Fan switched off but still attached = higher temps?

davidhooper · Post by **davidhooper** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 10:17 am

Hi everyone,
I've got an Inno3d Tornado Geforce 2 MX. I'm trying to get rid of the noisy fan on it. When I pull out the power cable on the fan but leave it attached, the temps rise to about 70C, according to the Soltek thermal probe. Will actually removing the fan make a big difference? It's just that the screws are really fiddly so I won't do it if it won't help much.

Thanks.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:15 pm

got a pic of the card, then we maybe able to tell
teh dead fan would act as a REALLY bad heatsink, but maybe better than nuffin

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:19 pm

But 70C on a GeForce2????????? Lord have mercy!

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:11 pm

Did you take readings with the fan running? 70C seems kind of extreme on a GF2MX.

davidhooper · Post by **davidhooper** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 12:28 am

pingu666, I'll take a photo and post it up as soon as I can. My dad's taken our digicam for the w/e though.

POLIST8, I tried disconnecting the fan again last night, and temps were 65C idle. I think they're this high, even on a GF2, because it's a fairly suped up GF2 - it's the 440 MX version.

lenny, temps are about 50C idle with the fan running, rising to about 55C on DVD playback. They're this high because I haven't got any case fans, just my L1A @ 5V CPU fan and the Seasonic PSU fan.

Only problem with this setup is that the Seasonic fan is spinning kinda fast cos of the high case temps.

I'm going to try CPUidle to see if that'll drop ambient case temps.

I'm fairly tempted by the new Inno3D GFX 5200, passively cooled. I might just take the fan off this GF2, ignore the temps, use it until it dies and then treat myself to a new GFX.

I'll keep you posted.

grandpa_boris · Post by **grandpa_boris** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 11:56 am

davidhooper wrote:I'm fairly tempted by the new Inno3D GFX 5200, passively cooled. I might just take the fan off this GF2, ignore the temps, use it until it dies and then treat myself to a new GFX.

before you buy, look at the recent benchmarks of nVIDIA and ATI cards. it seems that G4 ti4200 x8 performs better than FX5200. unless you really need DX9 on your system, it seems 4200 will provide you with better frame rates. there are several vendors who make fanless 4200 boards. you can also slap a zalman heatpipe on a 4200 board if you have enough airflow in the case, that is.

on the other hand, the average 4200 boards are more expensive than the average 5200. so that's a consideration as well.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 12:32 pm

grandpa_boris wrote:on the other hand, the average 4200 boards are more expensive than the average 5200. so that's a consideration as well.

And they also don't come passively cooled. You'd need to mod it yourself.

grandpa_boris · Post by **grandpa_boris** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 3:46 pm

lenny wrote:
grandpa_boris wrote:on the other hand, the average 4200 boards are more expensive than the average 5200. so that's a consideration as well.
And they also don't come passively cooled. You'd need to mod it yourself.

huh.

you are right. i was sure i had seen a couple of fanless 4200 boards that were built that way, but i was not able to find them right now doing a google search. perhaps i confused it with the sapphiretech's fanless ATI boards. there are some on-line shops that sell 4200 cards with the zalman heatpipe built on, but they are modding the card in-house (which most likely invalidates the warranty).

as for 5200 vs 4200 performance, it seems that if the system is aimed at running 3D games with FSAA and anisotropic filtering, 5200 may, in fact, be faster.

i have a 4200 equipped with a zalman heatpipe non-OC'd and it's reasonably stable (now that i have airflow over it

-- the first card i had there without the additional airflow "melted" and got replaced by the vendor, but i can't be sure it wasn't a manufacturing defect in the card itself)

Keel · Post by **Keel** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 5:20 pm

The Geforce Fx 5200 any version is piece of shiz...a Ti-4200 will beat it hands down using iq settings or not. The one unique thing the 5200 brings is full Directx 9.0 support which will never be used b/c 1) There are no games out which uses the whole Directx 9.0 feature set. 2) The perfomance of the 5200 is so bad that when these games come out you'll need to turn off these features.

Really the only things going for the 5200 is that it can be had for <$70...(careful though b/c there are underclocked crippled versions...even crappier!!!!) and it's passively cooled.

Davidhopper...70 deg C...geez. I think you have a freak card though. I've never heard of a Gf2 mx440.

blahblahbloo · Post by **blahblahbloo** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 5:33 pm

If a fanless GeForce FX 5200 can be had for under $70, then it sounds like a good card for a quiet system that doesn't need to be too fast and won't be used to run games at 1600x1200 and whatnot, even if a Ti4200 does beat it in performance tests.

Keel · Post by **Keel** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:40 pm

blahblahbloo wrote:If a fanless GeForce FX 5200 can be had for under $70, then it sounds like a good card for a quiet system that doesn't need to be too fast and won't be used to run games at 1600x1200 and whatnot, even if a Ti4200 does beat it in performance tests.

yaya you're right, it all depends on what you use it for

ruprag · Post by **ruprag** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 1:30 pm

well if you are NOT going to be running games at hig res then a GF 440MX will be just as nice as a 5200 and they are a lot cheaper.

davidhooper · Post by **davidhooper** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 10:50 am

Right, an update: I've installed CPUidle which has dropped case temps by about 10C, unplugged the GF2 fan and its temps are ~62C idle. I don't play games much so this looks fairly good. I'm happy running it like this and if it dies I'll get a new card.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

GF 440MX will be just as nice as a 5200 and they are a lot cheaper.

Thanks for the advice ruprag, but in the UK GF 440MXs are about £30 and 5200s are about £50, so there's not much of a difference. But hey.