Help With 6600GT cooling

[Little Man]

Hi all. I am currently running an nVidia GeForce 6600GT in my system...My temps are way too high for it though, I am running idle mid 50's and under a load it is upto 100 degrees. Any informaiton on cooling would be greatly appreciated.

My current system is:

MoBo - Abit IS7-E2
CPU - Pentium 4 Northwood 3.0 (running @ 3.4)
Ram - 2 x 1gig GSkill Sticks
Power Supply - 430watt Dual Fan
Heatsink & Fan - TT Big Typhoon
GFX - nVidia GeForce 6600GT
Other Cooling - 3" Nexus Front Mount and Stock back Exhaust

Any help is greatly appreciated.

(While running AquaMark3 and also while playing F.E.A.R. with Riva running in the background I loged tepms upto 100 degrees. I am afriad to burn out this card.)

Also all my wires are wrapped and out of the way for open air flow as well as the side of my case is removed.

*The New Guy*

[Vipersfate]

The load temps seen extremely high! What version of the card do you have, AGP, PCI-E? Also, is anything blocking the fan on it? What are teh clock speeds of it? Also, :welcome:

[Little Man]

I have the AGP version, Nothing is blocking it, the whole case is open air...and the clock speed are stock 500/900

thanks for any advice you can give

[nd4spdbh2]

I have a Leadtek Winfast 6600gt AGP 500/900 and my load temps never got that high...with the stock cooler i got around 68*C which was hot for me.... try reseating ur heatsink, mabey lapping it. OR you can do what i did is put a P4 hs on the thing.... dropped temps fom 68*C stock to 45*C with an overclock of 588/1272

Try taking the pci slot covers out of the back of the comp and adding a fan so it blows across the bottom of the card out the back, it helps quite a bit.

heres my card.

http://teamlosi.andrevas.net/pics/comp/gfx%20card/P3110015.JPG

http://teamlosi.andrevas.net/pics/comp/gfx%20card/P3110024.JPG

[Little Man]

thats nuts, did you have to do any drilling for that? and how did you brace the heatsink without the brackets?

[nd4spdbh2]

it took me about 2 hrs to do it... i had to cut off a couple of fins and drill a couple of holes in the right place

heres the build up thread
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=448301

[Panzerknacker]

If u don't like the idea of modding stuff, u can just pick up a Zalman VF700 series cooler. I have the VF700 Cu, and I'm getting temps like 45° idle, and 57° full load. This is with the card running at 590/1180. U could also go for a Artic Cooling NV Silencer, those are better than the Zalman from what I've heard.

U can pick the VF700 Cu up for around 30 bucks, dunno about the Artic Silencers.

[nd4spdbh2]

ya but why would you want to pay 30 bucks for something that idles at 45 and loads at 57 when you could have a QUIET gpu cooler for a couple of hrs of work that loads at 45*C and idles at 30???

[Little Man]

Well ND I really dont want to mess with my card that much...it is awesome what you did but I just dont trust myself.

I am ordering the arctic silencer from newegg today, so when I get it I will post my situation.

As of rght now I just installed 2 exhaust fans and I am not running any higher than 98 while playing F.E.A.R.


System Specs

P.S. - 430w
Ram - 2 x 1gig GSkill
CPU - Pent.4 Northwood 3.0(running @ 3.4)
MoBo - Abit IS7-E2
Heatsink/Fan - TT Big Typhoon
Storage - 2 40gig WD Caviars (switching to SATA very soon)
Other Cooling - 120mm intake (front) 2 80mm exhaust (back) and one ghettorigged fan on the back bottom until I get out and buy another
GFX - Evga GeForce 6600GT

[brickout]

Sounds like poor contact...My Xfx with stock heatsink hit ~75C load. I replaced it with a Stasis hs and got temps of 42/55, but it cost $30 (used).

[paulxmn]

I installed the VF700-AlCu LED on my XFX 6600 GT which lowered temps and increased the OC. Note on installation: it is not requited to install the blue ram sinks, I checked with XFX, teh card stays cool and works just great. Zalman (http://www.zalman.co.kr/)

[eystan]

You should check out your spare parts for an older hsf.I found that a socket 370 hsf fit my pny 5500 w/o any drilling(I cheated & used a twisty tie to mount it,Go Ghetto!!)
No cost & it went on in a matter of minutes.You just have to be willing to give up a slot or two.

[FlailBoy]

If u don't like the idea of modding stuff, u can just pick up a Zalman VF700 series cooler. I have the VF700 Cu, and I'm getting temps like 45° idle, and 57° full load. This is with the card running at 590/1180. U could also go for a Artic Cooling NV Silencer, those are better than the Zalman from what I've heard.

U can pick the VF700 Cu up for around 30 bucks, dunno about the Artic Silencers.

My VF700 gets here in a coupla' days. It looked like it shipped w/ ramsinks. Did you use them?

[chevro1et]

My VF700 gets here in a coupla' days. It looked like it shipped w/ ramsinks. Did you use them?

