is much more powerful in comparison to the Voodoo Monster Fusion card. In your case, I'd actually suggest using a Zalman northbridge chipset cooler...should run fine considering that some forum members have successfully run similar chipset heatsinks on Radeon 9000 cards (albeit with a 80mm Panaflo @ 5V, but, hey, you're dealing with a product based around an old Voodoo chip).

einolu
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Post by einolu » Fri Jan 02, 2004 10:05 am

Just get a better card, on ebay or something, even a TNT2 would be a great improvement!

~EO

MGP
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Post by MGP » Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:20 pm

Forget the TNT2...a few bucks more could get you a T&L capable card like a Radeon 9200 or GeForce FX 5200.

einolu
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Post by einolu » Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:30 pm


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