Too tight for a VGA Heatsink? Suggestions Please.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Sun May 02, 2004 3:31 pm

Alright, I've recently won a nice new video card, a FireGL X1-128 (or so it appears) on Ebay, and I'd like to put it into my main rig. The problem is that I've heard that VGA fans are notoriously loud (though this will be my first experience with such an actively cooled video card, so I can report my thoughts on these noises first hand).

The kicker is that most VGA silencing products take advantage of space above the video card. This is room I don't think I have. Below are links to two pictures of my video card and CPU1 which should show you the lack of space I'm talking about.

http://www.twolf1300.net/sthayashi/SPCR/scan1.jpg
http://www.twolf1300.net/sthayashi/SPCR/scan4.jpg.

Now I'm open to suggestion on what I should do to quiet the video card and keep the system. I'm willing to change the heatsink for something else, but I don't have mounting holes around the socket, and my current temps with the SLK-800 w/ L1A are anywhere from 55C to 63C depending on the apartment temperature.

About the only thing that I'm not willing to do at this point is watercooling, though I haven't entirely ruled that out yet. It just adds more issues and expenses that I'd rather not deal with if I can help it.

All thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sun May 02, 2004 3:41 pm

perhaps you can modify an arctic cooling vga silencer to fit your new card? it only takes up space below the agp slot (not above) and it's very quiet.

watercooling would be the optimal solution though...

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Sun May 02, 2004 4:21 pm

My original plan was in fact to use an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer with it. Unfortunately, when I was casually reading the installation instructions on their website, I came across Step 9, and the picture shows a retention clip that goes above the video card, and I don't think I have enough room for even that.

One thought I had was to replace the SLK-800 with a Nexus AXP-3200, though I'm somewhat worried about any stepdown in cooling performance, since I'm running a little close to warm already.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon May 03, 2004 10:42 am

*bump*
Anyone else have any thoughts?

I might create a list of questions for the watercooling people to get an idea of what would be involved in going that way.

bcassell · Post by **bcassell** » Mon May 03, 2004 10:47 am

I don't have any personal exerience with the AC VGA silencer, but I would imagine that it wouldn't be that difficult to rig up a custom backplate for it. I looked at the instructions you linked to, and I can't really tell how the backplate is mounting (you screw it in from the back?). But I'd imagine you could probable just grab a piece of sheet metal, drill holes in the appropriate spots, and cover one side with some padding? That's probably what I would try to do.

Bryan

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Mon May 03, 2004 4:28 pm

actually, you could go even one step further and forego the backplate altogether; just use the screws. it wouldn't be exactly the same (the backplate provides pressure directly behind the gpu core) but i think it would still work fine...