If it comes with the ramsinks, might as well use them right? They don;'t ship the ramsinks for no reason....

[Panzerknacker]

Yes it comes with ramsinks, but I didnt use 'em. Reason is they don't fit together with the cooler because the ram is too close to the GPU. Maybe when u mod the sinks they will fit but there won't be much left of 'em for sure ^^

[FlailBoy]

Yes it comes with ramsinks, but I didnt use 'em. Reason is they don't fit together with the cooler because the ram is too close to the GPU. Maybe when u mod the sinks they will fit but there won't be much left of 'em for sure ^^

Thanks-I couldn't really tell from the pics-but it looked like the Zalman might have made that a that a close fit. What about doing the copper staple ramsink thing (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=376610&highlight=staples) and cutting one of the tines off the staples so the sinks look like an "L" ? You think the part that's flush with the RAM will fit under the cooler?

[Panzerknacker]

think it will fit but I wonder how much this will affect ur temps :p

[FlailBoy]

...but I wonder how much this will affect ur temps :p

Me too, actually. But I already have some Alumina and a Dremel so I think I'll just go for it.

Running at 556/995 right now. I'll see what I can do.

[FlailBoy]

I had some time over the weekend and I have had some success.

I didn't get copper staples. I took a look at the ramsinks and you were right Panzer-they were definitely not going to fit under HSF. So I took a Dremel to them and cut off three rows of fins and then bent the fourth row down a bit. What I ended up with were ramsinks that were sort of wedge-shaped. They came with their own thermal pads but they were pretty thick so I removed the pads and attached the sinks with Alumina.

Btw, there was a separate sink for what looked like a small processor. No problem fitting this sink so I just took it off, cleaned, and re-applied. Forgive me if I'm a bit of a noob on this (this is my first card cooling mod), but what is it?

I had it running at 600/1090, but I was getting artifacting so I settled in on 587/1010. Occasional flickering purple rectangles. Is this the GPU or RAM?

If the artifacting is the GPU then I'll try to bump up the RAM. I've seen some really nice clocks on this RAM. Temps on the GPU are great. < 50c on load.

Even if I don't get too much more out of this, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

[chipzdelux]

the pencil mod will help you oc some more. look in the volt mod section.

[FlailBoy]

the pencil mod will help you oc some more. look in the volt mod section.

Yeah I saw that and I'm gonna' hold off for a bit until I see where the wall is. Switched to 12v on the Zalman from silent mode. Had some time to play around with it for a bit yesterday and now running at 592/1080. :)

[Will Eatforfood]

It's your core. 6600gt runs very very hot. The gddr3 will reach 300+ clocks easily and max out near 1.2 on stock....err....well no cooling at all. The core will max out way before then. So squeeze another 100 mhz on that ram and you might get a hundred points on 3Dmark05...haahah..... All this wonderful ocing and I get like 2-3 extra frames on games. Makes me realize I should just go out and buy a 1900xt.

[FlailBoy]

...The gddr3 will reach 300+ clocks easily and max out near 1.2 on stock....err....well no cooling at all.

I have some concerns that I didn't do myself any favors by putting the modded ramsinks on the card. And since I used Alumina... We'll see. I've only been tweaking for a coupla' days.

[Adragontattoo]

sounds ALOT like your HS isnt seated correctly.

I just upgraded from a BFG 6600GT AGP and was hitting 60C if I didnt have the fans plugged in.

Reseat the HS after putting new TIM on it and your temps should go way down.

Now I have the opposite problem. I upgraded and changed cases and the new case lets the system overheat due to poor airflow. ahh Well time to Dremel till it cools down!

[FlailBoy]

sounds ALOT like your HS isnt seated correctly.

Actually, I'm sure it's ok. I'm getting <50c on load. Happy about that. I'm more concerned that because I had to mod the ramsinks they may be doing more harm than good (i.e. it isn't 'better than nothing').

[Will Eatforfood]

the mem on 6600gt gets really hot as well... If you put your hand and hold for like 4 seconds, it might create a small burn. But this doesn't really affect the oc of the card.... Besides...There is no harm in leaving the sinks on if u have them on properly. It might actually help the lifespan of your card. <50c load is really nice tho. With sometimes 600 core and 1200 mem on stock volts, 6600gt is amazing. Reminds of the ti-4200. Have u benchmarked to see if a higher clock on the memory or gpu creates a bigger difference?

Anyways, now GO GAME!!w00t.... I'm on level 9 incursion on FEAR btw. I took a break after I took a long vacation to sleep and chill and catch up on reading. no spoilers plz.

[FlailBoy]

...Have u benchmarked to see if a higher clock on the memory or gpu creates a bigger difference?.

A little. I only have 3D Mark 2001se (I know I know...). Stock was around 16,000. Now I'm at about 16,900. Have to get 03 or 05 and do a bit more tweaking.

All in all, for $160 plus $30 for the Zalman, this was one of my better investments. Great card.

[FeuerFrei]

I get the same temps on stock cooling (XFX 6600GT AGP) that you with ur P4 heatsink...

30C idle, 45-48C load