Can I make the 9600 Pro use passive cooling?

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 11:05 pm

Remove the old heatsink/fan and put in a Zalman ZM80C-HP and you're done.

Or you could have just bought the Sapphire radeon 9600pro ultimate which has a smaller passive heatsink that is currently not sold separately, although there is a similar looking heatsink called the ZM50C-HP, though I have no idea if it works well with the 9600pro.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:14 am

The zm80c has many tiny little screws. Its kinda a pain to install, there are several places to use thermal paste. But its not too bad, but I would recommend reading all the instructions that come with it first. You just remove the stock heatsink, and screw/paste the new one on.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:40 am

huh? There should be 2 holes one at the top left of the gpu and one at the bottom right. At least I thought all radeons had holes like this. My 9800pro had little plastic pins that you could sqeeze from the back of the card and then just pull the tiny heatsink off. Maybe your board is made different? Any links to pictures of it?

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:27 pm

All 9600pro cards have the holes, actually almost all ATi mid-highend cards should have them no matter what manufacturer. Only some of the lowend cards that have passive heatsinks might not have them.

If you don't believe me check out these Connect3d card pictures for example: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/rad ... t3d-2.html

Click on the images for highres pictures and you can clearly see the two holes around the core (except that they might be filled with the pushpins and thus harder to see

).

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 2:35 pm

The zm80c has little swing arms that are adjustable. Thats one of the reasons that its kinda a pain to install, because the arms and screws are so tiny. Just take your time and read the instructions before you start. I ended up having to reinstall it twice before I got it right because I like to rush through things and just look at the pictures. Its not too bad but its more annoying to install than i think it could be.

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 1:41 am

Tell you what, if you're interested in the installation process why not watch the 3dgameman review of this thing?
It's not much of a review but since it's a VIDEO review, you can see how the heatsink is installed on a card.

http://www.3dgameman.com/videos_archive.html

Should be somewhere there. The page isn't working for me at the moment so can't give you a direct link.

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 10:44 pm

http://www.3dgameman.com/vr/sharkacorp/ ... eview.html

In the review the heatsink is probably not installed on a 9600pro card but that doesn't matter because the installation is done exactly the same on all cards (except that you need to choose a different mounting plate if you have nVidia cards).

miker · Post by **miker** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:36 am

Fanless is probably fine unless your PC case has no airflow, then it won't be OK.

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:05 pm

You won't be needing a fan if you decide to install the ZM80C-HP on a 9600pro.

Sapphire actually makes a large portion of the "build by ATi" cards so they should essentially be exactly the same with the exception of the passive heatsink.
9600-series definetly supports 32-bit color. Actually every new card, be it low- or highend should support 32-bit color.

Xstatic · Post by **Xstatic** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:00 pm

The 9600 pro runs great fanless. I put it in a "Ralf Clone" BQE case with WAY more air than my old rig. I have the Saphire that came with the small heat pipe pre-installed.

Pics here http://www.durovac.com/temp.html if yer interested.

modman · Post by **modman** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 5:11 pm

I just installed a ZM80C-HP on my ATI 9600 Pro. The entire process took about one hour and a half, including thirty minutes scrubbing the thermal wax off the GPU.

I used (the right tool the the job

) nail clippers to carefully pull the pins holding the heatsink, then gently pushed down on each corner of the heatsink to get it somewhat loose and pulled it off. A small flat-head screwdriver helped in unlocking the fan from the PCB socket.

The results? Newfound respect for Zalman products. I think the ZM80C-HP GPU heatsink is right up there next to the CNPS700AlCu CPU cooler as a "must do" upgrade for any serious silent computing aficionado.