Hi,

I recently bought a creative ultra low noise barebone system and a asus v8440 video card. The system is silent but the video card produces a lot of noise. The agp slot is close to the case so not much space for creativity . Zalman 50 would fit; zalman 80 definitly not ;-( Space avaliable is the card itself and a few more mm (let's say 5mm).

Anybody familiar with this hardware setup; any suggestions?

You can always remove the case cover and replace those nasty fans with big and beautiful heatsinks.

Alternatively, get a drill and make some holes to case cover and glue big heatsinks to it. If there is 5 mm space between GPU and case, then pile 7-8 4x4cm 0,7mm thick copper plates using arctic silver adhesive, from GPU to the heatsink glued outside the case cover.

No case or holes in the case neh, no option.

I have 5mm plus full agp slot space. The zalman 50 would fit plus another 5mm.

Then you'll have to compromise graphics card speed. Either make a heavy voltage and frequency modification to your current card and equip it with zalman 50, or get a gf3ti200 or gf4 mx with no fans.

I think your right... I have on-board vga though. But that don't boost my games and don't offer video-in and tv-out. I still have my old v6800 deluxe. Any suggestions?

Thnx Bluehat

what kind of case? If there's room above the PCI/AGP slots, a low noise 80-92mm fan on a Zalman 123 or 165 fan bracket will bathe boh sides of the VGA card with enough airflow to replace tiny fans, usually w/o any mod of the HS. This is the simplest, cheapest effective mode - if you have room.

take off the stock heatsink off it and put on a Zalman HP cooler,
or else u could go ghetto and find a low profile big heatsink and thermal expoxy it to the core of the chip, I found that with the Geforce DDRs they run HOT so u'll need a fan blowing onto the area like using a Zalman 123 Bracket or a PCI slot bracket bent to mount the fan

I bought
- Thermaltake smart case fan II (80x80x25mm)
http://shop.freezinghardware.nl/index-info.asp?ID=478
- Thermaltake vga Geforce 4 cooler
http://shop.freezinghardware.nl/index-info.asp?ID=453
- 12 to 9,5 volt converter
http://shop.freezinghardware.nl/index-info.asp?ID=229

I have replaced the system fan by the Thermaltake and have it connected to systemboard fan 3 connector.

I have replaced the asus cooler by the thermantake, plugged in the 12 to 9 volt converter and have connected it to systemboard fan 1 connector.

In the system bios I have enabled smart fan option. This option reduces both fan 1 and 3 speed if system temperature is below 78 degree celsius.

This results in a nearly silent system. I have checked both cpu's; temperature is at an acceptable level!