Vibration a problem??

[fordracr]

I got a question for yall I made a homemade heatsink/fan combo for my sound blaster live. I know what your thinking... WHY??? well cause I got the PCI bus way up there and I use WINAMP ALL THE TIME so my soundcard was GETTING WAYYYYY HOT. It was so hot it hurt to touch the processor on it for more than a few seconds. Anyhoo my cooling IDEA was a huge success I lowered the temps by 25 degrees F. However I noticed the fan makes the soundcard vibrate. Thes are very small vibrations, however very rapid. You can't tell it's vibrating unless you touch the card and you can feel the little tremors. NOw what I want to know is.. will this vibration cause any damage at all?? I mean it seems to be working fine. I am just curious if these vibrations will cause any damage overtime. After noticing the vibrations I also noticed that everything kinda vibrates (PROCESSOR, VIDEOCARD, ETC.) due to the fact that they are strapped to a rotating mass. I would like to point out that my soundcard does vibrate a little more violently, but by no means out of control. SO please give me some info

[Allan Nielsen]

All things with fans on them / in them will vibrate to some extent... Its not easy to know just how much that soundcard of yours really is shaking.

I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but perhaps you should try another fan, or just reduce the volts on it?

[hooziewhatsit]

The only problem I can forsee is that it might jiggle the cards out of the slots. You might try seeing if you can mount the fan on some sort of a rubber spacer. That would allow the rubber to absorb most of the vibrations, and maybe make it a little quieter.

good luck

[cjtune]

If it's a small fan, then you'd better find a replacement for it soon. PCI cards are already very stiff and even when in the slots so if your fan is vibrating so strong as to nocibly shake the card, the fan's bearing is probably on its last leg. Is it an old fan?

[fordracr]

THE fan is new but it is because of the way I have it attached. It is attached with one screw into the heatsink. This is making it vibrate, so I all need to know is if the vibrating will cause any DAMAGE to the soundcard. It sounds as if there will be no damage done to the card by vibrating.

[YMAN]

After a while it will proboably break the little wires inside the card!
Ya know, "bend a paperclip a bunch of times...It breaks!"

Try putting 2 or 4 screws into the heatsink!

[JigPu]

I would guess that after a while it would do something to the card. I mean, if you shake anything long enough, it'll HAVE to do something. But my guess is that it would take it a while based on the vibration you've described.

JigPu

[cjtune]

Maybe you ought to screw it in more tightly or/and use two screws. You could also garden wire it real tight to the card just like how I attached a fan to my GF2MX. Most likely your fan is slack and it keeps banging the card so that's why you can feel the vibrations. Once it is in tight, the fan will have to shake the whole mass of the card and itself and it'll reduce the vibration. Well, something may break or something may not but why not play it safe?

[cool_hand_joe13]

:) One screw won't do a very good job, go and get some good epoxy and finish the job right.Your vibration problems will be over.
cool_hand

[FerrariF50]

sound cards get hot?? I never knew that

Originally posted by fordracr
I got a question for yall I made a homemade heatsink/fan combo for my sound blaster live. I know what your thinking... WHY??? well cause I got the PCI bus way up there and I use WINAMP ALL THE TIME so my soundcard was GETTING WAYYYYY HOT. It was so hot it hurt to touch the processor on it for more than a few seconds. Anyhoo my cooling IDEA was a huge success I lowered the temps by 25 degrees F. However I noticed the fan makes the soundcard vibrate. Thes are very small vibrations, however very rapid. You can't tell it's vibrating unless you touch the card and you can feel the little tremors. NOw what I want to know is.. will this vibration cause any damage at all?? I mean it seems to be working fine. I am just curious if these vibrations will cause any damage overtime. After noticing the vibrations I also noticed that everything kinda vibrates (PROCESSOR, VIDEOCARD, ETC.) due to the fact that they are strapped to a rotating mass. I would like to point out that my soundcard does vibrate a little more violently, but by no means out of control. SO please give me some info