More 9000 Cooling...

TheMuffinMan · Post by **TheMuffinMan** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 8:47 pm

I unplugged the fan on my 9000 Pro, but it gets hot after I play games for a while. I'm exploring other ways of cooling the thing off.

Does anyone know if a Zalman northbridge cooler (ZM-NB32J) will fit the mounting holes on the Radeon card? Are the push pins small enough?

Thanks.

TheMuffinMan · Post by **TheMuffinMan** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 3:01 pm

Thanks for the responses

Does anyone know what the safe temperatures are for a GPU (approximate, Radeon 9000 if it matters) ATI doesn't give the spec AFAIK.

SilentButDeadly · Post by **SilentButDeadly** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 6:59 pm

MuffinMan,
If you want to run fanless AND quiet, the 9000 Pro is pretty easy to cool down. Just get a big honkin' heatsink (as in a copper one or aluminum/copper) and match the old heatsink to it. Drill the holes to match and make sure that the base will fit flat on the core. From what I understand the 9700 has a weird setup and requires a odd ball base.

For my Geforce2 I put on a solid copper heatsink made for a PIII 1U server case thing. OK, the 6,250 RPM fan is annoying, but it cools down to very cold levels. Get one of those Alpha heatsinks that use the copper base with aluminum pins, freeze it into a block of ice and cut it to fit. That should work great considering that the 9000 (non-pro) does not come with a fan. Be careful and have a good time

If I can figure out how to slap on my Volcano7 copper/aluminum heatsink without destroying the board, I would!

SilentButDeadly · Post by **SilentButDeadly** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 7:02 pm

Almost forgot

,
When you have the holes drilled into the sink and everything lines up, bolt it to the board. Take the screws and put heatshrink on them so they don't short anything on the board (this may or may not matter but, I do it just to make sure) Use a plastic washer as a spacer under the nut and use thermal poop. Clean off the garbage that they have on the old heatsink off, the chip also. Not sure if the heatsink has epoxy on it...if it does, do the freezer trick.

TheMuffinMan · Post by **TheMuffinMan** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 10:13 am

With the stock fan turned off, and the stock heatsink still on, the temperature on the base of the heatsink is:
DegF: 107.9 idle / 123 max load
DegC: 42 idle / 50.5 max load

No artifacting or anything...but it seems rather high.
I'm definately thinking about getting a Zalman chipset cooler and trying that...but that's the only thing PC Toys doesn't sell at compusa

simmers · Post by **simmers** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:20 am

Why not try the Zalman heatpipe ZM-80? This will fit all cards with heatsink mounting holes and I'm sure there are loads of places in the USA to get it online.

quokked · Post by **quokked** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 6:09 am

the Zalman HP 80A cooler works just fine with my Radeon 9000 pro it's a gigabyte made one and I had no problems installing it onto my GPU and the temps are like 28°c with a lower sector case ambient of 25°c and a upper sector (ie above the video card) 25.3°c, couple of tips though, maybe use artic alumina for your paste and HOPE that u don't have your stock HSF glued to your GPU with something like thermal expoxy or that bubble gum paste, otherwise u'll need the freezer method to take it off