how to quiet sapphire radeon x1300

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:04 pm

hello,
i recently retired my matrox g450 and bought a sapphire radeon x1300 agp based on the idea it's 90nm so it's going to be lower power consumption and more feature rich from newegg. it does have dvi so when i upgrade to lcd.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102687

anyhow it has a small fan, connected to a 2-pin connector on the card, that is loud and annoyingly loud. i disconnected it, and have a 12cm fan @ 5v blowing on the card, but the card is still hot to touch.

is it possible to slow down the fan from its own 2-pin connector, via software? the driver and speedfan doesn't seem to access it. is it safe to use only the 12cm fan to cool even if it is hot to touch?

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:19 pm

You ordered it from NewEgg? Is there a reason you didn't opt for the passive version?

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:47 pm

actually b/c i have agp.

knowing passive is possible, what is the wattage this thing takes and how hot is too hot?

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:00 pm

Peak power draw is most likely below 30W since that's what the PRO version draws at load. The default Core Slowdown Threshold in my Forceware drivers is 127C so when the temperature of the VGA is around 120C it's too high, but personally I would start to feel a bit uneasy if the temp goes above 85-90C.

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:41 am

Seems like a card of that modest power consumption could be easily cooled passively with an Aerocool VM-101, if you have sufficient room above the card (needs ~45mm from the "back" side of the card).

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:14 am

Have you tried ATITool? I used it on an X1600Pro to lower the fan speed to 5% where it was extremely quiet. The card idled at about 60C. I set the fan to ramp up at 75C. It was essentially silent except when gaming and the fan ramped.

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:07 am

ATITool is the reason i posted, no i haven't tried it. i'll google for it.

one thing though, i removed the fan from its jumper and when i reattached it the fan isn't working anymore

30watts idle??!! the g450 was like 5 watts.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:26 am

dan wrote:one thing though, i removed the fan from its jumper and when i reattached it the fan isn't working anymore

That doesn't good. I hope everything turns out ok.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:24 am

dan wrote:30watts idle??!! the g450 was like 5 watts.

The 30W power consumption was during load not idle.