Noisy video card

[dynamorph]

Hi Folks,

I bought an Antec quiet case and a quiet power supply,
Athlon64 3200 and MSI K8N Neo MB. The system is really
quiet except for my video card - Asus GeForce4 Ti 4200-8x.
The fan on the video card is really loud. I can control
the CPU and case fan speeds, but I don't see any way to
control the fan on the video card. I guess it is not
a good idea to disconnect that fan. Any ideas? Thanks,

 

[John McGaw]

Hi Folks,

I bought an Antec quiet case and a quiet power supply,
Athlon64 3200 and MSI K8N Neo MB. The system is really
quiet except for my video card - Asus GeForce4 Ti 4200-8x.
The fan on the video card is really loud. I can control
the CPU and case fan speeds, but I don't see any way to
control the fan on the video card. I guess it is not
a good idea to disconnect that fan. Any ideas? Thanks,

I'll say up front that I don't know what ASUS does with their
Nvidia-based video cards but their ATI-based units come with a program
called SmartDoctor which allows control of fan speed based on several
different models: manual, smartcooling, and auto. The application also
allows overclocking, monitors temperatures, and has a couple of
game-type functions. It might be worth checking with them to see if they
have an equivalent for all of their cards. The little (40mm?) fan on my
9600XT card is a nasty whiner when it gets up to full speed at >6600RPM
but at 3900-4400RPM where the auto control normally keeps it it is not
really audible over the other system noises.

 

[John McGaw]

I'll say up front that I don't know what ASUS does with their

snip...

You might want to take a look at this download:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3007.html . It doesn't specifically
say that it is meant for ATI cards only as I surmised it might -- just
that it needs an ASUS video card. Certainly worth a try as my ASUS video
card quiets down very nicely when running in the auto mode.

 

[Jon Danniken]

Hi Folks,

I bought an Antec quiet case and a quiet power supply,
Athlon64 3200 and MSI K8N Neo MB. The system is really
quiet except for my video card - Asus GeForce4 Ti 4200-8x.
The fan on the video card is really loud. I can control
the CPU and case fan speeds, but I don't see any way to
control the fan on the video card. I guess it is not
a good idea to disconnect that fan. Any ideas? Thanks,

One solution might be to disconnect the existing fan and replace it with a
larger (and quieter) case fan. You will need a free PCI slot just beneath
the AGP slot, and you will likely want to use a mainboard header (or PSU
connection) for power. Heck, connect it to a variable supply if you want to
control the speed, but make sure you at least make sure the heat sink on
your card isn't getting too hot. The mounting isn't critical, creative
usage of nylon wire ties is perfectly acceptable, just make sure it's snug
and secure and blowing directly on the heat sink.

Jon.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Hi Folks,

I bought an Antec quiet case and a quiet power supply,
Athlon64 3200 and MSI K8N Neo MB. The system is really
quiet except for my video card - Asus GeForce4 Ti 4200-8x.
The fan on the video card is really loud. I can control
the CPU and case fan speeds, but I don't see any way to
control the fan on the video card. I guess it is not
a good idea to disconnect that fan. Any ideas? Thanks,

There are fanless GPU coolers like : the Thermaltake
Schooner Fanless VGA Cooler $37.99

Luck;
Ken

 

[John]

Hi Folks,

I bought an Antec quiet case and a quiet power supply,
Athlon64 3200 and MSI K8N Neo MB. The system is really
quiet except for my video card - Asus GeForce4 Ti 4200-8x.
The fan on the video card is really loud. I can control
the CPU and case fan speeds, but I don't see any way to
control the fan on the video card. I guess it is not
a good idea to disconnect that fan. Any ideas? Thanks,

The only alternatives are change the cooler or buy a new card..
A possible and cheap one would be if there were such a program to
lower the fan speed but I dont know if there is such a program or
ability on the card and if it would lower the noise enough or provide
enough cooling.

The problem with the case fan idea , and you can buy shrouds to fit
large fans on smaller heatsinks because they started doing this with
CPU coolers a while ago ---- the problem is you usually have really
limited space unless you give up one or many PCI slots .

The more practical ways usually cost a bit. There usually are low
noise heatsinks/fans you can replace the factory one with. The problem
there is many times you have to crack the old one off cause its
attached by thermal epoxy. Ive done this before. You put a hard card
like an old credit card type of thing to shield your card surface and
the you use a screw driver as a lever to pry , snap the heatsink off.

If you can find a huge heatsink that works without a fan that would be
ideal as it would be noiseless. Otherwise you would have to look for a
low noise fan combo.

Your most straight forward and easiest solution is buy a new card that
has passive cooling. This was asked somewhere else and if you live in
the US you can find lots of sub $60 low performance cards ATI 300 type
and 6200 cards with passive cooling. The problem is many use shared
memory - they say something like 128 megs hyper memory or something
and you read the description and they say they only have 64 megs on
board and use extra mem on your system. This seems like a scheme now
to lower costs.

Ive seen 6600 Nvidia based passively cooled cards at Newegg for 100
bucks. Someone posted a $66 passively cooled 6600 non gt selling at
WOOT.com for $70 but I dont know if they still are selling them at
that price.

 

[dynamorph]

Thanks for the pointer to the asus software. But after installing
the ASUS enhanced VGA driver and the SmartDoctor application which
controls the AGP card, I find that my card only has limited support
through the ASUS software, and I still can't control the fan speed
on the card. I'm going to try removing the fan on the card and using
a case fan in the adjacent empty pci slot. Thks,